Essay 92: Esteeming Days and Living Unto the Lord

Key Passage: Romans 14:5–9

“One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.” (Romans 14:5–9)

Introduction

There are passages in the Bible that religious men can quote fluently until the passage turns around and points a finger at them. Romans 14 is one of those passages. It is easy to preach against the other fellow’s liberty, easy to condemn his plate, his calendar, his custom, his scruple, his holiday, his abstinence, or his lack of abstinence, but Paul drags the whole discussion out of the church foyer and plants it squarely before the judgment of God. “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike” (Romans 14:5). There it is in black ink. Two saved men can look at the same day and come to two different conclusions without either one necessarily being in rebellion against God. One regards the day; another does not. One eats; another abstains. And instead of Paul creating a denomination for each side, printing membership cards, and starting a conference so everybody can condemn the people across town, the Holy Ghost says, “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” That verse is dynamite underneath the throne of every self-appointed pope who thinks his personal conviction should be stamped on everybody else’s forehead. Christian liberty does not mean everybody must agree with you. It means that where God has left room, you had better leave room too.

That does not mean truth is relative, doctrine is negotiable, or sin becomes righteous because somebody has “peace” about it. Paul is not discussing fornication, drunkenness, false doctrine, idolatry, dishonesty, or any other matter that God plainly condemns. You cannot hide rebellion under Romans 14 like a thief hiding stolen goods under his coat. The Bible does not say, “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind” about adultery, lying, blasphemy, or preaching another gospel. When God says, “Thou shalt not,” your private opinion has just been overruled. Romans 14 concerns matters where Scripture leaves room for individual conscience, and that distinction is the difference between Christian liberty and Christian anarchy. Liberty operates under the authority of Scripture; anarchy operates under the authority of self. The flesh loves to confuse those two because one lets it breathe and the other lets it rule. But Paul will not give the flesh that loophole. The believer is free from another man’s private rulebook, but he is never free from the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

That is the heartbeat of Romans 14:5–9. The issue is not merely what day you esteem or what food you put on the table. The issue is whether you can do what you do “unto the Lord.” Paul repeats that expression until it rings like a hammer on an anvil. Regard the day unto the Lord. Do not regard the day unto the Lord. Eat unto the Lord. Abstain unto the Lord. Live unto the Lord. Die unto the Lord. The passage takes something as ordinary as dinner and something as solemn as death and places both under the same Lordship. Christianity is not a Sunday coat hung in the closet six days a week. It reaches your calendar, your kitchen, your conscience, your habits, your gratitude, your living, and your dying. The Christian is not supposed to live with one eye on the crowd and one eye on the mirror. He is supposed to live with his eye on the Lord. The question is not, “What will people say if I do this?” nor, “What will people say if I refuse?” The question is, “Can I do it before Jesus Christ with a clean conscience and give God thanks?” Once that question gets settled, a great deal of religious noise becomes exactly what it always was—noise.

1. One Man Esteemeth One Day Above Another

Paul begins with the calendar because religious people have always loved calendars. Give religion enough time and it will turn dates, meals, garments, buildings, gestures, and ceremonies into measuring sticks for spirituality. “One man esteemeth one day above another” (Romans 14:5). Paul does not attack the man for doing it. He does not call him foolish, legalistic, ignorant, or immature merely because he regards a certain day with special significance. Perhaps his background, conscience, or understanding leads him to distinguish that day. Fine. The problem begins when the conviction that guides his own conduct becomes a club for beating another man’s conscience. A personal conviction can be a fence around your own life, but God never told you to use that fence to build a prison around everybody else. There is a world of difference between saying, “I cannot do that before the Lord,” and saying, “Therefore you cannot do it before the Lord either.” One is conscience; the other is control.

