Romans 14:5-9
One person values one day above another. Another person values every day the same. Let each person be fully convinced in his own mind. The person who honors a certain day does this for the Lord, and the person who eats does this for the Lord, because he gives thanks to God. And the person who does not eat does this for the Lord and gives thanks to God. In fact, not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself. Indeed, 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. For this reason he died, rose, and lived, to be Lord of both the dead and the living.
Dear Heavenly Father,
You have given us the latitude to love you with our Christian freedom. We can come together to worship you on any day of the week. While Paul tells us elsewhere, for the group’s order, we come together with a group consensus to do things (1 Corinthians 14:40), like worship on days we have decided. So we have the liberty to choose any day of the week. It is a tradition of the first century Christians we choose Sunday, the first day of the week, because it was on that day when our Savior rose in victory over the grave after Jesus died for all our sins.
However, at the same time, saying, “I want to worship in my own way, by myself,” would contradict your passage from the writer of Hebrews who said, “do not give up meeting together as some are in the habit; of doing.” Lord, keep us from using our Christian freedom as a license to sin. Saying we are showing our love to you by choosing something for ourselves and using that to excuse ourselves from you, especially when those actions do not display our love to you or others. Lord, forgive our selfish ways.
Christian freedom is what we do to love you above all other things—offering up our time, talents, and treasures out of love. We can choose to fast out of love to show our love for you. Or we can hold a feast, giving thanks for the blessings given from your hand. These things we do because of what Jesus has done for us. We hear his words: repent and be forgiven.
Lord, when we think about what you have done for us, our reaction should be a love reaction. We were condemned because of our sins and separated from you. You sent your Son to live a perfect life of love, then he died and suffered our punishment upon the cross. He rose victoriously from the grave to defeat death for us; Jesus forgave us all our sins, so we now have eternal life and salvation. So we hear your words and love you for Jesus’ sake. Your commandments are now our guide in demonstrating how to love. As Paul said, “so whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” We belong to you out of faith the Spirit has given us.
We pray for your Spirit today; please give us the courage to use our Christian freedom to share your love with others. So, they too will know Jesus as their Savior and King, who suffered and died for their sins, and they will love you in return. Lord, today, as we share your gospel seeds with others, please make those seeds prosper. Amen
Written through Pastor Roger Emmons
Christian freedom is loving God. It’s not a sin license like saying, “I love my spouse; for their birthday, I’m going with my friends, but my spouse will be in my heart.” Instead, our freedom shows our love, like when you make a cake or a card for their birthday.