Ezekiel's Wheel: Liberty vs. License

Liberty is the ability to obey the law of God, with the power to live according to its demands; license is the unrestrained impulse to traffic against the law of God. 

I know nothing about being made “free from the law” until I cease from unintelligently doing what I am told to do because I am told, and do it because there is no need to be told; only then do I do it rightly. 

Freedom from the law means that there is no independence of God in my make-up. No one is free who does what he likes. “For Christ also pleased not Himself". 

The seal of immorality is that I do what I like; the seal of freedom is that I do what God likes. 

No natural man can keep the law of God, it is only when the Holy Spirit is in him that the ability is there, then he keeps the law of God easily. 

If you try and define Divine omnipotence and human free will in intellectual terms, you find language fails because they contradict each other. 

Every choice a believer makes is a free, unrestricted choice of a human will, and yet in the final analysis it will be found to be in accord with the foreknowledge of God. 

We say, “I’ll do what I like,” but the strange thing is we never do.  There is always an inescapable enemy, always an incalculable factor to be estimated. 

To say, “I let God have His way” is a snare, because when I say that I never do.  What happens is that in saying it I slip out of my moral responsibility. 

I am not asked whether or not I will exercise my will, I am obliged to, and when I am born again the regenerating power of God increases my moral responsibility.

- Adapted from Oswald Chambers' Notes on Ezekiel