I love to focus on Jesus with all the energies of my soul--in prayer, in word, in thought, in deed, and in song--to know that by beholding Him I am truly free to be the man that God created me to be, and to be able to go forth to share with others the freedom that I have experienced in Christ and continue to experience as I abide in Him. We need to know more experientially of the goodness of God that leads us to repentance, of the compassionate tender love of the Savior who implants into our hearts hatred for sin when we see what it cost our Heavenly Father's heart to save us: the birth of Christ into a sinful world from Bethlehem's manger, His sinless yet tempted days in Nazareth and in the desert fasting 40 days at the beginning of His ministry, experiencing the sorrows of humanity to be despised and rejected of men, leading up to His agony in Gethsemane, and death upon Calvary. Even now Jesus ministers for us having conquered death, interceding in heaven as our great High Priest! Behold Him, the soon-coming King of Kings!!!
In the work of redemption there is no compulsion. No external force is employed. Under the influence of the Spirit of God, man is left free to choose whom he will serve. In the change that takes place when the soul surrenders to Christ, there is the highest sense of freedom. The expulsion of sin is the act of the soul itself. True, we have no power to free ourselves from Satan's control; but when we desire to be set free from sin, and in our great need cry out for a power out of and above ourselves, the powers of the soul are imbued with the divine energy of the Holy Spirit, and they obey the dictates of the will in fulfilling the will of God. {The Desire of Ages, page 466, paragraph 3}
The only condition upon which the freedom of man is possible is that of becoming one with Christ. "The truth shall make you free;" and Christ is the truth. Sin can triumph only by enfeebling the mind, and destroying the liberty of the soul. Subjection to God is restoration to one's self,--to the true glory and dignity of man. The divine law, to which we are brought into subjection, is "the law of liberty." James 2:12. {The Desire of Ages, page 466, paragraph 4}