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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Conscience And Christian Maturity

Drinking And Laying Down Rights

Online Criticism And Unity

Wolves Versus Bite And Devour

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Alright, day four, Ephesians 5, beginning in verse 13. Paul says, For you were called to freedom, brothers. Again, we've talked about this this entire chapter. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. And he says, For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. So this is really a question of maturity. Um there there are a lot of things in the Bible that are a matter of conscience, okay? In Corinthians, Paul's going to talk about food sacrificed to idol. He talks about strong people and weak people, and should you eat food sacrificed to an idol or not? And what he's saying is, as hard as this is to swallow, that there are some things that are okay for some people and not okay for others, and it's just based on their own personal conviction with the Lord. And while Christ has died on the cross and been resurrected from the grave, he has cleansed us of our sin and imputed us with his righteousness, and we should be walking in freedom. The question of maturity is then, but am I using this freedom as an excuse to actually just feed my flesh? And it goes beyond me. Am I abusing my freedom in such a way that would hinder or hurt some brothers that are around me? So again, go back to yesterday's conversation with language. Are you free to use some language? Yeah, depending as as long as it's building others up and as long as it fits the equation. But is your freedom in your language causing other brothers to stumble because they don't understand that? Well, if so, then you, like Philippians chapter 2 says, you should consider others as more important than yourself, and you should willingly be able to set aside your freedom in that moment in order to serve others. Another one I see all the time is this drinking. Now, listen, is it a sin to drink? There's you have to do some serious Bible gymnastics to try to make the Bible say that it is a sin to drink. I mean, we could go through the text, but I don't have time. However, if you know that the people around you have a problem with it, and yet you know that we are free to drink as long as you don't get drunk or you don't become a slave to it in any way, shape, or form, and yet you think your freedom is more important than your brother's walk, then in essence, what you're doing is you're doing the opposite of what Jesus did for us. That Jesus laid down all of his freedoms and he went to the cross for the sake of you and me. And so what maturity calls us to do is to love your neighbor as yourself. And so when Paul says the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, is if we did all of that, then we would not even need the commandments. You don't have to have a commandment to not lie and not steal and not murder and not covet and not bear false witness. If you actually just love your brother more than you love what you get to do. And then he ends it this way: he says, But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. When I read this verse, all I can think about is the biting and devouring between people that claim that they are Christ's followers. They're biting and devouring one another online. Everybody's a critic of what everybody else does without knowing who the people are. Everybody has a comment, everybody has a snide remark. And Jesus tells us in John 17 that they, being the world, will know that we are Christians by our love for one another. So I want to challenge you when it comes to your conduct online or what you fill up your ears with in the podcast you listen to. May we not be people who bite and devour one another. Because in doing so, in our biting and devouring, we ourselves will be consumed. Now, again, there's a big old difference between identifying a wolf and protecting wounded sheep. Kyle just did a whole episode uh on that, the the guy running for office in Texas, who is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He is misrepresenting Christ, he is misrepresenting Bible verses, he is claiming all kinds of sick things, and he is a leader in a position that is trying to lead people astray. Okay, I think in situations like that, that is a guy that you go after for the sake of loving the people that actually know Jesus. No problem there. But please don't be the kind of person that abuses your kind of freedom with your opinions and everything to bite and devour one another. Because in doing so, you will be the one that gets eaten alive. May we pursue Christ. And as we pursue Christ, may we pursue unity in Christ. Not uniformity. There's all kinds of different folks, but may we pursue unity in Christ.

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