Successfully carrying

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

 SUCCESSFULLY CARRYING

Gal 6:1-5

6:1 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, 5 for each one should carry his own load.

NIV

Having dealt with this being caught in sin issue, we now come to the concept of carrying each other’s burdens and in doing so we will fulfill the law of Christ. The idea of a burden as expressed in the Greek is simply a weight or heaviness or it could mean trouble. So then we should carry, lift up with our hands, to put upon oneself our brothers' troubles. Just what does that look like? First of all that would mean we have to share our troubles. That would mean living with transparency, exposed, being open about having some difficulty. It is possible this concept does not stand alone but fits into the context of finding out someone is in sin, which is a burden indeed. Yet, it could be a stand-alone command to live carrying each other’s burdens. Still, we have to come to some understanding of just how does that work in the community of faith, within a local church. Sometimes it seems many of us only see each other once a week on Sunday morning and we smile at each other all the while knowing very little what is going on in each other’s lives. There are some who have their little groups who do have some social interaction. Maybe in those churches that have the small group ministry find that there is a sharing of burdens within those more intimate small group settings. Perhaps that is a way for us to fulfill the law of Christ. But what about all those small churches that do not have that kind of program? Do programs or perhaps the more modern word, church models, really work anyway? It would seem as this letter was originally written to a group of believers that knew nothing of church programs or models, it was meant to be a way of life within the community of faith as a whole. If we are so interested in creating a list of things to do, then this just might be near the top of the list. Maybe this comes under loving our neighbor as ourselves category. However, again if we are to carry each other’s troubles, it does require that we know each other’s troubles. We think therein lies the problem. We all just might be living all closed up inside, having built our great façade for everyone to look at. It appears we might be failing miserably at fulfilling the law of Christ. But how do we overcome this failure? How do we start to carry if we do not know what to carry? Can we trust someone, or anyone, for that matter, not to gossip about our burden if we share? Maybe that is the first issue we need to deal with, trust. We are not meant to stand up in front the whole assembly and share every burden, but we should find at least one confidant who we confide in and trust they will keep and share our burden and we theirs. This always come back to the truth about loving our neighbor as ourselves, and the truth about love.

1 Cor 13:4-7

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts , always hopes, always perseveres.

NIV

If we could fulfill that, then we could fulfill the law of Christ and successfully carry each other’s burdens.