Those who live "by the flesh" experience God's law as a burden, and indeed as a denial or at least a restriction on their own freedom. On the other hand, those who are impelled by love and "walk by the Spirit", and who desire to serve others, find in God's Law the fundamental and necessary way in which to practice love as something freely chosen and freely lived out. Indeed, they feel an interior urge- a genuine "necessity" and no longer a form of coercion- not to stop at the minimum demands of the Law, but to live them in their "fullness." This is a still uncertain and fragile journey as we are on earth, but it is one made possible by grace, which enables us to possess the full freedom of the children of God and thus to live our moral life in a way worthy of our sublime vocation as "sons in the Son.
--Pope John Paul II,
Veritatis Splendor
