Romans 14:1-12

I really had a hard time coming to a stopping place.  This entire chapter ties together as one thought.  I chose the stopping point for today at the "Therefore" in verse 13.  So remember today's lesson when we get to the second half of this chapter.

Romans 14:1-12 NIV
 ¹ Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.  ² One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. ³ 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. ⁴ 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.

There are so many things in scripture that we are told to DO and there are so many things we are told NOT to do.  But much of our Christian walk is derived from an understanding of who God is and how we react to that understanding of who God is.

Here Paul references meat sacrificed to idols which he fleshed out fully in 1 Corinthians 8.  We no longer have that problem here so lets pick a modern one such as smoking.  No where in scripture does it say "Do not smoke.".  Yet many Christians says that Christians don't smoke.  Why?  Because of their understanding of the what the Bible says about our bodies being the temple of God and that the Holy Spirit dwells within us.  They combine that with current knowledge of health problems caused by smoking and they chose not to smoke as a form of worship to God. 

Guess what.  Some Christians are babies in the faith.  Or they have not come to that same conviction. These are God's servants, not ours.  Encourage and teach them, but don't judge them.


 ⁵ 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. ⁶ 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. ⁷ For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. ⁸ 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. ⁹ For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

What you do, do it for the Lord.  I encourage you to not use this as and excuse for bad behavior.  Most of us to NOT do everything for the Lord.  We do what we want for our own pleasure and don't even bring God into the equation till we need Him. Our false belief that we ever don't need Him is a an entirely different problem.

 ¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ It is written:
   “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
   every tongue will acknowledge God.’”
 ¹² So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

God is the judge and he will measure a persons heart.  Not you.

There will be times that as a brother or sister in Christ you will need to bring something the attention of some in sin.  This is not judging the person, but their actions that have already been judged by God.  There is a difference though the one on the receiving end will not always see it at first.  Jesus was very specific on how we deal with that.  First look at yourself and then speak to your brother. Matthew 7:1-5  He was very specific of how you speak to your brother as well. Mathew 18:15-20

God Bless.