Lawful but not Expedient

Sometime ago, while my best friend and I were having one of our endless conversations, we started talking about the things that were difficult to stay away from as Christians.

We talked about those things that seem like you can’t help but do, even though you know they are wrong. Also, those things that are not wrong generally speaking but personally hinder your walk with God.

At that time we were both struggling with such a situation, but neither of us could help the other, nor could we help ourselves. While we were going on about how hard those moments are, a thought came to me: although it can be hard to let go of some sinful parts of our lives that we had before salvation, it is usually even more difficult to let go of those things that are not sinful in themselves.

That was something we could both relate to. There were things in our lives that we knew were not being very helpful to our walk with God but we easily rationalised the reason why we did them. Even against the nudging of the Spirit!

There was a time when we were really into reading books. They were Christian novels, so it was easy to say they were safe to read. I remember how we would get so into a book and try to finish it at a go, even if it meant being in the same position for up to 10 hours. It was normal to stay up all night if the novel was interesting enough. We mostly read the same book at the same time so we would spend even more time talking about what we liked about the book and the things we didn’t.

What all these meant was that our night prayers were cut short on nights that we actually slept. Morning devotion was of little relevance on days when we stayed up to the next day. There was little interest in reading the Bible because it seemed boring compared to a novel.

What we failed to realise was the effect this was having on our spiritual life. The books in themselves were not wrong, but the result they had on our lives made them a sin to us. They had become primary in our lives while God had become secondary. The fact that we would justify our addiction to them made it even more difficult to give up.

While these books were helpful in teaching us more about life and showing us ways to live as a Christian, they were also taking our focus off the Creator, and fixing it on the creation. When we couldn’t take time out of our novel-reading infested lives to work on our relationship with God, it seemed to slip away without notice.

Eventually, we had to face up to the fact that, no matter how mundane whatever we do is, if we let it take over our lives, even if it is not inherently a sin, we make it a sin!

“I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” – Romans 14:14

“All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.” – 1 Corinthians 10:23

“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” – James 4:17