Each
Of Us Will Give An Account
Of
Ourselves To God
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.
Romans 14:1-12
In
the days of the New Testament, Jewish and Gentile converts were coming to
Christ with perspectives as different as East and West. Before long they were
disagreeing over matters as diverse as worship days and what a Christ follower
is free to eat or drink. The apostle Paul urged them to remember an important
fact: None of us is in a position to know or judge the heart of another.
For
the sake of harmony with fellow believers, God urges us to realize that we are
all accountable to our Lord, to act according to His Word and our conscience.
However, He alone is in a position to judge the attitudes of our heart.
Be slow to judge others but quick to judge yourself.
Our
Daily Bread – March 26, 2017