https://youtu.be/d7sfuhfby3E

Running my route through the neighborhood

You look at another’s spiritual walk and get upset with their success- but are you willing to do what it takes to get where they are?

I would say most people are not willing to do what it takes.

I am not talking about worldly success- I am talking about spiritual success and being able to overcome every trial and temptation- to be an overcomer in every area- to praise Him in the storm

“Our spirit hungers for more and more. We are designed for a great capacity for God; but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him. God delivers us from sin- we have to deliver ourselves from individuality.” Oswald Chambers

This spiritual battle that we are in is real. You should take it seriously and you need to take your walk with Jesus serious. Your relationship with Jesus is the most important relationship that you can have, it needs to be treated with the utmost seriousness and earnestness, not in any kind of haphazard or disinterested way.

It takes a measure of self-control and discipline in order to truly be spiritually successful.

You can live your entire Christian walk in the desert, grumbling and complaining, never going into the promised land and getting by with just enough. BUT WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO?

To the Corinthian church, Paul makes a very sobering statement

1 Corinthians 10:23 NKJV

“All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things do not edify.”

Paul wrote this letter to address concerns and questions that the Corinthian church was asking, mainly concerning meat offered to idols and idol feasts

He had to correct the Corinthian church on several other grave problems: sexual immorality, divisiveness, secular lawsuits, not separating from the highly pagan society that was surrounding them, humanistic thinking, the Lord’s supper

By “all things”, Paul is referencing “all things which are indifferent in themselves”, that which is of an indifferent nature (like what you are eating and drinking); otherwise everything is not lawful to be done

Let’s get this clear- all food is good and lawful to eat.

The Corinthian church erroneously applied their Christian liberty to that which was inherently sinful

making their liberty a cloak of sinfulness.

Go back to 1 Corinthians 8:8-10

We have no right to even that which is innocent, if it be disadvantageous to the highest interests of ourselves or others.

St. Augustine “He alone does not fall into unlawful things who sometimes abstains by way of caution even from lawful ones”

“all things are not edifying”, expedient. When the doing of them destroys peace, comfort, and edification of others; when it stumbles and grieves weak minds, and causes offense to them

1 Corinthians 6:12

“i will not be brought under the power of any”

On the one hand- offend his brother

On the other- bring himself into bondage to those things he has been set free of

EX: alcohol, these are many of the reasons I do not drink and if you tell another Christian that they might want to think about their drinking and how it might be affecting them or others- they attack you.