The Bible-believing Christian must learn that God may lead one believer to abstain from something another believer can receive with thanksgiving. That reality bothers people who want Christianity reduced to a laminated list taped to the refrigerator. Lists are easier than walking with God. Lists require no discernment. Lists require no prayer. Lists require no mature conscience. If every possible circumstance could be solved by a page of man-made regulations, there would be little need to “prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). But Paul is dealing with real saints living in a real world, and he refuses to pretend that every matter of conscience fits into the same shoe size. One man’s conviction may be perfectly sincere and perfectly lawful without becoming a universal commandment. God can govern His children without asking permission from the fellow three pews over.

The phrase “esteemeth one day above another” also exposes how quickly devotion can become performance. A man may begin by setting aside a day because he sincerely wants to honor God, and before long he is looking sideways to see whether everybody noticed. The moment devotion needs an audience, the flesh has slipped into the choir robe. The day is no longer being regarded unto the Lord; it is being displayed unto men. Jesus warned against that spirit long before Paul wrote Romans. Men can pray to be seen of men, fast to be seen of men, give alms to be seen of men, and make religious observances into public theater. The flesh is clever enough to wear sackcloth if sackcloth gets applause. Romans 14 drags the heart back before God. If you esteem the day, esteem it unto the Lord. If nobody ever compliments you, notices you, or agrees with you, can you still do it with thanksgiving? That is where conviction stops being costume jewelry and becomes something real.

2. Another Esteemeth Every Day Alike

Paul does not stop with the man who regards the day. He immediately turns to the other believer: “another esteemeth every day alike” (Romans 14:5). That fellow is not automatically rebellious because he refuses to attach spiritual weight to a date that another believer honors. He may look at the whole calendar and say, in effect, “Every day belongs to God.” There is biblical sense in that. “This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). Monday does not belong to the devil and Sunday belong to God. The Lord did not surrender Tuesday afternoon to the world, the flesh, and the devil because it was not printed in red on somebody’s religious calendar. Every sunrise comes from God. Every breath comes from God. Every day provides another opportunity to serve God. If a believer chooses to treat every day as the Lord’s day in the broad sense of belonging to Him, Paul does not condemn him.

But liberty has its own temptations. The man who esteems every day alike can become just as proud as the man who esteems one day above another. One says, “Look how dedicated I am because I observe this day,” and the other says, “Look how enlightened I am because I do not.” Different uniforms, same flesh. Pride can climb into either saddle. The religious man boasts in his observance; the liberated man boasts in his lack of observance. One worships his rule, and the other worships his freedom from the rule. Paul knocks both idols off the shelf by making Christ the center. The issue is not whether you can prove yourself stricter than another believer or freer than another believer. The issue is whether what you do is truly “unto the Lord.” Christian liberty is not a trophy to hold over a weaker brother’s head. If your liberty exists mainly so you can irritate somebody, you are not exercising liberty; you are exercising your flesh with a Bible verse taped to it.

This is where spiritual maturity requires something harder than arguing. It requires restraint. The strong brother knows he has liberty, but he also knows he does not have to parade it. A loaded pistol does not become more powerful because you wave it around the room. Likewise, liberty does not become more spiritual because you advertise it. Paul will later say, “Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God” (Romans 14:22). That is a verse modern Christianity could stand to tape across half its social media accounts. Some convictions should be lived, not announced. Some liberties should be enjoyed quietly, not brandished like campaign signs. You do not have to post your plate, defend your calendar, mock another believer’s scruples, or organize a theological parade every time you exercise freedom in a doubtful matter. If God gave you liberty, thank Him. Liberty that constantly demands an audience has already become bondage to human attention.

3. Let Every Man Be Fully Persuaded in His Own Mind

“Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind” (Romans 14:5) is one of those verses people quote carelessly until they turn it into a slogan for doing whatever they please. That is not what Paul means. Being “fully persuaded” is not the same thing as being stubborn, emotional, impulsive, or determined to get your own way. A drunk can be fully persuaded he needs another drink. A heretic can be fully persuaded his doctrine is right. A fool can be fully persuaded he is the smartest fellow in the room. Sincerity is not the final authority. The Word of God is. The believer must form his conscience under Scripture, prayer, sound doctrine, and a genuine desire to please Christ. The mind in Romans 14 is not a sovereign throne independent of revelation. It is the place where a believer reaches a settled conclusion before God concerning a matter Scripture has not directly commanded or forbidden.

