Bearing With One Another
“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Paul (Ephesians 4:2 NIV)
Love and Lordship in Focus…Look at the traits necessary to bear with others…Humility, gentleness and patience…all fruit of The Holy Spirit! Being kind and compassionate with others also requires The Holy Spirit…how are you doing when it comes to bearing with, and being kind and compassionate, to others?
It just makes sense that how we treat “one another,” lovingly or unlovingly, reveals how we are walking with Christ as His disciples and His Church. So it follows that all the “one anothers” of Christian living and relationships come from Christ and in the letters to the churches and believers…and to us today as well.
Paul shares most of these “one anothers” and so we continue in His letter to the Ephesian church where he gives us a positive command but one that’s often difficult to follow through. As a matter of fact, as with all of these, the only way we can consistently follow through in love is by the power of The Holy Spirit. In
Ephesians 4:2 he encourages (and commands) us to “…Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love.”
In the King James Version it is said as follows, “With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;” If we’re honest with ourselves this is another “OUCH!” Let me go one step further as in the New Living Translation where it states, “make allowances for each other’s faults.” Yet another translation uses the word “tolerance.” This is not the tolerance of this age where you must agree with others or you’re not “tolerant.” This is true tolerance where we continue to be patient and bear with one another in love even when we disagree. OUCH again!
In my flesh I don’t care for the words “lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing or making allowances.” I can be patient and bear with others for a little while (I know that’s a contradiction but that’s how we often apply these words and commands in Scripture) but in my flesh “enough is enough.” It’s time to get with it and move on people.
As with every “one another,” in order for us to truly walk these out in our lives as Christ’s disciples and together as His Family, we must recognize and surrender to The Holy Spirit or our flesh will cut short any patience, longsuffering or forbearing with others. We must follow through on these in order to be more like Christ and show the world and culture His Love. In order to do so we must once again “die to our flesh.”
Food for Thought…When you claim to have patience and bear with others, how long does it usually last? Are you relying on your own flesh (maybe because in comparison with others you seem much more patient)…or are you relying on The Holy Spirit to give you grace and strength to “be patient and bear with one another in love?”
Love in Action –
- Read the Scriptures in this article and ask The Holy Spirit to teach you Who Jesus is.
- What does it look like for you to cast your burdens on The Lord? Can you testify to how God has carried your burdens?
- Out of His love for us, how can we show that love to others? What patience do you need to carry the burdens of others?
- How might carrying others’ burdens cause you to fall into temptation?
Love and Lordship Prayer Focus…Heavenly Father, thank You for forgiving me and in Your love for me carrying burdens that I am unable to carry. May I show Your love for me and others by helping to carry their burdens and I ask that You help me to develop more patience and also keep me from temptation and sin as I do so. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.