Legal Obedience.

Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

Romans 14:4 (NIV)

There is an abundance of legal judges in the Christian body these days, believers who equate godly service and legal obedience as one, which shouldn’t be.

Recently a few friends and I had a discussion (more like an argument) about doctrines, using believers’ assessments of their fellow believers’ modes of worship.

That some believers don’t pray like you pray in your denomination doesn’t mean God doesn’t hear their prayer. That they don’t speak English language in that church near you doesn’t make them “local” to God. That somebody is not dancing like you doesn’t mean their praise is not acceptable to God. That they don’t worship on the same day as you doesn’t mean they’re going to hell (every day belongs to God).

Living a life solely based on legality makes someone slave of the Law and not a partaker of the liberty offered by grace, because grace has provided us with the ability to do things not because the law says so, but because we now have the Spirit of God within us, are subject to His leadings, and are helped to know he right thing to do at all times.

There are different ways of serving God, and all are acceptable as long as they are done with a genuine and sincere spirit (not in eye service).

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

John 4:24 (NIV)

Worship/Service goes beyond what one does in any church denomination. It is a thing of Spirit and of Truth. It is a thing of the heart.

The best service to give to God is to be holy, blameless, upright and obedient to the Father’s will.