Making allowance for each other’s faults…
Bearing with one another…

Sounds like we’re watching out for those who mess up, huh?

Yeah, no.

Firstly, we’re to be humble. That’s the forsaking of our own self-righteousness. Stop thinking we’re all that and a bag of chips. Stop believing that we’re the one who is right in all things. Just stop.

When we do that, we can see that there are many others who believe the Lord and serve Him. We don’t see people as those we’re here to judge. We see them as people we’re here to love.

Next, we’re to be gentle. That means that even with our great power, we’re to utilize self-control so as to not crush another. In times past, there were circus acts where a person would be lying down and an elephant would place its foot on top of that person. Most assuredly, if that elephant exercised its full power, that person would be dead on the spot.

However, through training, the elephant used the available self-control – resisting the urge to crush that interrupter – and did not cause any damage.

That’s the kind of gentleness we as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are to exhibit all the time. We have great power in our tongue. James says it’s like a small flame that can set the forest on fire, and mankind is unable to control it.

We think we don’t have self-control. We can’t slow our tongue, stop our habits or our hang ups. We just can’t. And that’s true.

HOWEVER, God gives His followers self-control (2 Timothy 1:7). He fills us with His Spirit which causes gentleness and self-control to be evidenced in us (Galatians 5:22-23).

Dang it! There went those excuses.

So how do we obey these words from Ephesians?
Two words: Surrender and Love.

When we surrender our rights and control over to Jesus, He takes over and builds up the characteristics we need in order to be completely obedient to His Word.

When we love Him first and our neighbors after, we are fulfilling His primary commandments. From that place of love, we are able to treat others with the tenderness Jesus does.

Both of these require that we understand God, His power, and His love for us. The power God has? He could remove us from the face of the earth with a word. He can make it so that even the memory of us would be gone. Yet He does not. He withholds His anger, offering grace and mercy instead. He loves so much that He suffered and died so we don’t have to face that natural result of our sin. He loves us too much to leave us alone when we turn from His way. He lets us know and directs us back to where we need to be.

When we understand the depths of God’s power and love, we are able to surrender us to Him and love those we see just as we receive the love of the Unseen God.

Believer, it’s time. Let go of your illusion of control. It’s wearing you out. It’s hurting your relationships. It’s breaking your heart, even if you don’t realize it. Go ahead. Uncurl those fingers and loosen that grip. God is there.

It’s also time to love. Yes, there are those who aren’t living as they should. Love them and lead them to Him. There are those who are lost and deceived. Love them to Him.

“But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” 1 John‬ ‭4:8‬

We can do this!

Coffee, Bible, Journal.

It is so hard in our self-sufficient society to think that we’re not the ones in charge, we’re not the ones in control. We’re not the ones handling everything. We’re not the ones bearing the responsibility for everything.

Am I right? We think that we rule our own little part of the world, when really we don’t. Folks, we are powerless over all the stuff in our lives. The only thing that you have control over is how you respond in any given situation. You get to choose how you’re going to respond.

Yeah, sometimes that’s hard. When we see people who are not behaving as they should, whether they’re believers or not, we want to correct them. We want to get in there. And it’s like you’re doing it wrong, you’re doing it wrong, you need to change you need to change. Ah, but we’re supposed to be gentle. We’re supposed to love, we are supposed to make allowance.

Now, I’m not saying that you don’t confront a believer who is who is continuing in a sin. Scripture tells us quite, quite frankly, that we are to do that confrontation. But we are not supposed to do it with an attitude of “I am here to crush you. I am here to straighten you out and you had better listen to me.” No, we go into that confrontation with the the feeling, the sense, the understanding, “You have stepped away from God, and He longs for you. He wants this relationship restored. Can I help you? Can I help you?”

There’s a big difference there. So let’s learn about this humility. This forsaking all our self-righteousness. Guys, we have no righteousness outside of Christ. We don’t. So the self righteousness goes, we put on this humility of knowing that we’re not all that and a bag of chips. And then we can go forth and we can say, Hey, I’m not all that. And you’re not all that. So we’re on the same level. We can talk and I can love.

When we get our vertical perspective, correct, our horizontal perspective becomes correct. Oh, it all comes back to the relationship we have with the Lord. But we can get that right too. And when we do, watch how we change the world. Actually, we don’t, God does it through us. But look what happens when we start loving the way God tells us to. You can do it. So can I.

I believe in you. Better than that. God believes in you, your Creator, the creator of the universe, your Lord and Savior believes in you and he is for you. He is for you. He’s cheering you on. Trust in that, my friend!

I would love to help you get from dreaming to doing and it’s possible. visit theunhackablelife.com and take the assessment there. Completely free, no obligation. When you get the results – you’re the only one who will – you can let me know if you want to and we can discuss it. Talk about what you learned in that, what you learned is keeping you from getting from your dreaming to your doing, from dreaming to done.

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