1. Check Tumblr until your feed stops refreshing
2. Scroll through Pinterest until it has to “fetch more pins”
3. Check Facebook.
Repeat until morning.
| — | Winston |
Just because YOU feel convicted to ONLY listen to Christian music, doesn’t mean that it’s wrong for someone else with different convictions to listen to other types of music. It does not say anywhere in the Bible that it is a sin to listen to music that is not Christian, but if you feel convicted, then for you, it is a sin.
There are certain things that we, as Christians, are ALL commanded to do. We should help each other (lovingly and not in a ‘holier than thou’ way) stay on the right track. Remember though, it’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, not ours. We are called to LOVE, not point out every single little thing that someone is doing wrong.
Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister[d]or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it,but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
-James 4:11-12
Maybe I feel convicted to dance on my head and you don’t. What if I treated my conviction like a commandment and decided that every Christian that doesn’t dance on their head is sinning?
If you don’t follow YOU’RE convictions, you’re sinning; if others do not share the same convictions and don’t follow yours, they are not sinning.
If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
-James 4:17
Stop trying to push your own convictions on others as if they need to follow them as well. The Lord has all called us for different purposes and some require different preparation than others.
Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 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. 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. 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. 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. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 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 very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.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. It is written:
“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will acknowledge God.’”[b]So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.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. 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.
Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.
So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin
-Romans 14
I saw fireworks tonight over the river. Though the town I live in shoots off fireworks every first Friday of the month, it meant more to me than that. It was a celebration of Jesus’ triumph over death and a sign of hope that resonates from the grace we were freely given.
“it is finished”
Gods wrath was poured out
We are forgiven
Death couldn’t shake him
What a beautifully woven together love story
in the words of Matt Thiessen:
“The beauty of Grace is that it makes life not fair”