March 11, 2012

Romans 14:1-9

“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.”

Take away message of these verses? We belong to the Lord, and everything we do is to the Lord regardless of what we choose and our differences in choosing. So many times we let differences between us separate us for no reason, even though we have the same vision and common end goal. Of course, the devil uses this as an opportunity to cause problems in the church (not just locally, but the Christ one as well) where there need be no problems. If there’s not one, we create one.

I remember being on this site, and this will seem absurd because it is, but people with natural hair and people with relaxed hair were talking against each other? Both of them were criticizing the other for their choices, attributing it to a reason that was insulting to the other group. And I thought to myself…WOW! If it’s not skin color, it’s skin tone. If it’s not skin tone, it’s ethnic background. If it’s not ethnic background, it’s hair type. If it’s not hair type, it’s how you choose to wear your hair??? O_o....smh. Then what I realized is that even in the church, we do this too! We find little things about how people worship and what they decide as policies to form a separation between us even though we have the common goal of serving the Lord. Now, I’m not saying go worship at a church with unbiblical policies or that strays far away from what you believe. But don’t use different practices as a basis for separation when we all seem to have the same vision. One person will do it one way, someone will do it another way. The most important thing is, each person is doing so to the Lord. :-)