Can you imagine the world we would live in if just the Christians in the world concentrated on pleasing their neighbor? Not all the people in the world, but just the Christians. I’ll say this, if we would be more concerned with pleasing our neighbor, having the grace of Christ with others, there’d be a lot more Christians in the world.Paul goes on to say that our role model is Christ. Christ who was strong, became weak for our sake.We talk about it being hard to hold our temper or our tongue, maybe for some it’s hard to hold our fists. But how hard do you think it was for Christ to allow Himself to go through being tortured and crucified when He could have thrown off the ropes that held them and turned His torturers to ash with just a thought. But He didn’t because He loved each and everyone of us enough to die so we wouldn’t.But go on, let that temper, or that tongue, or that fist fly. Go on, ‘cause it’s all about us right?Wrong!
Look at verse seven, read it and commit it not just to memory, but commit it to your life. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. Do every thing to God’s glory because it’s not about us.
Did Jesus die on the cross for us to be able to go around glorifying ourselves?That’s kind of a trick question, because yes He did. Jesus died on that cross so we could be hateful, ugly, opinionated, self-serving donkeys and not go to hell. However, because Jesus died on that cross so we could be hateful, ugly, opinionated, self-serving donkeys, we should be trying not to be. Because it’s not about us.