Aug 30, 2022
Would you say you're devoted to others in brotherly love?
Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr., with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on the Follower of One podcast, I've often spoken about verses from Romans 11, and there's a section of verses in Romans 11 that I've not talked about before and that's verses 10 through 15.
So I want to do a few part series on these verses because they're right in the middle of a really cool section of this chapter where we are directed on how we interact with one another. And I believe it begins by talking to Christians about how we interact with other believers.
And that's what I think this verse is about. But I do believe that the apostle Paul applies this to our relationships with other people as well. And we'll talk about that in some of the later chapters and the later verses. Today's verse is "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another in honor." That's Romans 12:10 and that was from the New American Standard. In the English Standard Version it says, "Love one another with brotherly affection outdo one another in showing honor."
We are called to love other people like they're are brothers, especially those inside the church. And do we do that? Do you catch yourself doing that? This one of the summary verses of this section. It actually talks about our humility and how we're to be humble in verse 16.
And I've spoken about that before in episode 33. It was a long time ago in our podcast, so it was one of the very early episodes. But humility's one of those things that I want to talk about every 10 years or so. Actually, no - I need to talk about it more than that. I have a problem with arrogance.
And so that's one of those things I'm constantly on myself about. That's part of the reason why I keep coming back to this section of scripture. When I can put others ahead of myself, when I can be devoted to them in brotherly love, when I can give preference to them in honor, I can try and outdo each other by showing honor to others.
When I am able to love them and out do them and showing honor to them, this is a challenge. It's a practical challenge for us as marketplace Christians. Every day as we go into our workplace, this one verse is plenty to do.
We can be devoted to one another in brotherly love. We can show mutual love, It says in the net Bible. Or brotherly affection as it says in the ESV, or brotherly love in the other chapters. It's talking about phileo. It's talking about this mutual affection that we have for others. It requires us to give it first. As Christ followers we give that love first. Almost always we respond to people loving us with love.
But almost never do we give it first. And Christians, I believe, are called to give that love first. That way we get to go into our workplaces today and look for opportunities to give away the love of Christ, to appreciate people and show them that we appreciate them. Help them feel appreciated. It's not how we act as much as it is how they feel.
And so that's our challenge for today. Today. I want to challenge us as marketplace Christians: Let's go into our workplaces today and if we know other Christ followers in the workplace, then let's especially be preferential towards them. Let's do things to show this honor and brotherly love towards believers. But, let's also do that with our coworkers.
These people are giving away their lives in their job at the same rate we are giving away our life in our jobs. So let's go invest our lives because our lives as Christ followers will last forever. So we can give away what we have now, so that these other people that we know might move a little closer to Jesus.
That's our goal. That's our ministry - to help other people move one notch closer to Jesus. So today please be devoted to one another in brotherly love and watch what God does in your workplace. Thank you for being a marketplace minister, and thank you for making a difference with your faith. Share this podcast with a friend and remember we're a donor supported podcast.
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