When we think about commitment, we need to think about our duty to support other disciples. In this devotion, Pastor Steve looks at how we are to encourage one another through supporting each other.
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Devotions in the Pastor Steve Sermon Series
As we strive to be consistent in our spiritual growth, it is necessary for us to be committed to spiritual disciplines that help us to grow. As we strive to be consistent in our spiritual disciplines, we need to be careful that we do not develop a mindset that causes us to regard our performance of these disciplines as something we check off on our list of things to do. That would defeat the purpose of doing them.
A part of our spiritual growth takes place in understanding how we should relate to our brothers and sisters in Christ. First John 3: 11 tells us “For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another (ESV).”
Each of us is in a different place when it comes to spiritual growth. Some are farther along their journey, while others are not as spiritually mature and not quite as far.
It can be said that there are baby Christians and adult Christians. The Apostle Paul alluded to this in his first letter to the Corinthians when he said, “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready” (1 Cor. 3: 2 ESV).
With this in mind, I want to show you what Biblical support is and help you to understand why it is important.
All throughout the Bible, it speaks of helping each other along the way, being an encouragement to one another; bearing one another’s burdens; and similar ideas that speak to supporting each other. This devotion is not intended to be an exhaustive list of the verses that speak to supporting each other. However, I am picking out some of the verses that speak the most to me and hopefully they will speak to you as well.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
It Takes More than One
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil” (Ecc. 4: 9 ESV)
This may seem like common sense, but Biblical principles actually make sense. When two people are working together, they are a team, supporting each other’s work. The team of two is more productive in what they are doing and will tend to get the work they are doing more quickly than one person working by himself.
Working together towards a common goal is a very Biblical idea. No church is a one-person effort. God has given each of us at least one spiritual gift for us to use in the building of His kingdom, reaching the lost.
In reading the Great Commission in Matthew 28, we see that it is not a work that only one person can do. It takes a lot more than that.
Jesus even used this two-by-two concept when He sent the disciples out. “And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over the unclean spirits” (Mk. 6: 7 ESV).
We are not meant to go it alone when it comes to walking out our faith. We are intended to be a part of something that encourages and supports us as we go through the trials and tribulations of being a Christian in this world.
Ecclesiastes 4:11-12 continues with this same idea when it says “Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (ESV).
So many in the church these days want to be in the spotlight— the one whom everyone in the congregation turns to for everything. But we are not meant to work on our own; neither are we meant to seek our own glory.
We are meant to do everything we do for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10: 31). To support each other in our work, our purpose, our ministry is a very Godly and Biblical thing to do.
God Comforts Us so that We Can Comfort Others
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (II Cor. 1: 3-4 ESV)
A lot of support we get comes from times when we need to be comforted. When we are going through various afflictions, it is very easy to be beaten down and gain a degree of hopelessness.
That’s exactly what the devil intends for us. The Bible says that the joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh. 8: 10), so the devil does what he can to rob us of our joy so that we have no strength to serve the Lord.
When we have reached such a place, it is important to know that we have someone who will help us by comforting and supporting us in prayer. We certainly can get the comfort from God, but as the verse above says, we get comforted so that we can be a comfort to others.
I remember as a young adult getting inundated by several things that come in life. An older Christian man told me that God takes us through things so that we can be an encouragement to others when they are going through the same thing. If you do not have such a person in your life whom you can go to and ask to pray with you and seek encouragement from, then I suggest you begin to pray to God to show you such a person.
As someone who never wanted to admit I needed help, the idea of asking that of anyone left a bad taste in my mouth. But I eventually realized that is a type of pride and that is not a good thing.
Proverbs 16:18 tells us that pride goes before destruction. None of us probably ever think that we will go through destruction when we do not seek out someone’s help, but it’s a definite possibility.
Now, I also believe that there are certain things that we need to be very careful about sharing with just anyone and perhaps only God will do to share them with. Overall, it’s necessary to seek the support of someone who will lift us up before the Lord in prayer and support us in the time of trouble that we are going through.
