Mentoring Minutes

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. And we must follow through on these in order to be more like Christ and show the world and culture His Love.

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?”

Paul continues to the believers in Ephesus with more powerful “one anothers”. We find a couple of them in Ephesians 4:32 (one today and another next week) where he commands them to “Be kind and compassionate to one another…”

If you’ve followed L&L very long you know that the context of the Jewish culture in which the Bible was predominantly written, these words were given not just as advice or suggestions (as we tend to take them today, unfortunately). They were given and received as commands that were to be followed if you truly loved The Lord and others. They were totally about our love for Him and others rather than whether or not those who received them agreed with them and/or were comfortable following through.

We need to take seriously, even when it costs us, what each of these “one anothers” means and be just as serious about following through and living them out with others. It’s usually easy to be kind and compassionate to those who offer the same to you. However, we can often take those closest to us…spouse, children, family, church family…for granted and fail to follow through with kindness and compassion to them.

It is usually easiest to treat those in the middle (superficial relationships that are rooted in momentary conversations and times together) while failing to build deeper relationships and/or taking advantage of the closer relationships we do have.

On the other end of the spectrum, how are you doing in offering kindness and compassion to those who don’t treat you in kind? Jesus modeled and taught that we are to love all of our fellow human beings…from our spouse and family to those who can, nor will ever, repay us…even to our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48). While this “one another” is certainly first and foremost to believers and how we treat other believers and those closest to us. It then also moves beyond to fulfill all the law of love as we are kind and compassionate as Christ was, even to our enemies.

Who do you need to show kindness and compassion to today?

Love and Lordship…Food for Thought – What does it mean to “bear with one another?” Do you give margin for others knowing that you need it at times as well? Is Your kindness and compassion only for those who show you the same?

Love and Lordship…Action Item(s)

1. Spend time with Him in His Word and prayer daily – read and study the Scriptures in this post as a way to start.
2. Ask The Holy Spirit to teach you.
3. I what ways can you bear with or make allowances for others as part of your spiritual growth in Christ?
4. Find at least one person that you struggle with and begin today to treat them with kindness and compassion in word and deed.

Contact us at loveandlordship@gmail.com.

Right after Paul tells us to “serve one another in love” in Galatians 5:13, he shares something that he often does in his Spirit inspired words…he exhorts and admonishes us in the negative – what not to do or stop doing.

Look at Galatians 5:15 and he gives us a negative “one another” command, “If you keep on biting and devouring each other…you will be destroyed by each other.” 
But I thought Christians always serve, share with and give to one another in love. Obviously he needed to address the issues of pride, selfishness and anger that still reside in our flesh even after we come to know Christ.

Which “person” are you feeding? Are you following through with the serving and loving “one anothers” of The Spirit…or do you need to hear the disciplinary and corrective “one another” to stop back-stabbing, snipping at and destroying one another?

I suspect that we need both or The Holy Spirit would not have inspired Paul to share this with us as believers. I know I’ve had to learn to grow in both serving and loving as well as letting go of my own selfish desires and glory, not trying to drag others down to my level.

This is why forgiveness is so important (Matthew 6:14-15), both forgiving others when they have wronged us and seeking forgiveness when we have wronged others!

Verse 16 tells us how to follow through by choosing The Spirit rather than our flesh! Let’s be sure that we’re not allowing our petty, fleshly desires to drive us to pick at and try and bring down others but rather choose to lift them up in The Spirit…no matter who they are or what they’ve done!

Evidently there was and is a need for us as believers to be reminded of things we shouldn’t do to “one another.” Building on his exhorting us to not bite, devour and destroy one another, Paul continues in Galatians 5:24-26, as The Holy Spirit reminds us, “Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” OUCH! Surely we Christians never do this and especially never to one another?!?

Remember that Galatians, and especially chapter 5 is about the contrast between the flesh and The Spirit, the outcomes of each and the choice that we have as believers in Christ to choose The Spirit over the flesh. In this “one another” we find the need for The Holy Spirit through Paul to remind us what it looks like when we choose the flesh, become conceited, and the fruit of provocation and envy in our lives and relationships…clearly fruit of the flesh.

Instead we are to choose, as Paul tells us in v. 13 which we shared a few days ago, to “serve one another in love.” This is the choice in The Spirit!

Which choices are you making with “one another?” What does the fruit in your life reveal about those choices?

So after telling us to serve one another in love, stop biting and devouring each other, and to not become prideful, provoking and becoming envious, Paul closes out his “one anothers” in Galatians 6:2 with this wonderful reminder of love…”Carry each other’s burdens…”

May each of us be willing to reach out and lift the burdens of others through serving, giving, prayer and encouragement… however we are able and given opportunity and access to do so let us follow through. Part of this burden bearing is reaching out to help restore those who’ve sinned while also being very careful that we don’t become prideful and fall into sin.

I pray that we would cast all our burdens on you because you care for us (1 Peter 5:7) and then look to you to show us what burdens you want us to help carry for others in your love for all of us and through us to one another.

Love and Lordship…Food for Thought – What do you need to stop doing to others in loving obedience to Your Savior and Lord? What burdens do you need to help carry for another today? What burdens do you need carried for you? Let us be willing to bear one another’s burdens and allow others to carry ours as needed and do so in love to honor Christ and build His Body.

