Romans 14:5-12

Rachel Workman: 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. I think we should do what God has laid on our hearts to do. We all have God's law written on our hearts. We know what to do and not to do. Just because someone else is doing it or not doing it doesn't make it right or wrong. Churches and Christians get so carried away with this. Making the congregation "hypocrites" which in reality we all are.


¹⁰ You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister^[a]? 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.’”^[b]

¹² So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

This is harder for me. Christ is Lord of all. That is not hard for me. Leaving God's judgement to God is harder. Every person who is not saved by Christ will eventually bow and acknowledge God and they will be sit in the judgement seat and give an account to God for their sins. I don't need to pass my own judgements God will do it in his time. And his judgement will be final.

____________________________________________________________________________________

John Burnett:  14 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.  This judgement being passed by one group to another has divided the church significantly.  Focusing on these little insignificant things has taken the focus off of Jesus Christ, which should be our only focus.

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^[a]? 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.’”^[b]

¹² So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.  We as Christians know that God is the Judge but when we judge others and treat them with contempt, we are saying that what Christ did on the Cross was not enough to pay for their sin, we need to add our contempt on top.  We will have to give an account and Jesus asking me why I didn’t think His death was enough for that person is not a position I want to be in.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Mike Grimm:  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.

All of us are accountable to Christ, not to each other. While the church must be uncompromising in its stand against activities that are expressly forbidden by Scripture (adultery, homosexuality, murder, theft), it should not create additional rules and regulations and give them equal standing with God’s law. This is one of this things that drives me insane with the catholic church. Many times Christians base their moral judgments on opinion, personal dislikes, or cultural bias rather than on the Word of God. When we do this, we show that our faith is weak—we do not think that God is powerful enough to guide his children. When we stand before God’s court of justice (“judgment seat”), we won’t be worried about what our Christian neighbor, or really anyone else, has done.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Tomorrow’s reading for Romans 14:13-18

¹³ Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. ¹⁴ I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. ¹⁵ If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died. ¹⁶ Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. ¹⁷ For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, ¹⁸ because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.