Tuesday, August 07,
2012, 7:07 a.m. – The Lord woke me this morning with the song “Seek the Lord” playing in my mind.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Romans 14 (NIV 1984):
Accept the one whose
faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith
allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only
vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one
who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one
who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s
servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for
the Lord is able to make them stand.
One person considers
one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of
them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as
special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they
give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks
to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves
alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord.
So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ
died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the
living.
You, then, why do you
judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we
will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written:
“‘As surely as I
live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow
before me;
every tongue will acknowledge God.’”
So then, each of us
will give an account of ourselves to God.
Therefore let us stop
passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any
stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. I am convinced,
being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But
if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. If
your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer
acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died.
Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. For the
kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness,
peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way
is pleasing to God and receives human approval.
Let us therefore make
every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not
destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is
wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is
better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause
your brother or sister to fall.
So whatever you
believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one
who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is
condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything
that does not come from faith is sin.
Disputable Matters
Chapter 14 of Romans discusses the topic of “disputable
matters.” These are matters of personal preference and/or personal conviction,
but are not defined in scripture as sinful or as godly, either one. Many of
these “disputable matters” stem from previous religious practices of Jewish
people who had now become believers in Jesus Christ. Some people with “weak”
faith held on to some of these former practices, not as a matter of works-based
salvation, but as a matter of personal conviction, while other followers of
Christ who were stronger in their faith understood and practiced the freedom
they had been given in Christ from following these Old Covenant or Old
Testament requirements of the law, such as dietary restrictions, keeping the
Sabbath, and/or the keeping of other special days.
So, the message at the beginning here is addressed to those
who have accepted the freedom they now have in Christ Jesus from the OT law and
Jewish practices. Such freedom, though, is never freedom from God’s moral law. These
who are free in Christ must accept those who have not yet gotten to where the free
follower of Christ has gotten in his faith. Again, this is not speaking of sin
issues. We do not grow into deliverance from sin. When we invite Jesus Christ into
our lives to be Lord and master of our lives, we turn away from our former
lives of sin and we turn to God in faith and obedience, to now walk in his ways
and in his truth. The reference in this passage is clearly speaking of
disputable matters of personal conviction and has nothing to do with what the
Bible clearly calls sin. We should never accept sin in the lives of immature
followers of Christ nor make allowances or excuses for willful sin in anyone
just because that person might be a new follower of Christ.
Weak and Strong
The specific situation seemed to mainly revolve around what
foods people could or could not eat. Some people chose to be vegetarians and to
abstain from eating meat while others felt the complete freedom to eat meat.
Whether you are the one who has the freedom to eat meat or the one whose faith
is weaker and thus feels convicted about eating meat, neither one is to pass
judgment on the other with regard to food. Again, this should not be taken out
of context, as some have done, and applied to those who choose to continue in
sin, to give them a free license to continue in sin and to condemn those who
judge that sin and call his or her brother to repentance. We are not to stand
in judgment over a fellow believer with regard to matters of personal
conviction or personal preference. Those matters are between that person and
God. Sin, nonetheless, should be judged by the church, but always with the goal
of forgiveness and restoration of the straying Christian.
Then, there is the matter of one person regarding one day in
the week more sacred than another versus those who consider every day alike. If
you have a personal conviction that you must set aside Saturday or Sunday as a
day specific unto the Lord, then that is your right to do that. Nonetheless, if
you have the freedom in Christ to regard every day alike, then that is your
right to do so. We are Biblically no longer under the requirement to set aside
one day a week as holy unto the Lord (the Sabbath or Sunday), for our Sabbath
now is our relationship with Jesus Christ, and the Holy of Holies now dwells
within the life of the believer in Jesus Christ, so we can worship God 24/7
anywhere.
A church building is no more holy than any other building.
It is not the house of God. The sanctuary in a church building is not the
sanctuary of God. Our hearts are his house; his sanctuary; and his temple. God
no longer dwells in buildings built by human hands. We don’t have to go to a
specific place on a specific day to worship God. Yet, some people who have not
yet come to that place of acceptance of this truth feel it necessary to set
aside a specific day in the week and to go to a building called a “church.” That
is ok!
