Pray:
Ask God to orient or reorient you to Himself. Confess any known sin. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Be still and reflect on Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to God’s Word. Pray for others in your life that they, too, would know and love God today.
Read:
Let’s close the week out by reading our passage again, but this time from Phillips N.T.. As you do, think about the things God has brought to your mind over the week. Ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you.
Romans 14:13-23,
This should be our attitude:
“Let us therefore stop turning critical eyes on one another. Let us rather be critical of our own conduct and see that we do nothing to make a brother stumble or fall. I am convinced, and I say this as in the presence of the Lord Jesus, that nothing is intrinsically unholy. But nonetheless it is unholy to the man who thinks it is. If your habit of unrestricted diet seriously upsets your brother, you are no longer living in love towards him. And surely you wouldn’t let food mean ruin to a man for whom Christ died. You mustn’t let something that is all right for you look like an evil practice to somebody else. After all, the kingdom of Heaven is not a matter of whether you get what you like to eat and drink, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you put these things first in serving Christ you will please God and are not likely to offend men. So let us concentrate on the things which make for harmony, and on the growth of our fellowship together. Surely we shouldn’t wish to undo God’s work for the sate of a plate of meat! I freely admit that all food is, in itself, harmless, but it can be harmful for the man who eats it and so upsets the faith of others. We should be willing to be both vegetarians and teetotallers or abstain from anything else if by doing otherwise we should impede a brother’s progress in the faith. Your personal convictions are a matter of faith between yourself and God, and you are happy if you have no qualms about what you allow yourself to eat. Yet if a man eats meat with an uneasy conscience, you may be sure he is wrong to do so. For his action does not spring from his faith, and when we act apart from our faith we sin.
Apply:
Now think about the following questions:
What does God want me to understand?
What does God want me to believe?
What does God want me to desire?
What does God want me to do?
*From what you have just read and considered: What is a personal implication/application for your life today?
Live:
(Personalize this prayer today; make it specific to the circumstances that face you.)
Ask God to lead you through His Spirit as you go through your day. Ask Him to bring to mind the truth of the Gospel and its implications for what you will encounter today. Tell Him “Yes” to His will and ask Him for His power and protection to live this “yes.” Ask God to create and reveal opportunities to proclaim the good news today. KEEP PRAYING THROUGHOUT YOUR DAY.
Inspiration and insight for the devotionals came from the following books: Reading Romans with John Stott; The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World (The Bible Speaks Today Series), Stott, John; Romans (The NIV Application Commentary Book 6) Moo, Douglas J.; Encountering the Book of Romans: A Theological Survey (Encountering Biblical Studies) Moo, Douglas J.; Believers Bible Commentary; The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, with the New International Version, Romans through Galatians; NIV Application Study Bible. The Cambridge Bible Commentary, Romans, Best, Ernest. Romans 8-16 For You: For reading, for feeding, for leading (God’s Word For You – Romans Series Book 2, Keller, Timothy.