Often, after a person is born again and asks "What shall I do next?" he is given a list of things, usually of a limited nature and primarily negative...
...there almost always comes into being another group of Christians that rises up and begins to work against such a list of taboos; thus there is a tendency toward a struggle in Christian circles between those who set up a certain list of taboos and those who, feeling there is something wrong with this, say "Away with all taboos, away with all lists." Both of these groups can be right and both can be wrong, depending on how they approach the matter....
...when I take hold of [a list of negatives] and say "This is too superficial", and I push it aside, I must see what I am doing. I am not confronted with a libertine concept, but I am confronted with the whole Ten Commandments and with the law of Love. So even if we are dealing only with outward commands, we have not moved into a looser life; we have moved into something much more profound and heart-searching. As a matter of fact, when we have done with our honest wrestling before God, we will find we will be observing at least some of the taboos on these lists. But having gone deeper, we find that we will be observing them for a completely different reason. Curiously enough we often come around in a circle through our liberty, through the study of the deeper teaching, and we find we do want to keep these things. But now not for the same reason - that of social pressure. It is no longer merely a matter of holding to an accepted list in order that Christians think well of us.
True Spirituality, pp 4, 5, 6
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