Let my yoke be put upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble-minded, and your hearts will find rest, for the yoke I offer you is a kindly one, and the load I ask you to bear is light."

and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free."

Jesus answered, "I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

for, though they knew God, they have not honored him as God or given thanks to him, but they have indulged in futile speculations, until their stupid minds have become dark.

for when a man is dead he is free from the claims of sin.

But, thank God! though you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from your hearts to the standard of teaching that you received, and so you have been freed from sin, and made slaves of uprightness.

We know that the Law is spiritual, but I am physical, sold into slavery to sin. I do not understand what I am doing, for I do not do what I want to do; I do things that I hate. read more. But if I do what I do not want to do, I acknowledge that the Law is right. In reality, it is not I that do these things; it is sin, which has possession of me. For I know that nothing good resides in me, that is, in my physical self; I can will, but I cannot do what is right. I do not do the good things that I want to do; I do the wrong things that I do not want to do. But if I do the things that I do not want to do, it is not I that am acting, it is sin, which has possession of me. I find the law to be that I who want to do right am dogged by what is wrong. My inner nature agrees with the divine law, but all through my body I see another principle in conflict with the law of my reason, which makes me a prisoner to that law of sin that runs through my body.

Thank God! it is done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So mentally I am a slave to God's law, but physically to the law of sin.

For the life-giving law of the Spirit through Christ Jesus has freed you from the Law of sin and death.

It is not a consciousness of servitude that has been imparted to you, to fill you with fear again, but the consciousness of adoption as sons, which makes us cry, "Abba!" that is, Father.

It is not a consciousness of servitude that has been imparted to you, to fill you with fear again, but the consciousness of adoption as sons, which makes us cry, "Abba!" that is, Father. The Spirit itself testifies with our spirits that we are God's children,

Now the Lord here means the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

but now that you know God, or rather have come to be known by him, how can you turn back to the old, crude notions, so poor and weak, and wish to become slaves to them again?

and yet what must have tried you in my physical condition, you did not scorn and despise, but you welcomed me like an angel of God, like Christ Jesus himself.

This is an allegorical utterance. For the women are two agreements, one coming from Mount Sinai, bearing children that are to be slaves; that is, Hagar (and Hagar means Mount Sinai, in Arabia), and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for Jerusalem is in slavery with her children.

This is the freedom with which Christ has freed us. So stand firm in it, and do not get under a yoke of slavery again.

I mean this: Live by the Spirit, and then you will not indulge your physical cravings. For the physical cravings are against the Spirit, and the cravings of the Spirit are against the physical; the two are in opposition, so that you cannot do anything you please. read more. But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not subject to law.

But what the Spirit produces is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. There is no law against such things! read more. Those who belong to Jesus the Christ have crucified the physical nature with its propensities and cravings. If we live by the Spirit, let us be guided by the Spirit.

For it is by his mercy that you have been saved through faith. It is not by your own action, it is the gift of God.

They are estranged from the life of God because of the ignorance that exists among them and their obstinacy of heart,

and free from their slavery men who had always lived in fear of death.

For it is no tangible blazing fire that you have come up to, no blackness and darkness and storm, no trumpet blast and voice whose words made those who heard them beg to be told no more, read more. for they could not bear the order, "Even a wild animal, if it touches the mountain, must be stoned to death," and so awful was the sight that Moses said, "I am aghast and appalled!"

But whoever looks at the faultless law that makes men free and keeps looking, so that he does not just listen and forget, but obeys and acts upon it, will be blessed in what he does.

Live like free men, only do not make your freedom an excuse for doing wrong, but be slaves of God.

We have seen and can testify that the Father has sent the Son to be Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, God keeps in union with him and he with God. read more. So we know and believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever continues to love keeps in union with God, and God with him.

"The spirit of the Lord is upon me, For he has consecrated me to preach the good news to the poor, He has sent me to announce to the prisoners their release and to the blind the recovery of their sight, To set the down-trodden at liberty,

So if the Son sets you free you will be really free.

I am the door. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will pass in and out and find pasture.

If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, for we know that Christ, once raised from the dead, will never die again; death has no more hold on him. read more. For when he died, he became once for all dead to sin; the life he now lives is a life in relation to God. So you also must think of yourselves as dead to sin but alive to God, through union with Christ Jesus. So sin must not reign over your mortal bodies, and make you obey their cravings, and you must not offer the parts of your bodies to sin as the instruments of wrong, but offer yourselves to God as men brought back from death to life, and offer the parts of your bodies to him as instruments of uprightness. For sin must no longer control you, for you live not under law but under mercy. What follows, then? Are we to sin, because we live not under law but under mercy? Certainly not! Do you not know that when you submit to being someone's slaves, and obeying him, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey, whether your slavery is to sin, and leads to death, or is to obedience, and leads to uprightness? But, thank God! though you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from your hearts to the standard of teaching that you received, and so you have been freed from sin, and made slaves of uprightness. I use these familiar human terms because of the limitations of your nature. For just as you before gave up the parts of your bodies in slavery to vice and greater and greater license, you must now give them up in slavery to uprightness, which leads to consecration. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free as far as uprightness was concerned. What good did you get from doing the things you are now ashamed of? Why, they result in death! But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you get is consecration, and the final result is eternal life.

What a wretched man I am! Who can save me from this doomed body? Thank God! it is done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So mentally I am a slave to God's law, but physically to the law of sin.

For the life-giving law of the Spirit through Christ Jesus has freed you from the Law of sin and death. For though it was impossible for the Law to do it, hampered as it was by our physical limitations, God, by sending his own Son in our sinful physical form, as a sin-offering, put his condemnation upon sin through his physical nature, read more. so that the requirement of the Law might be fully met in our case, since we live not on the physical but on the spiritual plane.

This is the freedom with which Christ has freed us. So stand firm in it, and do not get under a yoke of slavery again.