For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
-- Galatians 5:1, 13-14 (ESV)
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Galatians:
Paul does not say merely that we have been set free, but that we were set free for the sake of freedom itself -- that we might not be enslaved again. And mark his severity: he does not say "do not return to slavery," but "do not submit again to a yoke," as though the danger were not external force but voluntary submission. The gravest threat to the free man is not the tyrant outside but the appetite within.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship:
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has.
Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter:
The first freedom of will was given to man when he was created upright, so that he was able not to sin, though also able to sin. But through sin he lost that freedom and became the slave of sin -- not by compulsion of nature but by the bondage of a corrupt will. True liberty, then, is not the power to do as one pleases, but the power to do what is right, and this liberty is given only by the grace of the Spirit who writes the law upon the heart.
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ:
Unless a man be disengaged from inordinate affections, he will not easily see the things that are within him. It is a small matter to begin well if a man does not persevere. Above all things, a man must not be too confident in himself, for many who began with great fervor have ended in lukewarmness. Watch against the beginnings of evil, for the enemy tempts by small degrees until he brings a man to greater sins.
You celebrate freedom tomorrow -- but are you actually free, or are you merely comfortable in a larger cage?
Epictetus, Discourses:
He who would be free must first be master of himself. No man is at liberty to act as he pleases who is the slave of his belly, his lust, or his anger. These tyrants dwell within, and their chains are heavier than iron -- for a man will break the fetters on his wrists before he will break the fetters on his will.
St. Clair, MI: -- Showers and thunderstorms likely this afternoon (70% chance). Highs in the lower 90s, heat index 99-104°F. West winds 5-15 mph, gusts to 25. Tonight: partly cloudy, lingering storm chance (50%). Lows in the upper 60s. Stay hydrated. Stay sharp.