Bearing with One Another: 2/11-12/2012
We started off a new series this weekend and will be spending a lot of time paying attention to Ephesians 4. It's chockful of some pretty important instructions on relationships and community. Paul says we are called to live a life marked by humility, gentleness, patience, honesty, and kindness. But as we talked about this weekend, there are a lot of things (and other people) who make this way of living difficult.
This difficulty is not lost on Paul. He's not writing this letter in a cozy overpriced room, or a log cabin in the woods, cut off from other people. Paul isn't just dreaming here. He's most likely writing this letter as he sits imprisoned, possibly with scars on his back from another lashing. He's writing it in the midst of people who think he should be locked up or killed for telling people about Jesus.
The people he's writing to are no strangers to conflict and struggle either. He describes them as people who were "dead in sin"—who were so lost and so far gone, they were like the walking dead. They are people who have been divided in all kinds of ways—by worldviews, by incomes, by race, by sin.
And yet, he says, there's another way to live with one another.
Read Ephesians 1-3 this week to find out why Paul thinks people like this can become people who love well. Why there is hope for your marriage. Why there is hope for your friendships. Why there is hope for the church. Why there is hope for this community.
Because "God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved." — Ephesians 2.4-5
Spend some time being honest about your relational health. Talk to God and/or a friend about how your marriage/family/friendships are going. Pray over the coming weeks for God to show you things you might not want to see. Who do you need to "bear with?" Where could you show more humility, gentleness and kindness?
For more on Gary Sweeten and his resources, go right here.
In honor of Valentine's Day and the celebration of the early and easier days of love, here's a fun little Nintendo-inspired moment:
