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One Another

...serve one another in love. (Galatians 5:13 NIV)

One another—that means both ways. I serve you in love, and you serve me in love. It is a two-way give, not a one-way take. Two verses later, Paul tells us that there is another kind of two-way practice:

If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. (Galatians 5:15 NIV)

Have you ever seen two people “bite and devour” each other? They might even be married. They destroy each other! Immediately after this in the chapter is the awful description of the works of the flesh and the lovely description of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-25). Then we find another two-way teaching:

Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (Galatians 5:26 NIV)
And in chapter 6, verse 2 there is a strong command:

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2 NIV)

Here, then, are the choices:

1. You bite and devour me and I bite and devour you. You provoke and envy me and I provoke and envy you, or
2. I serve you in love and you serve me in love. I carry your burdens and you carry mine.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. (1 John 4:19, 20 NIV)

(An excerpt from On Being a Christian by Jim Wilson)

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