In Spirit and Truth
As long as we are worshiping God in Spirit and in truth, and
the how and when of our worship of him is done in Spirit and in truth, and is
being done truly unto the Lord, then it really doesn’t matter if we feel the necessity
to regard one day more sacred than another or we don’t. What is important is
that we are truly worshiping God by giving our lives to him as living
sacrifices on his altar, holy and pleasing to him, that we are no longer being
conformed (molded according) to the pattern of this world, but we are daily
being transformed in heart and mind of the Holy Spirit of God (see Ro. 12:1-2).
God sees our hearts. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God sees what is
in our hearts, and he knows if we are truly worshiping him or not. Christ died
for our sins so that we might be free of the control of sin and so he might be
Lord of our lives. If he is truly Lord (boss), then everything will fall
together according to his plan and purposes for our lives.
Sensitivity Training
Again, we must not pass judgment on one another in such
matters as food and days in the week. Instead we are to be sensitive to our
fellow believers’ personal convictions and to try not to purposefully offend
them or to lead them into sin by our freedom. This can be tricky. We have to be
so careful that we don’t allow legalistic Christians, such as were the
Judaizers, to lead us back under bondage. Paul speaks much on that subject in
the book of Galatians and some in Colossians, too, I believe.
Yet, we should maintain a sensitivity to the particular
convictions of others, and as much as is within our power to do so we should
avoid doing anything in that person’s presence that might lead that person to
sin against his or her own conscience. This requires much prayer and
discernment as to what will actually lead another to sin and what won’t, I
believe. We can’t be selfish and think only of ourselves, yet everyone is going
to have his or her opinion of what we should or should not do, too. The rule of
thumb here is to act in love and to do what leads to peace and to mutual
edification without compromising our own faith, and without giving others the
liberty to sin, and without helping to facilitate what is truly sinful
behavior. The bottom line is really that we should not make matters that are
disputable and are of personal conviction or of personal preference come between
us and our fellow Christians.
The Kingdom of God
The key verses in all of this, I believe, are verses 17-18: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of
righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves
Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.”
We can get so caught up in things that have no real
spiritual significance and spend our energies and time on what has no eternal
value, and in the process destroy the work of God in people’s lives, including
in our own. What we eat or don’t eat makes us no more or less spiritual. What
day in the week we choose to meet with other believers for fellowship, prayer,
the teaching of God’s word, the breaking of bread, and for a time of corporate
worship of God, or even where we choose to meet with these believers, makes us
no more or less spiritual. What determines our spirituality is our relationship
with Jesus Christ. If food and a particular day in the week could make us more
spiritual, then we would be back to works-based salvation and feeling as though
our good deeds earned us favor with God and thus we worked our way into heaven.
May it never be!
Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. He took upon
himself the penalty of our sin so we could be free of the penalty of sin (eternal
damnation), and free from the control of sin over our day-to-day lives. We
receive this gift of salvation from sin by God’s grace through faith
(repentance and obedience). It is not of our own efforts that we are saved, but
by the grace of God. When we choose, by faith, to leave our former lives of sin
behind us, and we choose to follow Jesus Christ in obedience to his commands,
the Holy Spirit of God transforms our hearts and minds, he forgives us of our
sins, and he gives us new lives in Jesus Christ. When we believe in Jesus we
die to our old way of the flesh, our sins are buried with Christ, and we are
raised with Christ to walk in newness of life according to the Spirit, and no
longer according to the flesh. And, this is what counts for eternity!
Seek the Lord /
An Original Work / July 20, 2012
Based off Isaiah 55
“Come to Me all you
who thirst; come to waters.
Listen to Me, and eat
what’s good today,
And your soul will
delight in richest of fare.
Give ear to Me, and
you will live.
I have made an eternal
covenant with you.
Wash in the blood of
the Lamb.”
Seek the Lord while He
may be found; call on Him.
Let the wicked forsake
his way, in truth.
Let him turn to the
Lord, and he will receive mercy.
Freely, God pardons
him.
“For My thoughts are
not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My
ways,”
declares the Lord, our
God.
“My word that goes out
of My mouth is truthful.
It will not return to
Me unfulfilled.
My word will
accomplish all that I desire,
And achieve the goal I
intend.
You will go in joy,
and be led forth in peace.
The mountains will burst
into song… before you,
And all of the trees
clap their hands.”
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