Read Isaiah 61:1–3

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the LORD’s favor has come, and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies. To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the LORD has planted for his own glory. (Isaiah 61:1–3)

Americans did not invent the idea of freedom. Even though we have fought wars for it and built monuments to it, it is not original with us. It began with God, way back in the Garden of Eden when He made Adam and Eve. God made them—and He has made you and me—to enjoy the pleasures and the responsibilities of freedom. How?

• God made us with a mind...that we might think freely.
• God made us with a heart...that we might love freely.
• God made us with a will...that we might obey freely.

Let me analyze those three factors from a strictly human viewpoint. By making us in His image, God gave us capacities not given to other forms of life. Ideally, He made us to know Him, to love Him, and to obey Him.

He did not put rings in our noses that He might pull us around like oxen, nor did He create us with strings permanently attached to our hands and feet like human marionettes to control and manipulate our every move. What pleasure would He have in the love of a puppet or the obedience of a dumb animal?

No, He gave us freedom to make choices. By His grace we are equipped to understand His plan because we have a mind with which we can know Him. We are also free to love and adore Him because we have emotions. He takes pleasure in our affection and devotion. We can obey His instructions, but we are not pawns on a global chessboard.

It is in the voluntary spontaneity of our response that He finds divine pleasure. When His people freely respond in worship and praise, obedience and adoration, God is glorified to the maximum.

An edited adaption from Charles R. Swindoll, Laugh Again: Experience Outrageous Joy (Thomas Nelson, 1995), 194.