I hope this first edition of Released To Love encourages you to grow in liberty. Please pray with me that the Lord will use this ezine to minister in some small way to each woman who subscribes.

REJOICING IN REALITY

This past week, my children and I read A Picture of Freedom: The Diary of Clotee, a Slave Girl by Patricia McKissack. While cautiously teaching herself to read, the slave girl Clotee tries to picture the words she is learning. She can’t get a picture of freedom though. Can you?

How do you picture freedom?

What keeps a Christian woman from liberty in Christ is often one of two things:

• Believing that liberty means license; or
• Not knowing how to manage freedom.

Yes, you do have a part—a response—in managing your freedom in Christ, which keeps you from walking in license. That response is obedience.

• Do you cooperate with the Spirit in your life?
• Do you throw off those images that hinder your walk?
• Do you repent from the sin that entangles you?

Your circumstances will seem less overwhelming as you learn to live free in the liberty of the Spirit. Even as a slave to her circumstances, Clotee learned that “freedom is about making choices and learning from them.” Each of us can practice liberty each day, each moment really.

I would encourage you to practice freedom daily through obedience as you choose wisely and learn from those choices. Cooperate with the Lord. What is He showing you particularly that hinders you from running the race of the Christian life with joy? Release it to Him—anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, unbelief, hyperspirituality—and let Him release you to love.

Read more about these topics:
Liberty in Christ
Family reading times

REACHING CHILDREN

I’ve found that growing through parenting has helped me to discern between liberty and license because my young children like to test the boundaries. Like many young Christians, they sometimes confuse liberty with license.

“I don’t feel like doing my schoolwork today,” one child may say.

I could give him license and let him do what he wants. But instead I want to lead him to accept the gift of liberty.

Children (or adults) who walk in license are ruled by their own flesh. Impulses, desires, and whims govern their actions. These people are powerless to serve anyone but themselves.

But children (or adults) who walk in liberty are ruled by the Spirit. Love, responsibility, and selflessness govern their actions. They desire to be under their Creator’s authority and serve Him. These people have the power to do what is right and with the right motives—to glorify God—because they tap into the power of God through abiding and are Godly.

Through this long process of leading my children to the cross where they will find liberty in Christ, Father-God teaches me how to exercise Godly authority. God parents me as I parent my children.

For a fun story about choosing to do what is right, you might enjoy watching The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything,a Veggietale, with your children.

Read more about these topics:
Exercising Godly Authority
Coming Alongside Your Children
Leading Your Child to the Cross

RESTORING MARRIAGE

Liberty in marriage. Some may wonder if that phrase is an oxymoron. I used to wonder that myself until the Lord took my husband and me through a series of marriage crises that freed us both from the images that bound our marriage. Praise Him!

Three or four times a week, my husband and I enjoy exercising together for about 45 minutes in the morning. I love this time with him because we share with each from our hearts. Recently we shared with each other our thoughts about liberty in marriage.

Liberty in marriage—as with any growing relationship— is about wise choices:

• choosing to listen instead of ignore
• choosing when to speak and when to be quiet
• choosing to allow the other to make mistakes (without saying “I told you so”)
• choosing to support instead of discourage
• choosing to be real instead of artificial
• choosing to forgive instead of withdraw
• choosing to share your heart instead of coddle your wounds
• choosing to hope instead of expect

As you stumble when walking in the light of the Lord, He will pick you up and help you to learn from your choices made in liberty. And as Clotee discovered through her trying (to say the least) circumstances of slavery, practically speaking, freedom is making choices and learning from them. Freedom in Christ begins with those choices to obey Him, which will release us from what binds… to His love.

Be assured that as a Christian woman, the Spirit’s anointing will teach you how to walk in liberty in your marriage as you abide (1 John 2:27).

Read more about these topics:
Simply Surrender and Walk in the Light
Invite the Lord’s Chastening Through Obedience
Find Your Identity in Christ

HEART TO HEART

As this ezine grows, I hope to share your testimonies of how the Lord is releasing you to His love and how the outpouring of His love is overflowing in your relationships with your husband and children.

Please contact me if you would like to share a thought, idea, or testimony that you think would encourage and uplift other subscribers to this ezine.

I would love to hear from you.

Abide in the Liberty of the Lordship of Christ!
Linda
~Acts 17:28a

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Thank you for your interest in this ezine. I pray the insights shared release you to love.