Love in Your Head
Opening Prayer
Lord, open my heart to hear from You. May the intentions of my heart not be centered on my own opinions, but in Your truth.
Read Romans 14:1–12
Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 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. 4 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.
5 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. 6 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. 7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 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. 9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
10 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. 11 It is written:
“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will acknowledge God.’”
12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
What are some moral issues that you debate the “right” answers to?A Christian speaker of my acquaintance has decided that he will never watch any R-rated film. Some people mock him for this, thinking his faith must be very weak if he can’t cope with seeing a bit of sex, violence and swearing. He knows, however, that allowing even a small amount of those things into his mental “diet” affects his thought processes and his attitudes.
This is a good example of the kind of thing going on in today’s passage, and Paul’s response shows that love starts with an act of the mind—choosing not to judge. On issues where there is no clear right or wrong, each person must obey his or her own conscience and bear the consequences of it before God. And we will be judged by what we thought of others just as surely as they are judged for their actions.
Apply
“Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). How can your simple, daily activities glorify God?
Closing prayer
Lord, show me the times when I have been unfairly judgmental towards others in my heart. Help me to change.
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