(Be blessed by this DWOD for June 16, 2014 by guest contributor Barry Adams)

Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (2 Corinthians 3:17)

The kingdom of God is all about living a free life. When Jesus announced His public ministry (Luke 4:18), He read from the Isaiah 61 passage of Scripture which starts off by saying: “The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is on me; because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the humble. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to those who are bound…”

Simply put, Jesus came to set us free. In John 8: 36, Jesus clearly states this when He said: “If therefore the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” God loves freedom. Freedom of choice, freedom of expression, freedom to be who He created us to be.

It was our Father’s love of freedom that cost Him everything He had. In order for Adam and Eve to be truly free, they had to have the power to accept or reject the love that God offered them. There is no other way for love to operate. Love does not control, manipulate or oppress. To live in love means freedom to stay or freedom to leave.

Adam and Eve chose to go their own way which absolutely broke their Father’s heart and started a chain reaction in heaven that would cost the Godhead everything in order to redeem what was lost in the Garden. That is how important freedom is to God, for wherever He lives, there is complete freedom.

Anything that wars against freedom in our lives is something that we should take notice of. The spirit of religion moves in opposition to freedom. It sets rules and regulations, customs and traditions, applies pressure and guilt, all in order to keep people bound up… all in the name of God!

I am learning more and more how our Father hates captivity. He created everything to be free. Now just because we are free does not mean we abuse the trusted freedom that has been given to us as a gift. Galatians 5:13 tells us: “For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.”

If we truly live in love, there is no way that we will abuse our freedom. There will be many times in our life when we will lay down our rights in order to serve another. As a matter of fact, I believe the more that we are convinced that we are loved, the freer we will be to be the Lord’s bond servant. But it will be for love’s sake that we choose to lay down our life, not control, guilt or manipulation.

My prayer today is that each one of us would come into a deeper revelation of freedom than we have ever had before. My hope is that we would all be free from all of the ‘shoulds’ that would keep us in bondage in our life. May we all see that Jesus died on a cross so that we could live a free life. Free from sin, free from shame, free from condemnation…Free to be who He created us to be!

May the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation show us today the true heart of our heavenly Father so that we would know His love in its truest form. He doesn’t control us, manipulate us or abuse us. His love for us is so pure and so self-sacrificing, that we are free to come and free to go. Just as the loving father in the Prodigal Son story allowed his son to leave his house and take his inheritance with him, our Father entrusts us with the same choices.

May each one of us choose to live a free life and choose to live in love so that the love that God has for us might find its expression in servanthood beyond our wildest dreams, not because we have to, but simply because we choose to.

(Barry Adams is the humble vessel chosen by God to bless the world with the revelation known as the Father’s Love Letter. Along with his wife Annelise, Barry ministers the Father’s Love all over the world. Today’s DWOD is from a post he wrote for A Son’s Life Blog. Please check out his new website: http://www.aboutfathersbusiness.com)