Bearing each other’s burdens, 6:2-5.
I want to use this
post to encourage you with some quotes on the matter of “body life.” This first quote is from Ray Stedman, a
pastor in Palo Alto, California, who was born and raised in Montana. His 1972 book was entitled, Body Life;
this excerpt is from the Preface.
The first aim of the church is to live to the praise and
glory of God … to declare the word, and demonstrate in attitude and deed the
character of Jesus Christ who lives within His people … To declare the reality
of a life-changing encounter with a living Christ … To demonstrate that change
by an unselfish, love-filled life.
The next quote is
from John MacArthur, from a 1973 book entitled The Church: The Body of
Christ, on p167.
Because the church is one body, all its members are members
of one another. It is like a human body
with connected tissues, muscles, bones, ligaments and organs. No member of the body of Christ exists
detached from the rest of the body, no more than your lungs can lie on the floor
in the next room and keep you breathing.
No one member can escape his responsibility toward all the other
believers. The health of the body, its
witness and its testimony are dependent on the faithful ministering of all the
members of one another.
The third quote is
from Francis of Assisi.
“O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be
consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to
love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are
pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."
Lastly, Jesus said
these words:
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to
serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.
Galatians is concerned about a particular
conflict in the churches. What was
happening? In 5:15 Paul warned, if you
bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another. In 5:26 he admonishes them: Let us not
become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Thus, as Paul concludes the letter, it is
with practical ideas for the fellowship that deal with serving one another with
love in these times or situations of conflict.
Sometimes the Body of Christ is known more by disunity than
demonstrating Christ by their love (Jn. 13:34).
How valuable it is if, in the midst of conflict, there are those who
serve each other in love, no matter what side that person may be on.
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