Bear Each Other’s Burdens
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Gal. 6: 2 ESV)
This verse is very much like the one above that we just talked about, but there’s an interesting thing to point out. By bearing one another’s burdens, we are fulfilling the “law of Christ.”
I imagine few of us have ever thought of that, but as we are supporting one another we are fulfilling the law as communicated in the Bible.
How can that be, you may be wondering. Let’s look at something: “But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets’” (Mt. 22: 34-40 ESV).
Here we see one of the times that the Pharisees were testing Jesus, as they always did, to see if they could trick him into saying something for which they could arrest him. The truly amazing thing is what Jesus’ answer is to the lawyer’s question.
His first answer is that we are to love the Lord our God with every part of our being. He then throws in for a bonus answer that there’s a second great commandment that is like it: to love our neighbor as ourselves.
And if that wasn’t enough, He throws in this extra clarifying tidbit that brings everything together. “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Mt. 22: 40 ESV emphasis added).
Everything that God’s law is about is about love! Loving Him and loving our neighbor as much as we love ourselves.
So, all of that is to say that, when we bear the burdens of those who need it, we are fulfilling God’s commandments to the full!
Let me illustrate this a bit for you. Recently, I was going through a bit of a crisis because I had come to believe that I didn’t love people as much as I should, if at all. There had been a couple of times in the last year where someone pushed my boundaries to the extent that I became angry at the person doing the pushing. Now, this was two different people, but as I meditated on those two instances, it made me wonder if I was suited to be a pastor or even called to be one since I got angry.
I discussed that feeling with my wife, and she helped me to see something that I had never thought of before. She spoke to me about my kindness towards others; how I am more times than not, concerned with how people are doing. She told me of how she can see how I speak to others, how I treat them as they should be and how I try to encourage them when it is needed. Then she threw in the thing that settled my spirit down. She said, “That is what love is.”
Loving people is a support that most of us have never thought about. And the amazing thing is, we are fulfilling the law of God by doing it.
So many are wrapped up in their “pharisaic mindset,” being more concerned about keeping the rules and checking off their lists of what they have done to “serve the Lord,” but they have no love for anyone except themselves. This is not fulfilling the Law of the Lord, and they are certainly not supporting anyone either.
Encouraging One Another Is Important
Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. (I Thess. 5: 11 ESV)
The Thessalonians were obviously doing the right things, at least in part, when it came to loving each other. The Apostle Paul took the time in his first letter to them to recognize how they were doing with that.
Encouraging one another and building each other up is one of the greatest things we can do for each other in a church. Many churches have not recognized this and have grown into a church of hyper-critical people and are slowly dying. Often, they have no idea why people don’t come to their church anymore and their numbers keep dwindling.
I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t take much for someone who visits a church the first time to realize something isn’t right with a church. You can feel it. If they stay for the whole service, much of the time they will not visit again.
When we stop encouraging each other, building each other up, it reflects on the kind of church we have become. If we do not encourage, we are not supporting and have turned into a backbiting, gossiping, hateful, and yes, I will say it, an ungodly church!
Such a church does not seek after the things of the Lord. They don’t truly love and are not capable of fulfilling the Law of Christ, because they are not walking in the ways of the Lord.
Such a church has lost its ability to love and support because they are not true disciples of the Lord any longer, if they ever were. To such churches, I say REPENT while there is still time.
Making the Connections
As I close this devotion out, I want to encourage you to be a supporter of what God is doing in your life, in your friends’ lives, and in the life of your church. If you continue to love as God has commanded you to do, you cannot help but be the supporter that God would have you be.
You will be open and listening for His direction in your life and in all that you do. This is the most wonderful place you can be. Working for His glory and supporting every effort to reach the world for Christ and lifting up your fellow disciples.
May God bless you!
Father God. You have called us together as a family and want us to live in unity. One way we can foster this unity is to support each other in our testings and trials. Help us to see each other through Your eyes. Amen.
What do you think?
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