Toeing the line

This is another one of my pet peeves that I've been thinking about.  I get into discussions with Christians a lot about controversial Christian topics like baptism of the Holy Spirit, sarcasm, what movies are okay to watch...etc.  Even within the Christian community, within groups of people who all read the same Bible, there are differing beliefs.  Thankfully, most of these aren't anything serious that affect one's salvation, but they are interesting.  A lot of the topics we discuss are sort of gray-area topics.  What I mean by these topics is that there's kind of a gray area between Totally Right, and Totally Wrong.  For example, sex before marriage.  The Totally Right thing here is no sex before marriage.  The Totally Wrong thing is having sex before marriage.  Then comes all this gray area inbetween.  What about everything up to sex?  Is that still okay?  Or even watching movies.  How bad is too bad to watch?  How much nudity/swearing/violence makes it too bad? 
 
Well, these discussions and debates can be helpful in flushing out the issues, but I think it always comes down to this:  Yes there is a line.  No, we should not cross it.  Does that mean we should go as close as we possibly can to it?  Nope.  God calls us to live lives of RIGHTEOUSNESS.  Philippians 4:8 says, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things."  It doesn't say, "Don't think about totally sleazy things."  That would leave too much open.  Instead, throughout the Bible, God calls us all to live righteous lives.  THAT is a high calling! 
 
So this is my hope.  Whenever you think about doing/thinking something and think to  yourself, 'I'm not completely sure this is a good thing to do', don't do it.  Why spend time debating?  Most of the time, we spend it debating how close to the line we can get without crossing it, when we should really be worrying about how far away from the line we can get.  Live righteous lives, and shine as lights!
 
"Be holy, because I am holy." - Leviticus 11:45