He is Able to Make You Stand

Who are you to judge another's servant?
To his own master he stands or falls.
Indeed, he will be made to stand,
For God is able to make him stand.
Romans 14:4, NKJV

There are alot of things left up to the conscience of the believer. Paul talks about eating meat and observing special days, and informs his readers that the one who eats the meat in good conscience should not look down on the one who doesn't eat, and that the one who doesn't eat shouldn't despise the one who does. And whether we observe special days or not, we should do everything as unto the Lord. For the Lord is our master, and the one we should seek to please.

There are alot of choices the Lord gives me, alot of areas where He says, "You know my word, You have my Spirit, and You hear my voice. What are you going to do with them?" I'm not talking about sin, the obvious Thou Shalt Nots, or the commandments of the Lord. I'm talking about other things, the things that aren't of eternal consequence. I'm not going to start naming them; that's not the point. The point is, each Christian must make up their minds what they will allow and what they won't allow themselves to do in matters of conscience.

And then live by faith and grace, demonstrating devotion to God and love for others.

We spend too much time trying to get everyone around us to conform to our standard of "holiness" and "godliness". We draw a line that indicates where each person must measure up, and then we shake our heads and cluck our tongues in dismay when they don't. But this is exactly the thing Paul was talking about, and exactly what Jesus was talking about when he said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." They weren't talking about upholding good, Biblical godly standards; they were talking about setting ourselves as the standard.

And the thing Paul wants us to understand is that the One who measures us is God. The One we must please is God. Each person must determine how they themselves are going to do that, and let everyone else do the same. And if a person stands or falls, he does so to God, not to me. We get so disappointed with people when they fail to live up to our expectations, but is God whom they are serving. We critique, and even criticize, the walks of others, when we really need to realize that God is the only one who can judge the sincerity and integrity of a person's heart.

If they stand, they stand for God and with Him, and by His grace. If they fall, they fall in His presence upon His grace. We could learn alot by remembering that we do the same, that we fall--or stand--by the boundless grace of the Divine. That He is our help, our support, our strength, our safety. He is our shelter, our defense, our healer, our shield, our source, our supply. He is our provider, our protector, our sustainer, our savior. And He alone is able to make us stand!