Life in Three Dimensions - Community

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load.- Galatians 6:2-5We all long for community. We made for it. It's not a weakness. It's designed in to humanity, and human beings bear the image of God - the Trinity where Father, Son and Spirit love and serve each other. The joy and the challenge of Christian community is that we are called to bear each other's burdens. After telling the Galatians that they must resist all attempts to be bound by the Law of Moses, he now gives this as the way in which they can fulfil the Law of Christ. It's no good saying that the Christians should love one another - it needs to take practical shape. We need our diaries, our attention, and our wallets - as well as our mouths - to be directed by love.There is, paradoxically, one burden that no-one else can carry. That is the way that you, yes specifically you, are being called to minister to the 'household of faith' - and indeed, those beyond it. When all is said and done, the only pride that we can have in ourselves is that we are doing what God is calling us to do. Each one should carry that load, and so bear each other's burdens.