If our goal is to glorify God, we cannot be caught up in dissension, disagreements, or arguments, especially about trivial matters. Instead, we should accept each other just as Christ has accepted us—there is to be no one-sided acceptance. All are to accept one another and live in harmony. At one time, we all were weak. And many strong believers are still weak in some areas. Christ is our model of what acceptance means. When we realize that Christ accepted us, as unlovely and sinful and immature as we were when we came to him, then we will accept our brothers and sisters.
The world sits up and takes notice when believers of widely differing backgrounds practice Christlike acceptance. In this, God will be glorified. Paul felt compelled to remind his readers that the greatest example of harmony brings both Jews and Gentiles under the lordship of Christ. Jesus came as a servant to the Jews to show that God is true to the promises he made to their ancestors. .
SO WHAT? (what will I do with what I have read today?)
Read the verses below. Combided with the passae from today, what do they say to your heart?
“He who guards his mouth controls himself, but he who opens his lips comes to ruin” Proverbs 13:3 (GN)
“Intelligent people think before they speak. What they say then is more persuasive.” Proverbs 16:23 (GN)
“You will have to live with the consequences of everything you say.”
Proverbs 18:20 (GN)
”An honest answer is the sign of a true friendship.”
Proverbs 24:26 (GN)
“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the head,that is Christ.” Ephesians 4:15 (NIV)
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“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Ephesians 4:29 (NIV)
“But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” Hebrews 3:13 (NIV)
Jesus: ”The things that come out of your mouth come from your heart.”Matthew 15:18 (NCV)
“See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” Hebrews.12:15 (NIV)
I am a Jew and a Unitarian Universalist. As a secular Jew and a religious humanist, many main-stream Christians would regard me as an
ReplyDeleteatheist. My argument that the Abrahamic God and the personal God are limited by our anthropomorphic definition and thus made in
our image, rather than the other way around may make me an anathema to Christian fundamentalists, but I am heartened by your
embracing all of God's children (and I use the word 'God' deliberately and with respect its representation of the Divine). We may
disagree on what constitutes the trivial, but as a Universalist, I believe that the greatest sin is the creation of "the Other" and that there
must be an "Us versus Them."
The Rev. Thomas Starr King, who spoke zealously in favor of the Union, was credited by Abraham Lincoln with preventing California from
becoming a separate republic and is sometimes referred to as "the orator who saved the nation" was one of the first Unitarian AND
Universalist ministers. He pithily described both, saying that “The difference between Universalists and Unitarians is that Universalists
believe that God is too good to damn men, and Unitarians believe that Man is too good to be damned.”
I am a Universalist because I believe what you have written, that "we should accept each other just as Christ has accepted us, ... [and all]
... are to accept one another and live in harmony."