God wants His disciples to be unified in peace. This daily devotional looks at how humility, love, and faith promote peace and why that is important.
Nuggets
- Humility, love, and faith promote peace.
- Because God’s disciples are united in peace, His work can be completed in a timely manner.
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Paul has been working with his readers to who them that they needed to be unified. He has warned all not to be judgmental. He has told the strong in faith not to bite on those who are weak in their faith.
In the last devotion, Paul began to discuss how our actions impact the kingdom of God. Here, he continues to discuss the effects as disciples are called to pursue peace.
Let's Put It into Context #1
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
The Promotion of Peace
“So then, let us pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another” (Rom. 14: 19 CSB)
Humility, love, and faith promote peace.
In the previous couple of verses, Paul had been talking about righteousness, peace, and joy. He continues on with the topic of peace. I can see that because what builds up peace builds love.
We talked in the last devotion that we need the righteousness to be able to find peace. Tarson added humility, love, and faith to the list. Lyth said these are the things that instruct us.
Resource
Humility is a character trait that diminishes pride and places dependence on God while holding a modest view of our importance with respect to others. It is that quest for importance that tends to amp up the stress. The humility diminishes the pull of this world and puts our focus on God, creating the environment in which the peace can thrive.
Love will also grow in that environment. Not only is God righteousness, but God is also love. Love and peace go hand in hand.
God is going to offer His love freely to each and everyone of us. But we have to reach out and grab it. That is what faith is about. Faith is the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives.
Oh, yeah. Faith isn’t easy. We will have to grow it.
Growing the peace in our lives isn’t easy, either. This will take work. We will have to keep our temper in check. We can’t go out looking for skirmishes.
Lyth gave us, instead, a list of what gives us peace.
- We all have essentials in our lives that promote peace. My essentials are my family and my church family. I get peace from being around them.
- There are things we all want and that gives us peace. We all want happiness. We want to be able to provide for those for whom we are responsible.
- God blesses us in so many ways, which brings us peace. The blessings provide us happiness with give us a peaceful outlook on life.
Resource
There is some element of choice in being peaceful. We choose to put our trust in God, which brings us peace.
The Reason for the Peace
“Do not tear down God’s work because of food. Everything is clean, but it is wrong to make someone fall by what he eats” (Rom. 14: 20 CSB)
Because God’s disciples are united in peace, His work can be completed in a timely manner.
Paul was limiting his admonition to don’t be contentious about food. We could substitute any number of things into the sentence.
We have to be very, very careful. We don’t want to have the focus taken off of God and His work and put onto us and our petty earthly squabbles.
We want to make sure we are doing God’s work on His timetable. We don’t want to derail His plan.
More than that, we don’t want to damage the ministry of the church. Have you ever heard of someone saying a non-believer wouldn’t go to a certain church because of the way the members acted? How many times do non-believers call disciples hypocrites?
Paul was tying this back to the judging because disciples felt something was unclean. Cleanness has to do with the Israelites remaining holy.
Glossary
This is all about remaining sin-free. No, we still sin. Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
The key is asking God’s forgiveness. Forgiveness is, when we ask, God pardons us because we have shown repentance for breaking His laws and commandments.
Glossary
I think Paul is also reminding us that people are very important to God. Whether they are a strong disciple or a weak disciple today isn’t how He sees them. He sees them as perfected.
Yes, we may be weak, but we are as God made us. Yes, we may we strong, but we may be fall into temptation and lose our way.
Making the Connections
Lyth gave us pointers on how to keep peace within the family of God.
- When we know situations will be continuous, steer clear of them.
- Be encouragers rather than detractors.
- Put loving others over being right and performing some activity.
Resource
How Do We Apply This?
- Earnestly strive for humility, love, and faith.
- Have a strong prayer life.
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We’ve got to keep as a priority God and His mission for us. In order to accomplish it, we have to work together.
Father God. We love You, Lord. We humbly come before You, thanking You that You are love, which will promote an environment for peace for us. Help us to work together to complete the work You have called us to do. Amen.
What do you think?
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