Sunday Scripture - Ephesians 4 v 2

Sunday Scripture is just simply a thought or two on a Bible verse that may have struck me afresh or maybe for the first time or has always been special to me.

Today I am looking at Ephesians 4 v 2

 Today's verse talks about

        lowliness,

                  meekness,

                            longsuffering,

                                       forbearance

                                                   and love.


Such a lot of virtues to think on and try to put into action.

Can we do this by ourselves?

I don't think so.

I believe we need God's help to provide the lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, and love in our lives because they are not part of our human nature.


With His help we will be able to love others more like He loves them.

With His help we will come to the point where we will be able to

forbear one another in love

because that means to be patient with one another, have self-control in situations with each other, show restraint and tolerance in words and actions which is only possible through truly loving someone.


As always I like to make sure we are taking this verse in context so let's read the first 6 verses of this chapter

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;

5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,

6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

From this we can see that the theme here is unity, there should be no strife, no aggression, no impatience, etc. as we walk in the Spirit together and it is all because of love, the love that we all have received and the love which we are called to show to others - His love flowing through us.

It's Holiday time

          and the gardens are blooming

                    so I chose a flower to focus on

                                 when I was making a graphic for today's verse

Have you ever decided to ask God to help you grow these virtues in your life by the work of 

the Holy Spirit?

Have you ever decided to ask God to help you love others as He loves them?

This is an action on our part that God has told us we must do

but

we really need God's help because we cannot love others without it,



and we certainly cannot stand by them through everything without it.

Let's think on this as we go through this week.

Please Do not Tell Me What To Do! - A Dose of Encouragement

Throughout his career my husband has travelled a lot all over the world but I have very seldom travelled with him.

Most people who know that he travels will at some time or another ask me why I don't go with him or presume I have gone several times or they tell me I should go.

Over and over I find myself explaining that I do not like spending so much time alone in strange places because not only will I be on my own during the day while he is working but also there are evening work dinners and other meetings out of the "normal" hours for discussion or report writing etc.

Most people then proceed to advise me or tell me what I should do when I go with him; how I should go shopping in these different places or how I should go about finding out the best places to go sightseeing.  Some will even find out things for me and tell me where to go and later expect me to have done this.  Leaving me feeling as if I need to make excuses when I don't go.

Firstly, shopping is ok for a day for me but not for days on end but also I find that most places now have the same shops in similar shopping centres wherever you travel to.  If I can find somewhere with unique little shops then I will enjoy browsing round for a short time but I am not a great shopper, or one who delights in spending extortionate amounts of money on anything.

Secondly, I am not fond of going sightseeing on my own so it would have to be something spectacular or something that was of great interest to me to make me do that and even then I would prefer to share that experience with Fred or someone else.  Making memories are much nicer when they include others.


If you have read my previous post on Top 10 Things that make a Good Hotel Room then you will know that last month I did travel with Fred for a couple of reasons and during those two trips we stayed in 6 hotels - the problem was we were only away for 8 nights.

Checking out of a hotel by 11am or noon practically every day of your trip gets to be rather annoying not just boring and people who have not experienced these types of trips just do not understand how I feel.

Photo credit:  Pixabay

But then there are many, many things that other people have experienced that I never have and so I will not understand how they feel in those circumstances.  I have to accept that and not presume to offer them advice or tell them what they should do in those cases because I don't have the right knowledge or understanding of their feelings.

There are also times when people want to give me advice or detailed information on things that because they are interested in they assume I will be too.

If you have read this far then I am sure that you are nodding in agreement because you have experienced similar "well intentioned" advice and can understand how it feels.

Having experienced this all of my life perhaps partly because I may be described as an introvert and then people believe I need their help; I have learnt from my feelings so that I hope I do not do the same thing to others.


How should we treat others?

In Love, before we even open our mouths to say anything we should pray about it and make sure we know enough about the person to know that what we say will be edifying, helpful and relevant to them.


In Love, accepting that none of us are perfect but that each deserves from the other the respect and care that God shows to us.

This is not always easy because our normal attitudes are to completely think of ourselves and hence see each situation as to how it affects us.

But everything involving more than one person will ultimately affect more than one person.

Each conversation will affect both people in that conversation.

And we can be the one to make the difference in that conversation.

Everything involving more than one person will ultimately affect more than one person.

The two verses quoted above are commands.

If God has told us to do this then we should do it and it must be possible to do this, even through all the events of our everyday lives because God does not expect us to do things in our own strength.
 He wants us to rely on His.

If this then is possible we have the opportunity to see people as God sees them and to treat them as God would treat them.

The two verses quoted above are commands.

If God has told us to do this then we should do it and it must be possible to do this, even through all the events of our everyday lives because God does not expect us to do things in our own strength.
 He wants us to rely on His.

If this then is possible we have the opportunity to see people as God sees them and to treat them as God would treat them.