Over the last year, Christ has taught me so many things as well as placing plenty of convictions onto my heart.
One of those things was vulnerability.
Why?
Personally, I do not enjoy people knowing way too much about me. This included people at my church as well as people I was close friends with. I didn’t want to come off as weak or that I didn’t have my life together. I kept the majority of the relationships in my life as surface level as possible and stuck very closely to my little circle.
However, Christ calls us to be in fellowship and to be open about your life with those around you.
It wasn’t until I heard Galatians 6:1-2 that my mind began to shift and my heart began to soften in that regard.
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
Wow.
Christ has commanded me to be there for others as well as for His children to love and to be there for me?
So how do I practice this? How do I love others, bear their burdens and be in fellowship with those who are in Christ?
Be open in your current Christ centered friendships
It is already hard enough to try and be open to someone new, but are you telling your Christ-centered friendships everything? This is probably the group of people that sees you on a day-to-day basis and can see your patterns before you even recognize them. It is easy to want to keep things to yourself and to bottle things up, but sometimes these behaviors can lead to harmful sin patterns that you either do or don’t even know about.
Proverbs 27:17 says that “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.”
You cannot grow without giving your friends the opportunity to see into your life and point out the things you are blinded to.
This doesn’t mean your one best friend either. It means maybe even a few.
Everyone has a different perspective of life and has different knowledge on different situations. Your one best friend may have a lot of good advice when it comes to one thing, but your other friend might have something better to say based on experience about other things.
Proverbs 15:22 says “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.”
With your friends now being in your lives and bearing your heart to them, you can now do this to other relationships in your life.
Get a mentor
In my walk with Christ, I don’t think I would have opened up half the way I do now if it wasn’t for my mentor. In my church, mentorship is heavily placed onto our hearts and for good reason — it's biblical.
“Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, so that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.” Titus 2:2-6
Slowly but surely as I got to know my mentor, I opened up to her about my sin struggles and the things that are heavy in my life.
By letting her in, I was able to recognize patterns, behaviors and maybe even things I didn’t realize that were sinful.
In return, she gave me sound and biblical advice to apply to my life and also helped me get into the Scriptures to find the answers to my problems.
The women of your church know more than you do. They have gone through life and have been in the Scriptures longer than you have. They have been kids, teens, young adults, married, parents and maybe even grandparents. The experience that they have is fruitful.
Share the Gospel, more specifically your testimony
When sharing the Gospel, it is very easy to go to others and talk about what Christ has done for us.
But do you share what He has done for you?
As a Christian, your testimony is one of the many important things about you. It is the story of how the Lord changed your heart and saved you. Your testimony is key when it comes to sharing the Gospel.
However, people are sometimes ashamed of what their testimony is.
Some people are weary of sharing theirs because it isn’t as “pretty” as others or they feel ashamed of their past.
However, you never know what your testimony can do for those around you.
Your sin struggle might be something that a stranger struggles with and they have no idea how to even talk about it in the first place.
The Lord’s divine appointment between you and that other person might be a gateway for that other person to open up.
Acts 4:33 says “And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.”
Be proud of what the Lord saved you from and boast about the work that He has done in your life.
Brag about the gospel and the love that Christ has for you.
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