What Is Essential?

What Is Essential?
Romans 14:1-12

1 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.

2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.

3 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.

4 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.

5 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.

6 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.

7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone.

8 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.

9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.

11 It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me;      every tongue will acknowledge God.’”

12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

Is it OK to have a difference of opinion and to disagree?

Is it OK to judge or condemn anyone?

Please do not judge anyone in matters that are not essential. 

What is essential?
Loving God and loving one another.

We must continue to fellowship with them … do not ignore them. 

We are to accept, to love and to be in harmony with them.  

Are you prepared to do that?

Will you decide to love each other even though they don't agree with you? 

Will you ask the Lord to forgive you for being so judgemental? 

We must seek the Lord and His abounding love so that we might share His abundant love with each other. "We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar."  (1John 4)