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Pastor's Blog October 21, 2021
"View of God in Romans XXXIII"#
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It can be challenging to figure out what are your life priorities. New Year's resolutions fit comfortably into this category: goals you want to achieve, which usually require you to decide what values are most important to you. What has often been proposed for Christians is to figure out what the priorities of God's kingdom are, and then adopt those for your life. But what are those kingdom priorities which God holds so dear?
Paul states matter-of-factly in Romans 14:17, "For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (NASB). Up to this point in Romans 14, Paul has been discussing the ramifications of food eaten or not eaten, as well as days observed or not observed, for our relationships with each other. You can tell these were important topics to early Christians. Paul spends a great deal of time talking about the various issues associated with these subjects, which suggests that the early Christians were also quite animated on these topics.
We can probably relate to what Paul is saying here, because believers today also get very animated over issues which we believe are incredibly important items for the Christian life: the kind of music in the worship service, who gets to sit on the church board, how many ministries will the church support, women in leadership, race relations, social awareness vs. "preaching the gospel" - even for Adventists, we can also get excited over the issues of health (eating meat vs. a vegetarian or vegan diet), how to observe Sabbath, and why other parts of the Jewish calendar shouldn't (or for some should) be observed. But Paul is saying it's all bunk compared to what is truly important in God's kingdom.
What God focuses on are not these issues, but "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." God wants to make us righteous by causing us to share in his righteousness. God wants to give us peace so we'll accept his love and accept ourselves in the light of that love. And God wants to fulfill our joy by giving us a relationship with himself that we can truly enjoy.
Friends, I invite you to make the priorities of God's kingdom your own today, and accept his righteousness, peace, and joy into your lives.
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God bless,
Pastor Nathaniel Gamble
