13Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. 14As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. 15If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. 16Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil.** 17For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.
It amazed me. Paul here is writing to believers about living lives to serve one another in love. I think that we in the modern day American Church have completely lost that idea. It appears that everyone and every church does whatever it want's to do and has no regard for what other brothers and sisters in Christ may be feeling. The whole idea of clean and unclean foods is the example that Paul was using, but couldn't it apply to a whole lot more than just that? Its about anything that we do inside of our relationships amongst the body of Christ. And here is the kicker for me - God tells us that the kingdom that He is laying out is of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. That sounds awesome, but I feel that we have to take it in context. A huge part of belonging to the kingdom of God is living in righteousness, peace and joy with other believers. Thats why v. 18 is there - because if we are truly loving our neighbors as ourselves and striving to live in harmony with them through righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, that is when our service to Christ is pleasing to God and acceptable to men. If we strive to live lives full of integrity and sincerity before other followers of Christ, then we are living lives that other followers can see as being transformed by Christ. They can see that we aren't being nice to them in an attempt to get a need or want fulfilled. We aren't pulling anyones leg. We are deceiving people into thinking that we care when we really don't. I think that is when we are living lives that honor Christ and are worthy of the Kingdom of God.
**I decided not to highlight this verse because this is something that we American Christians are already way to good at - we will let anyone know when our "rights" or "preferences" seem like they are being violated by someone else - even if it is something as menial as the seat we have in church or the color of the new carpet.
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