Love and Lordship…Action Item(s)

1. Spend time with Him in His Word and prayer daily – read and study the Scriptures in this post as a way to start.
2. Ask The Holy Spirit to teach you.
3. In what areas do you need to work on to “stop” tearing down others?
4. In what ways can you carry the burdens of others?

Contact us at loveandlordship@gmail.com.

Heavenly Father, even though I don’t always like these “one another” admonitions, I need them to remind me of Your Love and how you love us in spite of our failures, flaws, and selfishness. Check me whenever I’m tempted to lash out at others and help me choose to carry their burdens when I can and serve them in love. In Jesus Name. Amen.

Today’s first “one another” is somewhat interesting in that it is very simple to understand but evidently not always easy to follow through (maybe that’s true of all of the “one anothers” and certainly true apart from Christ). We find it in 1 Corinthians 11:33 where we are told to “wait for each other” when we come together to eat.

In the context it strongly appears to point to those who were giving into their hunger pangs and coming just to fulfill those with no regard to other believers. This caused them to fall or fail in two ways: 1) to wrongly partake of the Lord’s Supper (Communion or Eucharist) because they were more concerned with filling their bellies and flesh rather than acknowledging The Lord’s sacrifice, death and payment on our behalf, and therefore bringing condemnation on themselves (1 Corinthians 11:27); 2) they ate impatiently and indulgently or selfishly (see vv. 17-22) and without thought, care of deference for others, i.e., waiting respectfully on all those who would gather to partake.

Both of these point to a heart that is hardened and not open to humility, generosity and fellowship as it places self above others. It hinders and/or destroys the loving fellowship of believers, which is the desire of Christ for His Bride, The Church.

Seems simple but when we move in our flesh there is a need for the command, not just about eating and partaking properly, but this is only accomplished with hearts of love…loving one another as we wait for and, defer to, one another.

What guides and drives your heart, mind and body (flesh, hunger, lust, selfish desires)…OR humility, graciousness, gratitude, generosity, others above self?

Only Jesus can give you the latter and that’s why all the “one anothers” of love and loving are found only in Him!

As we continue with the “one anothers” in Scripture I need to remind myself and if needed you will receive this reminder…the “one anothers” are included in Scripture to literally help us love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31)…and as Christ has loved us (John 14:15).

However as we spent time sharing previously in these posts we can do neither without first knowing and learning to love God with all we are (Mark 12:29-30) as we prayerfully attempted to do through better knowing His Names. The we must learn to love who we are in Christ (Ephesians 2:10) as we did in the Identity in Christ focus.

With that said we find the next “one another” as we continue in Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 12:25-26 and look where The Holy Spirit leads Paul to write just after reminding us to wait on others. He tells us that love is to “have equal concern for each other.” In a simple summary…don’t show favoritism!

The text here is where Paul is describing the various parts of the body, our literal body, as an example of how all the parts are absolutely needed and of great importance. No one part is greater than any other regardless of the function and recognition given to it. This is how the Body of Christ is to function and by giving equal concern and care for each other we avoid division and create unity.

He follows this teaching on the unity and importance of all the parts and gifts of the Body with what we know as The Love Chapter in 1 Corinthians 13. Here The Holy Spirit, through Paul, describes what happens when we place undue importance and priority on what we’re doing rather than why we’re doing it…in Love.

This is why we must not show partiality or favoritism in any way because it divides us and it diminishes His Love in and through us. We rejoice in their blessings and fruitfulness and we hurt when they hurt…this is love as we care for each and every “other” in the fellowship in His Church.

How are you caring for all those in your sphere of influence?

As Paul, in The Holy Spirit, continues to address the various early church plants we find more and more of these “one anothers” encouraging The Body of Christ in how we are to love each other and all others in Him, bringing us to our final “one another” this week.

In Galatians 5:13, just before Paul describes the lusts of the flesh and the fruit of The Spirit, he tells the believers, then and now, to “serve one another in love.”

Just before this passage he has spent time admonishing believers regarding 2 key issues; 1) to know the freedom they have in Christ and; 2) not to abuse that freedom so that it becomes license (a false freedom of unbridled sin).

How do we do this? By placing others above self in love and serving our fellow man. Doing this as an overflow of our love for Christ it keeps us from turning our freedom in Him into selfish satisfaction and seeking for our own fleshly desires.

This serving is not simply a duty on a checklist but as Paul states, it is done because of and in love. This is why it’s essential that we understand and continue to seek and grow in our love for God, know and love who we are so that we are “serving one another in love.”

Love and Lordship…Food for Thought – What does your service flow from? Is there evidence in your life of your loving relationship with God (not just attending church, giving and serving but time spent in His Word, in prayer and in meditating and listening to and for Him)? Are you waiting on others with equal concern?

Love and Lordship…Action Item(s)

1. Spend time with Him in His Word and prayer daily – read and study the Scriptures in this post as a way to start
2. Ask The Holy Spirit to teach you
3. How do you practice patience and deference to others? Where do you need to grow in these areas?
4. Take some time to search (and ask The Holy Spirit to search) your heart to find out the source of your serving others? Respond to whatever you find out in line with God’s Word to serve selflessly.

Contact us at loveandlordship@gmail.com.