We all have areas of sin in which we struggle the most. In our previous blog, we talked about how we can build up wise boundaries in our sin struggles to help us in the fight to please God. Today, we will dig more into that subject, as we examine the principles of setting up wise boundaries in 1 Corinthians 6:12:
All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.
The concept of limiting things that are not automatically sinful but are things which may cause us to stumble is found elsewhere in the Bible. One famous passage is Matthew 5:29-30 which states, “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.”
This passage may sound intense – and it is. The idea of this passage is not to condone harming one’s body, but rather to convey how important it is to be radical in amputating things that we know often lead us to sin. It may not be sinful to drink a small glass of wine with a nice dinner, but for someone who struggles with consuming sinful amounts of alcohol to the point of drunkenness, perhaps it would be better to steer clear of alcohol altogether. If it is not a necessity to life, then cutting it out is worth it if it means you are more likely not to sin and rather will please the Lord.
Killing sin has to be taken seriously, because God takes it seriously! Sometimes we have to put restraints on ourselves in weak areas – either for the rest of our lives, or just for a time. Again, we need some serious wisdom from the Lord when evaluating how to kill sin in our lives. In Christ, we have much freedom and liberty to enjoy many good and pleasurable things. God offers us freedom, we so we do not want to place ourselves under bondage to unnecessary rules or restraints, but sometime when we continuously struggle and fall into sin in an area of our lives, we must evaluate if there is something we can live without for a time in order to conquer sin. So, let’s all be in prayer that God will open our eyes to see our sin and to know how to fight it to His glory!