A healthy conviction has roots. It is not a mood that blows in on Tuesday and blows out on Thursday. Paul says “fully persuaded,” not “temporarily excited.” Too many Christians borrow convictions the same way they borrow tools: from somebody else, for a while, until they forget where they got them. One preacher pounds a pulpit and suddenly forty people develop the same “personal” conviction at the same time. Six months later another preacher says something different and the whole flock migrates again. That is not persuasion; that is spiritual crowd control. A conviction worth having ought to survive when the preacher leaves the room. It ought to survive when your friends disagree. It ought to survive when there is no applause attached to it. If you cannot explain from Scripture and conscience why you do what you do, you may not have a conviction at all. You may simply have a borrowed preference wearing a necktie.

Being fully persuaded also means the believer should not violate his conscience merely to prove he is free. That is one of the most childish forms of spiritual pride. A man says, “I know this bothers my conscience, but I am going to do it anyway so nobody thinks I am legalistic.” Wonderful. He has traded one master for another. First he was afraid of the strict crowd; now he is afraid of the liberty crowd. In both cases men are ruling him. Paul wants the believer standing before God, not swinging like a weather vane every time public opinion changes direction. If you cannot do a thing in faith, do not do it. Romans 14:23 says, “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” A clear conscience is worth more than the applause of people who will not stand beside you at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Men can pressure you, flatter you, ridicule you, and label you, but they cannot answer for you when God calls your life into account.

4. The Day and the Diet Must Both Be Unto the Lord

Verse 6 presses the point home: “He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord.” There is the governing principle. The day is not the lord. The custom is not the lord. The conviction is not the lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. That distinction matters. A practice that begins as a means of honoring Christ can quietly replace Christ in the mind of the practitioner. The man becomes more passionate about defending the observance than he is about worshiping the Saviour the observance was supposed to honor. That is the religious disease in its mature stage. Men can fight over the wrapping paper and forget the gift. They can defend traditions, calendars, foods, clothing, and customs with a fury they never display when the deity of Christ or the gospel of grace is attacked. When a secondary matter gets more emotional energy than the Lord Himself, somebody has lost the plot.

Then Paul turns from the calendar to the kitchen: “He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks” (Romans 14:6). The eating is sanctified not by the sophistication of the menu but by thanksgiving before God. The Christian who receives his food as God’s provision recognizes the Giver behind the gift. Paul told Timothy that certain men would command “to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth” (1 Timothy 4:3). He then says, “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:4). Thanksgiving turns the ordinary meal into an acknowledgment of providence. The fork may be cheap, the plate may be chipped, and the food may be simple, but a believer who bows his heart before God has more spiritual understanding than a table full of religious experts arguing about what everybody else ought to eat.

Yet Paul also says, “he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks” (Romans 14:6). Notice that both men give thanks. That is the point people miss while they are busy choosing sides. One thanks God while eating; the other thanks God while abstaining. One receives; the other refrains. Two outward actions, one inward purpose. Christian unity is not always produced by identical behavior. Sometimes it is produced by different behavior governed by the same Lord. That truth is too deep for the religious mind that measures spirituality by externals alone. Religion wants everybody marching in identical shoes. Grace can tolerate different shoes as long as everybody is following Christ. God is not confused because two of His children make different choices in a lawful matter. He knows the motive. He sees the conscience. He hears the thanksgiving. Heaven does not need a denominational committee to help God figure out who sincerely honored Him.

5. Thanksgiving Exposes the Heart

Paul mentions thanksgiving twice in one verse because gratitude is a tremendous test of motive. “He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks” and “he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks” (Romans 14:6). Thanksgiving places the believer under God rather than over other believers. A thankful man is looking upward. A judgmental man is usually looking sideways. The moment your practice requires you to stare across the table and despise the fellow eating differently, your thanksgiving has probably gone missing. You cannot sincerely thank God for His grace while acting as though you are the dispensing agent of that grace to everybody else. Gratitude humbles. Pride inspects. Gratitude says, “Lord, thank you for what you have allowed me.” Pride says, “Lord, thank you that I am not like that fellow over there.” One sounds suspiciously like the Pharisee in Luke 18, and Christ had something to say about him.

