"Allowed" and "forbidden" are removed by the apostle from the vocabulary and replaced with the word "free." Freedom is not permissiveness, but the ongoing work of our spirit. What Paul says means that, in accepting Christ, we deprive ourselves of the right to live automatically. Each of our actions must be measured against the standard "beneficial." Everything is permitted; we only need to keep giving ourselves an account of whether such a thing is beneficial for me as a temple of the Holy Spirit. There is nothing that can be excluded from the sphere of our choice.

What am I dependent on? What possesses me, blocking out what matters most, clouding the clarity of consciousness? For one person it is smoking, for another health, for another social contact, and who knows what else can become an object of worship and dependence that acts destructively on our life in freedom. And this life is arranged in such a way that every action must become the result of a free and conscious choice for which we are ready to give an answer before God.

Much has been said and written about spiritual life in general and Christian spiritual life in particular. But what, after all, is the spiritual life of a Christian? It is at times very hard for us to answer this question, perhaps also because today spiritual life is often taken to mean many things that have no direct relation to it: theology, morality, religion itself, mystical experiences, and much else that, while connected with spiritual life and born from it, is still not identical with it. After all, by spiritual life it is most natural to mean the life of our spiritual "I," which in biblical language is usually called the heart; and it shows itself first of all as will and relationship. And our spiritual life is, above all, the relationships that bind us to God and to our neighbors. That is where the most interesting part begins.

The point is that, judging by numerous biblical witnesses, God agrees to build relationships with us only on His own terms. He imposes nothing on us; He only offers us Himself, but at the same time He requires that we let Him into our life unconditionally and absolutely. He is not satisfied with less. Then it turns out that, if we want to have normal, full relationships with God, we will have to give up belonging to ourselves. And if we dare to do this, our heart and our whole life, inward and outward, will be filled with the breath of God, that breath of the Kingdom about which the apostle writes. And then God Himself will return to us the life that we dared to give Him. He will return it in a fullness we would never have found without Him, without His help and without His participation.

These words, written by the apostle Paul for a concrete occasion, in connection with a dispute about food sacrificed to idols, nevertheless prove suitable for guidance in other cases as well. The apostle decisively leads our reflections out of the sphere of legalism ("permitted or forbidden") into the sphere of meaning ("why," "needed or not needed," "appropriate or inappropriate").

This approach corresponds to Christian human freedom, opens paths of creativity for a person, while not denying his responsibility before God. Besides, this approach is fruitful: indeed, it is impossible to spell out all potential situations of human life at the level of "permitted or forbidden." And the apostle Paul's approach can "work" in any situation, because we can always think about whether what I am about to do will bring me closer to the goal God has given me or not, whether it will become something by which I have "come under power," such being the literal meaning of the Greek word translated as "possess" or "have power." After all, a person can give power over himself only to God.