Friday 9 Nov 2012

Friday Reading: Romans 14:1-6

Key Verse: Romans 14:3
3  Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.

Devotion:
The one thing that we can be very sure of in life is that we are going to have different opinions to other people! So if we do have different opinions about things, how are we supposed to live in peace with others and to also figure out what is right to do? The answer to that is the obvious one – we should be doing all things to the glory of God! If we find that we are doing something and it is going to pull down God instead of glorifying Him, then we should not be going there in the first place.

The simple things in life quite often cause people to argue and they do that because we do those simple things without thinking about others. We may think that something is straight forward or black and white to us, but when we find out that to others it is not straight forward, then we have to start thinking of how it is going to affect them before we blindly go off and do things or say things. One of our biggest problems in life is probably that we tend to say things without thinking about the consequences when we have ‘always done it’ or have ‘always thought that way’.

We may like to think that we are strong and can withstand temptation or can avoid temptation but when others see us doing what we are doing, are we leading them into temptation or causing them to stumble? These verses talk about the simple things like the food that we eat. If we really like to dig into a big underdone steak, we may like to share that experience with other people who like the same; but to do that in front of a vegetarian who has chosen to be so because of their love for animals is not wise!

Applying that sort of argument to the things that we like to do in our lives must work on the same principles. If we think that our actions or what we say is going to cause offence to someone else because they believe things should be done in a different manner, then we should not be so blatant as to think that we can do anything we like just because God has said we can. That is not showing love for our neighbours – one of the most important commandments Jesus reminded us of! On the other hand, if we know someone else does do things their own way and that those things may cause us to stumble, we should probably not go and join in for fear of stumbling under our own frailty.

Points to Ponder:
Do you count yourself as being strong?

Do you take into account other peoples weaknesses?