Thanksgiving also exposes whether the act itself can be brought honestly before God. Can you thank God for it? Can you ask His blessing on it without playing games with your conscience? Can you say, “Lord, I receive this from Thy hand,” or “Lord, I abstain from this because I desire to honor Thee”? Those are searching questions. A great many things people defend as liberty would look rather awkward if they had to drag them into the throne room and give thanks for them. The flesh prefers technicalities. It asks, “Where does the Bible specifically say I cannot?” That is the language of a lawyer looking for a loophole, not a servant looking to please his Master. Christian maturity does not spend its life crawling along the fence asking how close it can get without falling over. It asks what glorifies God, what keeps the conscience clean, what edifies others, and what can be received with honest thanksgiving.

At the same time, abstinence without thanksgiving can become its own form of self-righteousness. A man can refuse a hundred things and still be proud as Lucifer. He can brag about everything he does not eat, does not drink, does not watch, does not attend, does not celebrate, and does not permit, while his heart is inflated like a parade balloon. There is no spiritual virtue in merely saying no. The question is why you say no and whom you are trying to please. The Pharisees had a long list of things they would not do, and Jesus still called them “whited sepulchres” (Matthew 23:27). Holiness is not an inventory of abstentions. Holiness is separation unto God. Sometimes that separation requires saying no; sometimes it requires receiving God’s gifts without superstitious fear. But in either case, thanksgiving keeps the heart facing the right direction. A grateful conscience is far safer than a proud rulebook.

6. None of Us Liveth to Himself

Paul now widens the lens beyond days and food: “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself” (Romans 14:7). That sentence demolishes the modern religion of self. The world says, “It is my life.” The Bible says, “No, it is not.” If you belong to Jesus Christ, your life is no longer private property. First Corinthians 6:19 asks, “know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you,” and verse 20 follows with, “For ye are bought with a price.” Bought men do not write their own ownership papers. Salvation is free to the sinner, but it cost the Saviour His blood, and the man He redeemed now belongs to Him. Christianity is not Jesus assisting you in becoming the center of your own universe. Christianity is Christ redeeming you out of that miserable little universe and bringing you under His Lordship.

“None of us liveth to himself” also means our actions affect other people whether we like it or not. A believer’s testimony touches his family, church, children, friends, weaker brethren, stronger brethren, and lost people watching from the outside. That does not mean we live as prisoners of public opinion, but it does mean Christian liberty is never permission to become careless about influence. Paul has already warned against putting “a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way” (Romans 14:13). A mature believer understands that the right to do something and the wisdom of doing it in a particular setting are not always the same thing. The flesh says, “I can.” Love asks, “Should I?” The flesh says, “Nobody can tell me what to do.” Grace asks, “Will this help or hurt my brother?” Liberty without charity becomes selfishness in church clothes.

There is a balance here that must be maintained. You do not live to yourself, but neither do you live as the property of everybody else’s scruples. Some Christians will be offended no matter what you do. If you eat, they are offended. If you abstain, somebody else is offended. If you speak, one crowd complains; if you remain silent, the other crowd complains. You cannot make human opinion your compass because human opinion spins faster than a cheap ceiling fan. Paul does not say, “Live unto everybody.” He says, “we live unto the Lord” (Romans 14:8). That is the anchor. Love considers the brethren, but Lordship governs the believer. If pleasing men becomes your supreme standard, Galatians 1:10 has already answered the matter: “for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.” We do not live unto ourselves, and we do not live unto the crowd. We live unto the Lord, and that position keeps both selfishness and people-pleasing in their proper graves.

