Born Free: 16 Principles to Help You Be Freeনমুনা

Principle 4: Circumstances Don’t Create, They Reveal

The fourth power principle is this: Time, circumstance, and opportunity do not create good or evil—they only reveal it. Peter understood this principle. He knew that the time of persecution he saw coming would reveal the authenticity of the faith of many young Christians: “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7).

Circumstances don’t create evil in our lives. Most Christians walk around like the three proverbial monkeys, trying to avoid seeing evil, hearing evil, or thinking evil, lest they will be tainted by it. But, according to Jesus, they’ve got it backward: "Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man” (Matthew 15:17-20).

What is on the inside, Jesus says, will eventually manifest itself on the outside. The evil things Christians try so hard to avoid may already be in their hearts, simply waiting for the right opportunity to come out. Meanwhile, the evil that is on the outside will never get inside—unless we have already made room for it.

Legalism is, by one definition, separating oneself from any known sin. A Christian can go off and enter a convent or a monastery and get away from sin. Or the Christian can live a full life, allowing God to teach through the circumstances, leading to growth and change in his or her life. That is what life is all about.

What you do has no bearing on your acceptance by God, but it does reveal who you are. The reason Jesus could deal with prostitutes and tax collectors and winos was that he was not a prostitute, tax collector, or wino. The reason you can live a full life without all the taboos that Christians generally put on living is that: If you succeed in being faithful, you will praise God for his grace; and if you fail, you will know how to pray so that next time you will succeed and praise him for his grace.