Tag: Graciousness

Morning Musing: Romans 14:19-21

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“So then, let us pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another. Do not tear down God’s work because of food. Everything is clean, but it is wrong to make someone fall by what he eats. It is a good thing not to eat meat, or drink wine, or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We live in a culture that has a well ingrained “me first“ mentality. We think about ourselves and what we need before we give much thought to anyone else. Now, not everyone falls prey to this. Some people naturally have a servant-minded personality. Others are raised to think about others first. But even this can become tainted by our me first mentality. They put others first because they’ve been trained to think their worth is found in what they can do for others, and so they serve others as a means of assuring their own value (at least in their own mind). Most of the time we are sufficiently isolated from each other that this isn’t such a huge deal. But in the church, this mindset can be debilitating. Let’s take a look at some counsel from Paul on dealing with this tendency.

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A Choice of Response

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For the last few weeks, we have been talking about the various kinds of interruptions we might experience as we go through our lives. We’ve talked about divine interruptions as God invites us to go in a new direction as well as interruptions from sin – both the sin of others and our own sin. So many of the interruptions we face on a regular basis, though, aren’t critical interruptions, they’re just irritating. In those situations, knowing how to respond to the person who is the cause of the interruption matters a lot. This is especially true when the interruption turns out to be God-ordained after all. In part four of our series, we are taking our cue from the example of Jesus. Let’s dig in together.

A Choice of Response

Covid was tough. It was tough for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons it was tough for me personally was that I wound up working from home a lot. With three still-young children. Who were all doing school from home. Do you know how hard it is to write a sermon or a Bible study outline when you’ve got three kids coming to you on a rotating basis (or simultaneously) either needing help with their schoolwork, needing to be reminded to do their schoolwork, or just needing to be entertained for a few minutes so they don’t start creating their own entertainment which usually creates more problems than it solves? About as hard as it is to get anything else done with all of those things going on. Many of you know those woes far better than you’d like. 

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Morning Musing: Romans 14:2-3

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“One person believes he may eat anything, while one who is weak eats only vegetables. One who eats must not look down on one who does not eat, and one who does not eat must not judge one who does, because God has accepted him.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Yesterday we introduced the idea of struggles to get along in the body of Christ because of differences of opinion over non-essential matters of the faith. Well, that wasn’t exactly the language we used, but that was the issue all the same. Paul’s counsel then was that we should receive one another as we are, weaknesses and all, without getting into needless and unhelpful arguments about issues on which differences of opinion are okay to have. The freedom we have available to us in Christ is vast, and if we are going to get along well in the church, we have to learn to respect that freedom. As Paul continues into chapter 14, he gets a little more specific about the particular shape of this issue in the Roman church. Let’s take a look.

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Good Habits

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Last week we confronted the uncomfortable reality that we are often not fine in this life. This week we start to explore a solution. How can we keep the hard emotions that so often bring us down at bay before they have a chance to do their dirty work? We learn the secret from something Paul wrote when he was in some pretty dark times himself. Check this out with me.

Good Habits

I am a man of habits. It’s just part of my personality. I operate best in conditions that are customary and repetitive. Maybe you’re the same, maybe you’re different, but that’s simply my personality type. And when it comes to personality types, there’s no one type that’s particularly right or particularly wrong. At least…that’s what I keep telling myself. No, each personality type comes with advantages and disadvantages. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses. For me, when something is a habit, I’m dependable. Now, I’m sometimes forgetful, but once something is locked into a habit, you can count on my doing it. On the other hand, I can be boring; especially if you have the kind of personality that prefers a bit more variety.

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Digging in Deeper: Matthew 7:1-2

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“Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

“You can’t judge me!” Ever heard that line before? It’s usually thrown down as a challenge when someone has done something wrong, he knows it, but he doesn’t want to feel guilty about having done when he is around another person he knows agrees it was not the right thing to do. And in our hyper-tolerant society these are some of the only words of Jesus that receive a glowing, unconditional acceptance. But what do they actually mean? Maybe not what you think they do.

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