A Freeing Faith

The other day someone, quite indignant about that whole flier thing that I mentioned the other day, demanded, "So, what...you think everyone shoul just do whatever's right in their own eyes?"
Well, in a way...yes!
Romans chapter 14 sums up the Christian life by saying, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." The simple fact of the matter is, there is a plethora of gray areas in life. There are going to be things that I do that you wouldn't and vice versa--and that's okay. A lot of Christians don't like that; Christian liberty in its raw form scares them to death. But fearing something, being made uncomfortable by it, doesn't make it less real. Paul wrote later in the same chapter, "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." The fact of the matter is, Christian maturity is exactly the opposite of what many people have long thought. A mature believer is not one who lines up a series of rules that one must follow to please God, but one who recognizes the difference between a commandment and a preference.