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Thoughts in Worship

Message Magazine's Online Devotional for Thursday, March 12, 2015

Based Upon Romans 14

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I absolutely love the Bible! It has been the subject of much debate and scrutiny for more years than I can count, but our God has made certain that the power of His words, and the certainty of the truth they indicate will stand the test of time. The valued principles that are resident within its pages, along with the power and presence of His blessed Holy Spirit, have changed the lives of countless millions of people who have encountered God Himself there. As a result, they have been transformed from hopeless wretches, speeding down the highway to eternal death, to blessed men and women whose characters are being transformed into the very image of Jesus Christ as we await His arrival to eradicate all sin and death forever.

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In light of this I need to highlight a very important principle, which will inform our brief devotional thought for today. The Old Testament prophet, Isaiah taught, “Whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk, And drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; Line upon line, line upon line; Here a little, and there a little:” (Isaiah 28:9–10). That is to say that if we are ever to arrive at an understanding of truth as it is in Jesus from God’s Word, we must allow the Scriptures to inform our understanding. We must compare Scripture with Scripture. Let me share just one more principle directly from the mouth of Jesus before we tackle today’s theme: “If any man desires to do His will (God’s pleasure), he will know (have the needed illumination to recognize, and can tell for himself) whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking from Myself and of My own accord and on My own authority.” (John 7:17, AMP). Indeed there was a direct context in play here, but the principle remains consistent, nonetheless in Scripture: Those who are willing to submit to God’s revelations will always grow to fully understand them. Now ask yourself, “Am I willing to do God’s will and grow?”

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Romans 14 seems to be a massive plot full of land mines awaiting one false move that will blow off a spiritual body part if we are not careful. Let’s make this real easy at the onset here. The chapter is not about eating pork or poison. It is not about self-sanctifying Sunday or even Thursday above the only day God made holy, the seventh-day Sabbath. The focus of the chapter is much simpler and clearer than all of that. It is two-fold: First, Jesus, the Lord of us all, and the One who gave Himself for us is the only qualified Judge (John 5:22). He knows and sees all, not us. It is to Him that we owe homage, not any of us. Therefore, since we all are subject to Him, we must put away our blasphemous, uneven scales of injustice, and allow our God to do what only He can do in each of our lives. The second general theme of the chapter is that those who claim to follow Christ, must not only choose against judgementalism, but also choose to protect the consciences of our brothers and sisters who are weaker in the faith, by not doing things, even lawful things, around them, which could be confusing to them. These would become stumbling blocks to them. It does not get much simpler or clearer than that.

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Now, many of you may be thinking that I danced all around the points of contention here. Never fear, my friends. It is time to employ Isaiah’s principle now. Can we find any Scripture that gives context to Paul saying that some eat meats and others eat veggies, but it’s all good? Absolutely. There is no way in the world that Paul was in any way attempting to assert that only weak individuals would continue to keep the biblical dietary laws of clean and unclean. God was very clear that certain things should never pass our lips. They are harmful and unclean. Consuming scavenging creatures of all kinds...