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Her Christian friends at youth group were all talking about a TV show they’d been watching. So Beth decided to check it out. After just two episodes she was shocked by the show’s explicit sex scenes. She stopped watching the show, but couldn’t understand why they continued to watch it.

As Christians, the Bible tells us that “Christ has set us free” (GALATIANS 5:1). But how do we live out this freedom—especially as we live for a perfect and holy God who wants us to be like Him? Does our freedom in Jesus mean that it no longer matters what we watch on TV? Or what we look up online? Are films with sex and nudity in something to just shrug our shoulders at and watch anyway?

Paul offered guidelines in the Bible that are still true today. He reminds us that we are only Christians because of God’s love and grace. But he also says that this grace of God doesn’t mean we can just do whatever we want, knowing we’ll be forgiven anyway (ROMANS 6:1-2).

Our lives are no longer enslaved to sin and death (V.22), but our freedom is to be used to show Jesus to the world around us—in every situation and circumstance (including the movies we choose to watch with our friends). Yes we have freedom in what we watch, where we go and what we choose to do with our time . . . But all these things should still be used to please God and show Him at work in our lives. In everything we do, we either offer ourselves to sin or to God. So let’s “count [ourselves] dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (V.11). RF

Thinking it over . . .

Read Matthew 6:22-23. What are you filling your eyes with when you watch TV or go online? Is your life being filled with “light” or “darkness”? What sort of things do you think fall into each category? Don’t be surprised if you’re more easily tempted by the things you fill your mind with.