How committed are you to remaining true to yourself?
In chapter 14 of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, he addresses a situation involving a mature Christian trying to impose his will upon another Christian. Specifically, Paul addresses a scenario in which the former tries to persuade the latter to violate his own conscience and partake of meat that he opposes eating. Paul reminds us that, “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23).
In other words, whenever you allow someone to persuade you to abandon or violate your personal conviction(s), you sin against your own conscience.
In the scenario Paul addressed, there was no right or wrong. We have liberty to eat or to not eat any particular food or meat. But what Paul addresses in Romans, chapter 14 has far-reaching implications. We can extend the biblical principle to any area of our life about which we have strong convictions.
Staying True to Yourself amid Bad Influences
Consider an adolescent female whose personal conviction is that sex before marriage is a sin. If she allows her friends to persuade her to engage in premarital sex, she has failed to be true to herself in this instance. Not only has she sinned against God but also she has sinned against her own conscience. Though if she asks God to, He will readily forgive her; sometimes, the harder job is for her to forgive herself.
Perhaps most of us have someone in our life who at times thinks he or she knows what’s best for us. Some of them will go as far as trying to impose their personal will upon us. A disappointing feeling is that of knowing you have allowed someone to persuade you to do something you conscientiously object to.
I have had a few of those instances in the past. Even if we are talking about something as harmless as eating something you conscientiously object to, as Paul addressed in Romans 14, you may still feel that sense of having let yourself down.
Peer pressure, family pressure, and the persuasive efforts of others aimed at enticing you to violate your personal convictions can seem relentless at times. But remember that the choice to give in or to stand strong always resides with you. Moreover, if you are a Christian, Christ lives in you so that in the heat of the persuasion of others to do otherwise, you have been empowered to remain true to yourself and your personal convictions.
Copyright © 2022 by Frank King. All rights reserved.