Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Romans 14:19-23

Satan wants to divide and destroy the Church, the Apostle Peter described him as “a roaring lion looking to devour” (1 Peter 5:8) Be careful of divisions started over non-essential issues, don’t allow them to destroy the local Church. With that being said, we must also be careful not to cause divisions ourselves. Satan is looking for any reason to destroy your Church, destroy your family and destroy you! 

The Apostle Paul instructs us here, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “let us therefor follow pursue after these things which make for peace, and things which one may edify one another” The Church should be edifying one another, are you edifying to your Church or causing division? The word edification in the Bible, greek word “oikodomes” means to build up one another.  The Apostle Paul said to the Church of Thessalonia “Therefore encourage and build one another up, just as you are already doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

I’m going to give an example again at my local Church, there is a family that chooses not to celebrate Christmas, another family brought it to my attention that we should try to correct them. Based on Romans 14, I told them back then everyone has the freedom in Christ whether to celebrate Christmas or not. If they don’t want to celebrate Christmas that’s OK, and if they do want to celebrate Christmas, that’s OK also, everyone will be lead by their own conscience. When I said this, the other family was like, yeah that makes sense. And so we moved on without making an issue or division about it. We could have easily blown this up into a bigger issue, and probably caused division within the Church, however its not necessary. Let us edify one another as the body of Christ and not try to destroy one another

The root of the problem, Paul addresses with a question “Do you have faith?” (v22) Is your salvation so weak that eating pork or celebrating Christmas will send you to Hell? Or is our salvation in the works of Christ on the cross? When Jesus said “It Is Finished” (John 19:30) Do you not believe him? Many of these issues are due to weakness in faith, we must truly put our salvation in Christ alone and nothing else!

As the Apostle Paul ends with a strong rebuke, “for whatever is not from faith is a sin” If we are not living by faith in Christ, then we are trying to live by works, which will not save us! Edify your brothers and sisters in The Lord because Christ Is Risen! The debt has been paid, repent and become Born Again by faith in Christ, Amen!