Thursday 8 Feb 2018

February 8: Romans 14:7-13

Key Verse: Romans 14:13
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.

Devotion:
How easy it is to follow on from what someone else is doing – just to go with it rather than take a step back and so “no”. No matter what station in life we are from, we all need to agree not to live for ourselves and to rather live for Christ. Christians cannot be people who are “self-seeking”, that just does not compute with God; you are either for Him or against Him. Our business is not to please ourselves in as many ways as we can, but to please God – we need to keep Him in everything that we do!

But then, on the other side of the coin, we start to judge others because they do things wrong. It is certainly not our place to judge them! We can help them to see what they are doing wrong by applying the right things in our lives and encouraging them, but we have no place in telling them how bad they are... show them what God says about it, not what you think about it. God's word has been given to us so we can learn from it and pass on that knowledge – not so we can have ammunition to judge others by!

No matter whether we are Christian or non-Christian, God is still the same God. He is God of all and we must remember that one day every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord. The last thing we want to do is to put someone off because they don't want to be “uptight” or “self-righteous” like us. Can you imagine having to confess to God how you have prevented people from coming to heaven just because you have thought you were in some way better than them and that put them off! If we remembered this single thing, we would probably not do half of the things that we do!

Points to Ponder:
Do you like pointing out others’ mistakes?

How many mistakes of yours do you hear God pointing out?