7. Whether We Live or Die, We Are the Lord’s

“For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord” (Romans 14:8). Paul moves from the smallest matters of daily choice to the final event of earthly existence. The Lord who governs your supper governs your deathbed. The Lord who has authority over your calendar has authority over your coffin. Christianity is not compartmentalized because Christ’s Lordship is not compartmentalized. He does not own Sunday morning and lease the rest of the week back to you. He owns the believer entirely. Paul wrote in Philippians 1:20, “Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.” That is mature Christianity. Life is an opportunity to magnify Christ; death is the final earthly opportunity to magnify Christ. Either way, the believer belongs to Him.

Then comes one of the strongest ownership statements in the chapter: “whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8). That is security and responsibility in the same sentence. We are the Lord’s. The world may claim us, the flesh may tempt us, the devil may accuse us, men may misunderstand us, and the grave may eventually receive our bodies, but we are the Lord’s. Paul does not say we are the Lord’s only while breathing. Death cannot cancel Christ’s title deed. The grave is not a jurisdiction outside His authority. The undertaker may close the casket, but he cannot close the ownership account. “For I am persuaded,” Paul says elsewhere, “that neither death, nor life…shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39). A saved man does not become less Christ’s when his pulse stops. If anything, death simply removes the last earthly obstruction between the believer and the presence of the One who bought him.

Verse 9 tells us why: “For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.” Calvary and the resurrection establish the Lordship underlying the whole passage. This is not merely advice about manners between Christians. It is rooted in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ died, rose, and revived. Therefore He is Lord. The Christian does not belong to a dead religious founder preserved in a history book. He belongs to a risen Saviour who conquered the grave. The Lord of Romans 14 is not watching from a tomb in Palestine. He lives. And because He lives, the believer’s conscience answers to a living Master. That is why one Christian dare not play God over another man’s lawful conviction. Christ did not die and rise so you could take His chair. The throne is occupied. The position has been filled. The church has one Head, and nobody is taking applications.

Conclusion

Romans 14:5–9 gives us one of the clearest pictures in Scripture of Christian liberty operating under the Lordship of Christ. The believer may esteem one day above another, or he may esteem every day alike. He may eat, or he may abstain. But whatever he does must be done unto the Lord, with a conscience formed by Scripture and a heart capable of giving God thanks. That knocks the props out from under both legalism and lawlessness. Legalism says, “My conviction must become your commandment.” Lawlessness says, “My liberty means nobody governs me.” The Bible rejects both. Christ governs the believer, and Christ allows individual conscience to operate where He has not legislated otherwise. Grace is not the absence of authority; grace places us under the right authority. The Christian is free from the tyranny of men precisely because he belongs to the Lord.

The passage also warns us against turning personal conviction into public theater. If you regard the day, regard it unto the Lord. If you do not, do not. If you eat, thank God. If you abstain, thank God. Then quit acting as if heaven needs a press release about it. Spirituality that constantly demands to be seen is usually running on fleshly fuel. The strongest convictions are often the quietest because they do not need a crowd to hold them upright. A tree with deep roots does not require somebody to stand beside it applauding every time the wind blows. Likewise, a believer fully persuaded before God does not have to mock, harass, pressure, or police other Christians in matters where Scripture has left liberty. He can stand. He can let them stand. And he can trust the same Lord who saved him to deal with them.

In the end, the grand truth of the passage is larger than days, diets, or disagreements: “whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8). That is where every conviction must end. Your life is His. Your body is His. Your time is His. Your table is His. Your conscience is His. Your liberty is His. Your death is His. Christ “died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living” (Romans 14:9). Once that truth settles into the bones, the Christian stops trying to be lord over himself and stops trying to be lord over everybody else. He has a Lord already. And when Jesus Christ occupies His rightful place, personal conviction becomes humble, liberty becomes responsible, thanksgiving becomes natural, and disagreement no longer has to become warfare. The strongest Christian is not the man who wins every argument over doubtful things. It is the man who can look at his life, his liberty, and his final breath and say with a clean conscience, “I am the Lord’s.”