No, You Lay Down YOUR Rights

Why I Need To Stop Muttering To Myself

March 2, 2o16 — 1 Corinthians 10:23–30

“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. For “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience — I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?

There is nothing more frustrating than hitting a passage of scripture that you would like to line up a little better with your point of view that would excuse your behavior. I love to go to 1 Corinthians 9 and talk about how we are free to do just about anything, without remembering the important caveat in 1 Corinthians 10. Frankly, I just want to get my own way today. The fact that I feel misunderstood and sidelined at times frustrates me. I want people to see things from my point of view. I want people to affirm my feelings and tell me I’m not stupid.

I probably come off being pretty confident most of the time, but in reality I really want people to like me, I really want to be affirmed for who I am. Maybe that makes me an overly sensitive person. I don’t know. I just have to openly admit that I really suck at getting outside of my own head and actually loving people. The reality is that while all things are lawful, not all things are loving. I am called to lay down what I want, or what I think I need in love for others.

Normally I have been using this space to make sweeping remarks on how we should be spurred onto deeper communion with Christ and His body. Honestly I don’t have it today. You can stop reading now. I feel so inadequate to say anything of substance today. Frankly I am in a place where it would be really nice to stand up for my rights and just be justified in feeling the way that I feel. But I have to stand on Scripture. I have to believe that just because I am free to do something doesn’t mean that it is the loving thing to do.

I want my way to be seen as right. I want people to come to the same conclusions that I come to. I wish that all it would take is a passionate appeal backed up with solid reason, but honestly, the fact that I want to change people’s minds and have them come to my conclusions betrays my sinful desire to have my way.

I constantly justify myself.

I tell myself that I have already done so much to lay down my rights. I feel like I am the only one giving up any ground or doing anything to try and be loving. Shouldn’t other people do the same? Shouldn’t I expect my other Christian brothers and sisters to start laying down some of their rights and start seeing things from my point of view?

Please forgive my selfishness.

Honestly, a lot of the time I just feel like a scared little kid trying to have his voice heard. I’m sorry that I use the Bible as a weapon to block the blows that I feel coming ahead of time. Please forgive my inability to lay down my rights out of love for you. It is wrong. It is against what I believe.

If I am one with Christ, I ought not to feel like I should get my own way. I have the reality of Christ as my all, and for that reason I lack nothing. It is so easy for me to get caught up in the life lived by sight. It is so easy to feel slighted and hurt and believe the unreality of lacking something. I do not need you to lay down your rights for me, because Jesus already did that. He had the right to eternal praise and adoration, and instead laid them down out of love for us.

Since I have taken on the atoning incarnational life of Christ, I get to enter into that reality of laying down what I deserve (regardless if I do deserve it or not). The life lived in the Spirit is not interested in what I am owed, but rather in what is loving to others. Please forgive the expectations I have placed on you out of my life lived by sight.

This has been a personal example of what my rights are. I get how this passage is about meat sacrificed to idols, and often is used about alcohol. Honestly though, today it is a reminder that I don’t really believe that I have everything in Christ. The difficulty of laying down our rights is based on how strong our belief that we need those rights to be whole.