It is time to touch on the topic of alcohol and secular music. Right?

Well, “Do you think drinking alcohol is a sin” is a question that comes to our inbox as often as “Is it a sin for me to listen to a secular music about nature, love and what not and can you answer me according to the Bible?”

With much respect and admiration to those who spent their time on these topics to point out why it is okay to listen or not to listen to secular music; or why we need to totally avoid alcohol or how drinking one bottle of beer or a glass of wine here and there for the purpose of recreation is okay, I personally would like to say that I don’t really want to spend any of my time in dealing with these topics, and I will tell you why.

I wholeheartedly believe in this: If I am truly in Christ, totally dependent in Him, abandoning my life little by little for the glory of Him who called me out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9), my life shouldn’t be dictated by “Do this and do not do that” kind of rules and regulations. Oh, no, it shouldn’t be! Christ comes to establish one and only one law – i.e. Love Your God and love others. Period!

I personally strive to love and know Christ Jesus with every waking hour He gives me. If “something” allows me to know Christ, to love Him more today than yesterday, I get close to that thing a lot. If it is a habit I want to develop, I keep on doing it until it becomes second nature to me.

The one thing these days I find to be phenomenal in accomplishing my heart’s desire to focus on Christ is to listen to the Gospel (ESV, NIV), or to just sit and read and get lost in spiritual books written in the 1800s. The authors’ genuineness, their zeal to know Christ, and their devotion to pass along the unadulterated Gospel to the next generation mesmerizes me.

The Word of God says: “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. . .  So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. ” (1 Corinthians 10:23, 31)

When you meditate on the above two verses, one message comes across loud and clear, i.e. following Christ is a very personal thing. Our devotion to Christ is something between us and Him.

That means, my walk with Christ is too personal, independent of others’ level of faith or practice and/or preferences. My walk is independent when it comes to how I relate to Christ; HOWEVER my walk with Christ is ALSO “interdependent” as to how I relate to the Body of Christ, the church, believers in Christ.

“My Christianity is my life; I follow Christ as I want to; it is not anybody’s business but mine. I worship God as I listen to Beyonce’s or Justin Bieber’s music” kind of mentality is not at all from a Christ-spirit-led life but from the carnal nature of a person.

You see, Christianity is a life of denying self little by little to the point of abandoning our wants and desires for the sake of letting Christ live in and through us, is it not?

“And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” (2 Corinthians 5:15)

Is this a call reserved only for ministers? No! It is a call to all who profess to follow Christ.

Christianity is not at all about me and what I like, what I want and desire and what gives me pleasure, but about Him being revealed in and through me as I grow in loving God and loving others.

If not, I need to go back to the Cross and repent of my way of doing Christianity and start all over again.

I went back to the Cross so many times catching myself doing life in the way I want to and each time I found myself at the Cross, Christ received me back with wide open arms. What an amazing, loving, compassionate, and forgiving God we have! ///

P. S. For question such as: “Give me a specific Bible verse for me to stop drinking alcohol and/or listening to a secular music” – my reply is: Tell me first how many things you so far have stopped doing because you clearly read the command in the Bible, a command such as “Flee from sexual immorality.” (1 Corinthians 6:18a)