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SCRIPTURE FOR PRAYERFUL MEDITATION
12 Dear brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord’s work. They work hard among you and give you spiritual guidance. 13 Show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work. And live peacefully with each other. 14 Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.
(I Thessalonians 5.12-14, NLT)
STORY: BROTHERLY, SISTERLY LOVE
In the late Eighteenth Century, at age sixteen John Fawcett and his new wife, Mary, began pastoral ministry at an impoverished Baptist church, Wainsgate, England. After seven years of devoted service in meager circumstances, they received a call to the large, influential Carter’s Lane Baptist Church, London. After a farewell sermon and loading of the wagons, the Fawcetts met their tearful parishioners for a final goodbye. The wife lamented to her husband that she could not bear to leave them. The distraught pastor replied, “Neither can I.” So, the pastor said, “We shall remain here with our people.” The order was given to unload the wagons; the next Sunday Pastor Fawcett preached from Luke 12:15, “A man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things he possesses” (AV). He concluded the message reading his new poem, “Brotherly Love,” now called “Blest Be The Tie That Binds.” The Fawcetts continued pastoral work in the little village for fifty-four years. Their salary has been estimated never to have been more than two hundred dollars a year.
HYMN FOR PRAYERFUL READING: Blest Be The Tie That Binds (1782)
Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.
Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.
We share each other’s woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.
When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.
This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.
From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.
PRAYER
Spirit of Christ, draw my heart closer to my Christian brothers and sisters. Help me see beyond their personalities to you who live in them. Help me to be as kind and compassionate, patient and understanding, as I wish for others to be to me. Especially, help me to love those I judge most unlovable, and forgive those who hurt either others or myself. May I harbor no wrong toward anyone in my heart. May I never cling to hurt that another has brought upon me or one I love dearly. Grace me to act and think as you would have me to. Bind us together, your church, in one faith, hope, and love. In Christ’s Name, Amen.
*For data on OneLife, book by the writer, and information on quotations in writings, go to next page.
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