Christian Living

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There are many truths that are essential to the Christian faith - pillars of beliefs that leave no room for compromise or interpretation- they just simply are. We observe truth to behave this way. But despite the rigidness, there are some areas that seems as though God has given us room to seek, understand, and interpret to the best of our abilities. Since the immensity of God is beyond our ability to fully understand, we, alongside our brethren, are called to discern how to apply truths to our lives. The New Testament covers a wide scope of subjects, but it also leaves some areas untouched- providing us room to exercise sincerity. Don’t get me wrong, we should not by any means create our own versions of reality independent of what the Bible teaches. But it seems that God, in His infinite wisdom and knowledge, understands that strict ordinances of instructions, as in the Old Testament, leave little room for sincerity, and so very few things can be expressed from the heart. People will obey, despite their motives, but the action becomes void of personal expression of love & relationship with God. Samuel tells Jesse regarding his sons, “…man looks at the outside, but God looks at the heart” (1 Sam 16:7). He doesn’t simply mean that the Lord sees the inside of a man’s heart and knows if it is corrupt or not- He most certainly does that. But it was also in reference to God’s desire for true worship coming from a genuine expression of the heart. John 4:23 says, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks”.

In Romans 14, Paul talks about a weaker and stronger brother, in reference to their faith. He said one eats everything, and the other eats only vegetables, but they both do what they do unto God and so the Lord honors both. That is a revolutionary idea then and is still today for the church, where legalism tends to grow. Further along in verse 5, Paul points out that “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike.” –this also is honored by God. How is it that God is able to honor both contradictory positions? Because what God honors is not the action but the sincerity of the heart from which the action came from. It is our sincere desire to please Him, which ultimately pleases Him. The man who eats everything is fully convinced that he is honoring the Lord by his actions. His brother honors the Lord by abstaining from certain foods, and so the Lord honors him, too. The many convictions within the entirety of the church body are as diverse as the people within it; some beliefs align with those of others and some don’t fit at all. But our minds must be settled on three fundamental points that Paul presents: 1. We must not condemn our brothers & sisters for their different convictions. 2. We must not stumble our weaker brethren by our convictions. 3. We must be fully convinced in our minds of our convictions (Paul says if we are not fully convinced of our convictions, then we ourselves are condemned because of doubt. As he concludes in Rom 14:22-23, “So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin”.)

The freedom we now find in Christ is such an awesome thing, but at times it can also be fearful because a sense of comfort is found in doing things routinely and “religiously”.
Jesus abolished that type of thinking when He boiled the entire law down to two commandments (Matthew 22:38-40 Love the Lord with all you heart… & Love your neighbors as yourself). With these verses, He effectively made a few things seem ambiguous. But true to form, God had a purpose. It was true worship! That is why worship can be anything that you do as long as you offer it to the Lord. As scripture says, “do all things as though unto the Lord” (Colossians 3:17/ 1Corinthians 10:31). It is not the specific action that God is pleased with, but the sincerity of the heart.

The Lord desired us to live in peace and harmony with each other. He desires us to grow and mature in our walk with Him. These are far more valuable than conformity to an unnecessary standard. Sometimes, though we mean well, we stunt our fellow believers’ maturity when we become legalistic or dogmatic with things that don’t necessarily have to be. Let [allow] every man to be fully convinced of what he believes. But anyone who has doubts sins already because in his mind there is a possibility that what he does is sinful. If God can leave room for sincerity, so can we. And if God is patient with us until we mature, we can be patient with our brethren in their weakness. We please God when we are sincerely and wholeheartedly trying to please Him. He honors us when we honor Him with our heart, and not by actions alone.

March M Villareal
[email protected]
www.freewebs.com/manswicked

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