KEEPING THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. 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. 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.

Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.

Romans 14:13b-18

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

We have a tendency to quarrel with one another over the most menial things, don’t we?

Think about all the disagreements you have had through your life and honestly evaluate them. I’ll bet that most of them could have just been avoided because they were over trivial matters.

Unfortunately, I have known some people that actually delight in entering into conflict with another person. If you stated a view about something, you could be certain they would jump in and make a case for the other side of the discussion, just to debate you.

The truth of the matter is that everyone has opinions but here’s another truth.

Everyone has God as well, even if they refuse to acknowledge Him. The scriptures affirm that no one can say that God hasn’t made Himself known to them (Romans 1:18-20). Everyone exists within an environment that He created and is ever present. We are just as much a part of creation as the earth we live on. The same God who formed the planets knit every fiber of our being together. That makes Him the main entity in anyone’s life and we need to keep our focus on Him and Him alone. We need to keep the main thing the main thing...and that main thing is God and the Son Jesus who is one with His Father (John 10:30).

This is Paul’s point as we continue to study Romans 14. As we have seen earlier in this chapter, there were disagreements among the people in Rome regarding diet. People were getting into it over what could and couldn’t be eaten.

Newer Christian believers felt that they had to abstain from eating meat, consuming only vegetables instead. More mature Christians held the view that this belief was folly and entered into arguments with the new Christians. As we see in our passage today, Paul held his own view. He was fully persuaded by the Lord Jesus that nothing was unclean in and of itself. His priorities shifted away from trivial matters to the matter of helping the lost to be found, to help the unsaved find eternal life through Christ.

In other words, Paul learned the importance of keeping the main thing the main thing. It was okay if a person decided to only eat vegetables and not meat. It was also okay for a person to hold the view that eating all things was allowable. A person could let their conscience be their guide and frankly should do it as this is where the Lord communicates His will through the work of the Holy Spirit. And each person, one to the other, should respect a person’s dietary choices out of love.

In the end translation, Jesus died for all and offers salvation to anyone who believes in Him, no matter what they choose to eat. He longs to bring people into the kingdom of God, a kingdom not defined by eating and drinking but rather “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”. In responding to Jesus’ command to bring the Gospel to all and make disciples of every nation, we are serving our Savior in a way that is “pleasing to God” and friends, there should be no greater end goal for our work than that.

God wants us to serve in obedience to Him and His Son who He sent to be the Savior of the world. We will do just that, and do so efficiently, when we keep the Lord first, when we keep the main thing the main thing.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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