All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient:
all things are lawful for me,
but I will not be brought under the power of any.
--1 Corinthians 6:12
Wendy had a fixation for shopping. She usually brought things without even remembering she had purchased the items. One day she saw this diamond tennis bracelet that she just had to have. The bracelet was priced at one-thousand dollars and Wendy’s rent was due in two weeks. She figured she could make the rent money back within the two weeks and still get the bracelet; what she didn’t consider was the empty savings account she now had.
Many of us are like Wendy, where we want things, want to do things, or even want to say things that really doesn’t show any apparent harm, at least not on its surface. For instance we may want to tell a person how we really feel, the words we choose may not be vulgar or obscene, but it still may hurt the other person nonetheless. We may want to go to that after-work office party, knowing we are a recovering addict, no crime in going on the surface, but what happens when the wine comes out, can we really handle it? We can play house with someone who we’re not married to, but if he or she doesn’t marry us in the end, who’s left hurting now? We can run to every event and attend every meeting, but when we’re sick in bed, was it really worth it? We may want to jump up off a hospital bed and get back to work, but if we’re still healing does it really make sense?
The word of God tells us that it really doesn’t make sense. Here in the Book of Corinthians, God’s word points out to us that things may be lawful to us, meaning there may be no written rule against it, or nothing even standing in our way of doing it; but God quickly points out that just because it’s not spelled out in black and white, it doesn’t make it a wise thing to do or even a prudent thing to do. God wants us to use wisdom in everything that we do: He doesn’t want our good name to be muddied; He doesn’t want us to waste money; and He doesn’t want us to misuse our time. God wants us to know that while He has given us this great big world filled with all sorts of things, He doesn’t ever want us to succumb to those things, but rather to Him, and when we are fully engulfed under His power, nothing and nobody can bring us down. God wants us to have power over things and not have things lording over us, as such a mentality is out of His divine order.
Today let us consider the cost of everything: our time, our image, our finances, our health, our education, our relationships and most importantly our salvation. When we really take the time to evaluate it all and put it in His hands, God will certainly lead us to what is expedient, by simply removing the unnecessary!
