As the bride of Christ, the promises we have been made in the Word are incredible. God has poured out His grace, His mercy, and His blessings abundantly, and all just because He loves us… loves us. If we will pause just long enough to reflect on that, we can’t help but consider what His example means for us.

There is (and rightfully so according to the Word) our responsibility to reach out to the lost. After all, that is the heart of the Gospel. And we are commanded (yes commanded) to love our neighbors. For most of us, those two requirements seem to overshadow something that is also part of our responsibility as His bride.

It is so easy to slight those that are closest to us in our desire to reach out to others. Trust me, I know what I’m saying. And that is nowhere more evident than in the body of Christ; within the bride. We can get so focused on “doing God’s Will” that we forget that a key part of that will involves our fellow members of the bride.

Now, while we are not to forsake the sharing to the Gospel and reaching out to our neighbors in love, at the same time we cannot ignore the direction we have been given in the Word. Take a couple of minutes and think about what God wants us to do for each other:

Forebear… Eph 4:2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

Forgive … Eph 4:32 And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

Comfort … 1 Thess 4:18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

Encourage … 1 Thess 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Pray … James 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Esteem … Phil 2:3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

Consider … Heb 10:24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:

Bear … Gal 6:2 Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

We, as the bride of Christ, have been made partakers of the divine nature, and that means that we walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit (Rom 8:3).  And in walking in His divine nature, we have the responsibility to care for the needs of our fellow sojourners. We are all on our way to an eternity filled with love; love for Jesus and for one another. Our bridegroom wants us to begin learning how to do that today in the way that we forebear, comfort, encourage, pray, esteem, consider, and bear each other. In that respect we are revealing our true love for our bridegroom. And in the process, remember that what is impossible in our human nature, God has made possible in Christ; making us new creatures in Him.

This has become, unfortunately, an often forgotten part of what we looked at last week… Our Reasonable Service.