Desire To Live

Freedom
1 Corinthians 6 says that all things are lawful as long you do it in moderation. 1 Timothy 4 says that all things God created is good if it is received with thanksgiving and prayer. Jesus says in Mark 7 states that it's not what goes into a man that makes him unclean but the evil that comes out from his heart that makes him unclean. Looking at these passages, I can try to understand the freedom we have in Christ. A little while ago I was told by someone interested in the Hookah study that they heard from someone else that it was a slacker Bible Study. Their source told them that we just hang out and smoke the hookah, and try to revolve a Bible study around that. I was confused as to why other Christians said stuff like this. Anyone who has ever come to a Hookah study knows that I spend hours on end to prepare for the Bible study and make it so that it is challenging to mature believers yet simple to newcomers and even appealing to non-christians. Most of us don't even smoke the hookah. I always told people that the Hookah study isn't for everybody, likewise a small group isn't for everybody either. But, I get concerned when people start gossiping about other Christians and how they want to get to know God. With that said, Paul says in Romans 14 that it is good not to eat meat or to drink wine which will cause your brother to stumble. We have to be careful and take that as a warning in not going overboard with anything. I have been trying to learn how to do this: have the freedom yet be reserved to not cause a brother to stumble. The answer comes in Romans 14:6,"...The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God." And correlating that passage with the 2Tim. passage, it can be seen that if we do something with thanksgiving and prayer and to honor God and not our self, we do it the right way.

Hypocricy
This brings us to hypocricy. I have seen so many friends who reject God because of the hypocricy that they saw within Christian circles. I personally couldn't stand Christianity at one point because of Christians saying one thing and then doing another. One of the strongest passages in the Bible is when Jesus taught saying that we should not look at the speck in another person's eye when we have a log in our own eye. Matthew 7:5, "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." He calls these people hypocrites because they were too busy trying to fix everyone else before they fixed themselves. I heard a message reently in which the pastor said that we have to first be focused on changing ourselves, then on having an impact on our family, then our church (brothers and sisters in Christ), and then our land (mission field). We can't skip step 1 and go straight to step 3 or step 4 because that will bring out our hypocricy. Most of all, let God be the one guiding us, not our own motives.