grey areas

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I would just like to add a few thoughts into the mix here

Just imagine that you where a parent and you had 3 young sons. Now boys will be boys and they like to play rough and have a wrestle every now and then. The problem is one of your sons has real trouble with controlling his temper and whenever he gets into a playful wrestle with His brothers it ends up in a violent fight when his temper snaps.

Now what do you do?

What if you take the bad tempered child aside and tell him not to wrestle again because he cannot keep his temper under control and when he looses it he hurts his brothers.

Then you take the other brothers aside and tell them not to wrestle with their bad tempered brother and to avoid wrestling when he is around, so as not to tempt their weak brother to join in. But that its ok for them to enjoy a fun wrestle by themselves.

Now one brother does not wrestle anymore because daddy said not to and its bad for me to wrestle. And the other brothers know its ok to have a wrestle only not around their bad tempered brother. So all brothers are sill in obedience to their daddy.

Now what if God, knowing that someone had a weakness to addictions, sends them conviction through the Holy Spirit to cease from engaging in any activity like drinking alcohol. But to another whom He knows has self control and is not vulnerable to addictions that its ok to drink.

I will say it again. If you have the Holy Spirit guiding you through your conscience then you will have no grey areas in your life. But another person can likewise be lead by the Holy Spirit and have no grey areas in their lives and both can have different views on disputable matters like drinking alcohol. Both can be right with God in their different views.

Romans 14:21

It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak.

When some people read the word stumble in this verse they tend to see the stumbling as referring only to the brother starting to eat meat or drinking wine. But lets think how else the brother can stumble?

If this brother sees you eating a meat or drinking an alcoholic drink they may stumble by condemning you as not a true follower of God. They may stumble by hating the meat eater or the one drinking alcohol. They may even believe that the Holy Spirit does not dwell in the other person and condemn them as not having the right Spirit within them.

All praise The Ancient Of Days

[Guest LadyC]

I have a question.

[Guest Kandi]

My question would be "What right do we have to examine one another or judge one another?" Seems to me that examining and judging are God's job and our job is to love one another.

Sometimes I think we are so busy deciding what the other guy should be or be doing that we don't pay much attention to our own state of affairs.

[Shyguy]

Kandi it really depends on what type of judging your doing there is simple judgement without knowing and yes that is wrong ... but there is also righteous judgement of the word and in that we are free in regards too.

The common phrase who are you to judge me, or that the bible says we should not judge must be taken in proper context. When it comes to God's word we judge accordingly...

Now ...

In regards to smoking etc ... Honestly, I see it no different than any other bad thing we do to our body. This is GOD's temple after all. Anything we do, laziness, bad food, smoking, excess alcohol, brings destruction to that which God built. I do not advocate smoking as no good comes from it, unlike alcohol when used properly. One should evalute your life and theirs as a whole and not pick on one aspect.

If you truly think about it, we all should be exercising, eating right, not smoking, drinking appropriately, watching less TV, and brushing our teeth. This body is no longer ours its his....

[Guest Kandi]

Hi shyguy

What you say is right. I know the things God wants us to do, I know the things we should do, not smoke, not drink, not foul our bodies, God's temples, I know the bible. There is much God wants for us. However, we don't always, often not do the things we should. I speak from what I do as a fallible human being, not what I should do, what God wants. I do my best like everyone else to do the things I should, what God wants. I live in a gray area some of the time, maybe a lot. Black and white separates me from other people. If I am wrong, so be it. I love God with all my heart and soul but He made me human weak fallible.

[Shyguy]

I am just as much a failure as anybody welcome to the crowd, but in him we are so many things other than failure...

Child, Prince, Princess, Free, Heirs to the throne ... just to name a few

Thank Goodness for he who loves us.

My whole point was that we as humans love to pick pet sins and harp on others when we should also look at our own bodies and consider how am I glorifying God in my habits? I am sure this is something we should all work on... Perhaps a thread entitled Body of Christ and how we together can work together in improving ourselves for him by taking care of what is his.

My apolgy I believe I have posted some info in the wrong threads...

Edited September 14, 2004 by Shyguy

[Guest Kandi]

You don't need to apologize shyguy

More than likely I was posting in error, not you. It was late and my thoughts were cloudy. I should have gone to bed instead of posting. And I apologize for perhaps getting into the wrong forum.

Child, Prince, Princess, Free, Heirs to the throne ... just to name a few Yes

Quote by shyguy

Perhaps a thread entitled Body of Christ and how we together can work together in improving ourselves for him by taking care of what is his.

This sounds like a good suggestion.

Edited September 14, 2004 by Kandi

[Guest Called]

I have a question.

[our3blessings]

Shyguy writes:

In regards to smoking etc ... Honestly, I see it no different than any other bad thing we do to our body. This is GOD's temple after all. Anything we do, laziness, bad food, smoking, excess alcohol, brings destruction to that which God built. I do not advocate smoking as no good comes from it, unlike alcohol when used properly. One should evalute your life and theirs as a whole and not pick on one aspect.

If you truly think about it, we all should be exercising, eating right, not smoking, drinking appropriately, watching less TV, and brushing our teeth. This body is no longer ours its his....

____________________________________________________________________

Wendy replies:

Hi! This post got me thinking... about our "body". Is the Bible referring to our physical body as the temple, or our spiritual body? I had always believed he was referring to our spiritual body. I'm just curious as to what other's thoughts are on this. :flowers:

Also, please forgive me, I have not learned to use the quote button yet! Hopefully soon, I can figure out these boards better! :bg:

[Guest Kandi]

Thank you called(Debbie?) sorry I am new here

You reminded me that with every passing week, month, year, there is something that I used to do that I no longer do because I have learned that it is not something that I want to do or that God does not want me to do. So my grey areas are becoming less and the clearer black and white becoming more.

But my calling is still not to examine others. Maybe to show by example. Maybe to be understanding, to hear, to help if asked.