I’m Entitled #Not
1 Corinthians 8:9-13 But be careful with your freedom. Your freedom to eat anything may make those who have doubts about what they can eat fall into sin. You understand that it’s all right to eat anything, so you can eat even in an idol’s temple. But someone who has doubts might see you eating there, and this might encourage them to eat meat sacrificed to idols too. But they really think it is wrong. So this weak brother or sister—someone Christ died for—is lost because of your better understanding. When you sin against your brothers and sisters in Christ in this way and you hurt them by causing them to do things they feel are wrong, you are also sinning against Christ. So if the food I eat makes another believer fall into sin, I will never eat meat again. I will stop eating meat, so that I will not make my brother or sister sin.
It’s easy these days with the “I’m entitled” mentality that pervades our culture to read the Bible through that very same “I’m entitled” lens, to perceive the things of God in completely the wrong way.
It’s difficult to recall a time when society – when even the church – has been more polarised, more passionately divided, over controversies. But even way back in the 1st Century AD, as Christianity was emerging out of Judaism, controversy and division were a thing in the fledgling church movement. Writes the Apostle Paul:
1 Corinthians 8:9-13 But be careful with your freedom. Your freedom to eat anything may make those who have doubts about what they can eat fall into sin. You understand that it’s all right to eat anything, so you can eat even in an idol’s temple. But someone who has doubts might see you eating there, and this might encourage them to eat meat sacrificed to idols too. But they really think it is wrong. So this weak brother or sister—someone Christ died for—is lost because of your better understanding. When you sin against your brothers and sisters in Christ in this way and you hurt them by causing them to do things they feel are wrong, you are also sinning against Christ. So if the food I eat makes another believer fall into sin, I will never eat meat again. I will stop eating meat, so that I will not make my brother or sister sin.
The more you read your Bible, the more you have to come to the conclusion that the only thing we’re entitled to is to lay down that “I’m entitled” attitude for Christ and for others.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
Blessed by this devotion?
Share it with a friend!
Respond