Paul said, \u2018You say, \u201cI am allowed to do anything\u201d\u2014but not everything is good for you. And even though \u201cI am allowed to do anything,\u201d I must not become a slave to anything.\u2019<\/i> <\/p>\n
If you\u2019re serious about spiritual growth, look for opportunities to say no<\/i> to yourself in small areas. Then one day you will be able to say it when it really counts. Daniel started by saying no<\/i> to eating the king\u2019s food, and later was able to say no<\/i> to bowing to the king\u2019s idols. Zero in on the undisciplined areas of your life; the ones you keep excusing, rationalising, and delaying dealing with. Paul measured his actions by this yardstick: \u2018Is it beneficial? Does it have the potential to control me?\u2019 (see 1\u00a0Corinthians\u00a06:12). <\/p>\n
You have a \u2018right\u2019 to eat a tub of ice cream every night if you want. It\u2019s permissible\u2014but it\u2019s not \u2018beneficial\u2019, especially if you want unblocked arteries, a trim waistline, the ability to run a marathon, or to just keep up with your kids and grandkids. You have a \u2018right\u2019 to spend your money as you please, but don\u2019t complain when you end up strangled by debt. You have a \u2018right\u2019 to look at whatever you want on TV or the internet, but exposure to wrong influences will inevitably weaken your character, rob you of self-respect, and enslave you. <\/p>\n
Bottom line: your character is the sum total of the choices you make each day. And one more thought: when it comes to replacing bad habits with good ones, the only person who can make that happen is you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paul said, \u2018You say, \u201cI am allowed to do anything\u201d\u2014but not everything is good for you. And even though \u201cI am allowed to do anything,\u201d I must not become a slave to anything.\u2019 If you\u2019re serious about spiritual growth, look for opportunities to say no to yourself in small areas. Then one day you will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}