Freedom is what we have---Christ has set us free! Stand, then, as free people, and do not allow yourselves to become slaves again.

As for you, my friends, you were called to be free. But do not let this freedom become an excuse for letting your physical desires control you. Instead, let love make you serve one another.

Some, however, did receive him and believed in him; so he gave them the right to become God's children.

They did not become God's children by natural means, that is, by being born as the children of a human father; God himself was their Father.

If the Son sets you free, then you will be really free.

Since the children, as he calls them, are people of flesh and blood, Jesus himself became like them and shared their human nature. He did this so that through his death he might destroy the Devil, who has the power over death,

and in this way set free those who were slaves all their lives because of their fear of death.

See how much the Father has loved us! His love is so great that we are called God's children---and so, in fact, we are. This is why the world does not know us: it has not known God.

My dear friends, we are now God's children, but it is not yet clear what we shall become. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he really is.