Supporting Each Other

[Amelia]

Supporting Each Other

Adventist World - NAD Edition

June 2009

Inspired words about Christian encouragement and solidarity

In the Church:

* “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).

* “We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak …” (Rom. 15:1).

* “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for [one another]…. My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:16-18).

In the Church and Society:

* “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

* “If we would humble ourselves before God, and be kind and courteous and tenderhearted and pitiful, there would be one hundred conversions to the truth where now there is only one” (Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9, p.189).

* “It is through the social relations that Christianity comes in contact with the world. Every man or woman who has received the divine illumination is to shed light on the dark pathway of those who are unacquainted with the better way” (The Ministry of Healing, p. 496).

In the Home:

* “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (Col. 3:18-21).

* “The atmosphere surrounding the souls of fathers and mothers fills the whole house, and is felt in every department of the home…. Make your home atmosphere fragrant with tender thoughtfulness” (E. G. White, The Adventist Home, p. 16).

* “Though difficulties, perplexities, and discouragements may arise, let neither husband nor wife harbor the thought that their union is a mistake or a disappointment. Determine to be all that it is possible to be to each other…. Study to advance the happiness of each other. Let there be mutual love, mutual forbearance. Then marriage, instead of being the end of love, will be as it were the very beginning of love. The warmth of true friendship, the love that binds heart to heart, is a foretaste of the joys of heaven” (Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing, p. 360).

See also:

Metaphors of Friendship

Random reflections about the support of fellow pilgrims on the Christian journey

http://www.adventistworld.org/issue.php?issue=2009-1006&page=12

[phkrause]

Good stuff Amelia

pk

[Outta Here]

Speaking of metaphors of friendship...

Yesterday my son was doing some homework (yes, I require my children to continue working through the summer) and the assignment was about interpreting and comprehending fables. The story read as follows:

A lion used to prowl about a field in which four oxen used to dwell. Many a time he tried to attack them; but whenever he came near they turned their tails to one another, so that whichever way he approached them he was met by the horns of one of them. At last, however, they began quarreling among themselves, and each went off to pasture alone in a separate corner of the field. Then the lion attacked them one by one and soon made an end of all four.

The moral of the story--according to my son: United we stand, divided we get eaten by lions.

[Liz]

The moral of the story--according to my son: United we stand, divided we get eaten by lions.

That is really good, especially when Satan is likened to a lion pacing back and forth trying to find those that he can devour.

[Gail]

Good thought, Liz!