Title: Practical Love/ Topic: Brotherly Love

Today's Reading: Job 35; Job 36; 1 Corinthians 7; 1 Corinthians 8

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 8:9-13
9 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? 11 So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12 When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.

Observation/Application: Sacrificial love and deference toward others goes against our cultural norms but we are called to live out these qualities as Christians. Our own preferences or knowledge of theological truth is never the measuring stick of whether or not we can engage in certain activities when we are with other s in the Body of Christ. Love is the measuring stick. We are to consider the understanding, maturity and background of a person before we do anything that may cause them to stumble. A modern day example (since we don't sacrifice animals anymore) would be the drinking of wine with dinner. Certain Christians have been taught it is absolutely ungodly and immoral. Others have struggled with overcoming addiction to alcohol. There is nothing in scripture to support that drinking wine is sinful, in fact Jesus drank wine. Getting drunk is mentioned as being sinful but not drinking in moderation. But if my knowledge of that fact gives me the freedom to drink wine, I am constrained by love not to do so if I know it will offend or harm a brother or sister. To serve wine at a dinner where there is a person present who has struggled with addiction to it is to put them in peril of being caught up in that trap again. Out of love, I limit my freedom to protect my brother. It's a very practical principle which applies to many areas.

Prayer: Father, teach us to love in deed and in truth. May we care for one another enough to find out what the other people around us struggle with so that we may love and serve them in practical ways.
This I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.