Day 264

Isaiah 49:8-51:16, Galatians 6:1-18, Proverbs 23:10-18

There are many comments littered around the Bible as to what the church should be like, early Acts tells us that they sold and shared what they had, Corinthians tells us what communion is to be like and the list could go on.

Galatians tells us that there should be forgiveness and the sharing of burdens, something that we often forget about. Taking the first of these to task, we can sometimes be better at judgement than forgiveness and grace. Paul urges the church to act with gentleness, not letting sin go on unchecked but on the other hand not just throwing people out of the church when they do something wrong. Gentleness and mercy are the key.

Taking the second, Paul is quite clear that sharing one another’s burdens is fulfilling the law of Christ. We probably all know people within the church who are caring quite heavy burdens at the moment, what do we do to help them, to share the burden with them. Church is all about  community and fellowship, about sharing with one another and sharing for one another.

Later on the letter talks about reaping what we sow. If we sow a church that looks like the body of Christ then we reap a church that looks like the body of Christ. The challenge is to ensure that we sow the right seed.