Belong to the Lord

DEVOTION

ROMANS

BELONG TO THE LORD

Rom 14:5-8

5 One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. 8 If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

Here again the difference between the Jew and the Gentile is at the heart of what Paul is talking about. The Jews Sabbath day is from sundown Friday to Sundown on Saturday. The Gentiles must have already decided to celebrate the resurrection day of Jesus which would have been Sunday. This is still the case today, but what matters is that both the Jews and the Gentiles belong to God. They are both convinced their chose of the Sabbath is correct and that is alright because they both celebrate God. Of course we gentiles celebrate Jesus and the Jews do not. We also have then, we included in the drinking of wine, with this abstaining from meat, which would be any unclean animal which the Jews continue to practice, while the gentiles have no such restrictions. Part of this which Paul talks about here in this letter to the Saints who are in Rome, he talked about in his letter to the Galatians. There was a group of Jewish believers who were teaching gentiles in order to become a believer, one must first become a Jew. This would mean circumcision as well as following the practices of Judaism. This would be the abstention of certain meats and celebrating the correct Sabbath day. What does all this have to do with us today? We might see it in light of all the variations of doctrine all the different denominations have. One main difference would be between the Calvinist and the Armenians. The Baptists and the Pentecostals. Then we have all the Evangelicals and the mainline denominations. We find so much to divide us it would seem we are all serving a different God. But the point Paul is making is that we are not serving different Gods, and all the differences are not such a  big deal and we need to see that we all are living unto the Lord. We all gives thanks to God for our lives. We all are also going to die unto the Lord. However we see the scriptures regarding permitting one thing or abstaining from something, we all know that it is the Lord who died on the cross for our sin. We all belong to the Lord. We do not belong to a denomination. We do not belong to the world. We do not belong to ourselves. We belong to the Lord.