Servants of God

Servants of God
Genesis 50:15-21; Psalm 103:1-13; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

We are servants of God, right? As Christians we have been given the calling to represent Christ in the world. Yet we tend to get caught up in the silliness of pointing out the differences. We fight over how some as followers of Christ honor our Lord. Romans 14:1-12 speaks exactly to this issue in the early church. Different groups were arguing about things of conscience and not being willing to compromise on things that had nothing truly to do with salvation. Paul wrote to the followers advising against this.
We live in a divided world and a divided Church. Denominationalism and theological differences of opinion continually stand in the way of the world being able to experience Christ fully. What Paul saw is exactly what he was speaking out against within Romans 14:1-12. What can be seen consistently within the history of Christianity is the strife of humans vying to know the mind of God. How vain of a people are we? With Christ at the center hearts are driven to do that which is pleasing to Christ. The Holy Spirit compels us away from those things that dishonor God. Now the sinful nature that tries to compel us and control us mustn’t control us any longer. It no longer has a hold on us because we have been freed in Christ. The danger of this denominationalism is the danger of basing faith focused on differences not on Christ. We, as followers of Christ, are to do that which the Holy Spirit compels us to do to glorify Christ with one test and one test only the Word of our Lord. Let us focus on being servants of God.