Edify

We are to edify and lift up others. (1 Corinthians 10:32-33)

To edify is to instruct or improve someone morally or intellectually.

The past two years I have been wrestling with the fact that all things are lawful for me. Where do I draw the line of things I wont do? What is my reasoning for drawing that line?

I have friends who run hard and fast away from the Lord, and I think what if I do drugs with them? drink with them? The offer had been presented many times. Had been presented. Turns out, the people who persisted in pressuring me to to join them in drinking or drugs were trying to get me to fall, to sin.

 Three questions rise up for me:
Firstly I think, what kind of friends do I really have here?
Second I think why do they want me to fall?
And what If I had joined them?

Pertaining to the first question, these friends are lost. Their actions are just a bi-product of intense searching, self-fullfilling, and yes.. desiring of intimacy with Jesus. Those who know not the Love of Jesus may not consider the endless filling of holes in their life to be a search for Jesus, but indirectly, it will show them that nothing but Jesus can truly save and heal and bring the joys of the Christian Way.

Why would they want me to fall?? These friends are just longing for an even playing field. Their act of hatred was not directed towards me, rather to The Way in general. If I fall, they might not feel as bad "committing the crime", it would be some sort of justification.

What if I had joined them??
I may just have justified their actions. " If Casey the Christian can do it, surely I can."
Or I may have just accidentally proclaimed "The LORD Jesus does not mean as much as I say to me, therefore don't bother getting to know Him."
Possibly I just ripped any hope from them, they already do not believe or know Jesus, everything I do is supposed to point to Him. I am supposed to be the Messenger bringing love and JESUS with me wherever I go. If I do something that hinders this love, where is my true devotion? Even if its just a possibility, the chance is too high of a price.

So now,  where do we draw the lines and why?

If you are possibly stripping hope from someones life, do not live dangerously.

Do not do anything to cause anyone else to stumble. If you (who are of age) drink, yet someone else forbids that of them self for reason of it being sin against God, then don't drink. Who after all is your God? Not yourself and not the alcohol!

Consider others ways more righteous than your own, those who abstain from things, and do everything to edify them.

Your liberty (being able to do whatever you want, as a christian) is not affected by another persons conscience. But because of our command to live in love and esteem others higher than ourselves, we must not do things to serve them.

Love and NOT knowledge is the basis of christian conduct.

and Note from my Bible pertaining to 1 Corinthians 6:12

"All things are lawful for me was the theological slogan the Corinthians had adopted to justify their behavior, Paul affirmed his own doctrine of Christian liberty. But the Corinthians needed to understand that the "lawfulness" of any given behavior was qualified by its "helpfulness". Freedom to act as one pleases is not really freedom at all. It is the most insidious form of bondage."