Paul said in Galatians 6:1-2 to bear one another’s burdens. But what does that mean and how do we do it? I truly believe that the burdens we bear are of two kinds: lets say one kind of burden is something weighing down on a believer and IS NOT due to sin in their lives, and a second type of burden being one that is also bearing down on someone, a loved one, and IS due to sin in their lives.
We are to bear both. This is what it looks like: to bear the burden of a believer who is suffering for a reason not as a result of sin, we are to be comforters, weepers, prayer warriors, laborers. By doing so we hope to mitigate the agony just a bit or maybe a lot. We can see this illustrated for us in Simon the Cyrenian, as he was asked to come alongside the Lord to help him carry the cross. This is a very profound picture here within which is a very profound spiritual truth…I’ll elaborate later.
The second type of burden bearing happens when we suffer, thereby bearing another’s burden, for some sin and namely for the sin of unbelief and a lost life and all the baggage that comes with that. Either way we suffer. I would say that the second type is more grievous to be borne. But we are called to it.
This suffering for the believer may not manifest itself in any physical way, but I want to proclaim from the housetops, that the burden bearing for the lost soul, the sinner, often does. And it is the fruit bearing believer who sees it.
Paul asked the Lord to remove his physical ailment which we find in Galatians was very likely an eye illness. I submit that Paul’s eye sickness, whatever type it was, was a physical manifestation of the burden he was called to bear for the unbelieving nation Israel. God refused to remove it. Paul tells us that it was so that he would not become proud because of all the glory that had been revealed to him. But he also tells us another profound truth.
He claims in Colassians 1:24 that he “now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh, that which is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of the his body, the church”. He was speaking literally. We are the body of Christ…His hands and feet and also eyes, etc. He is no longer here taking the blows that came to Him as the Lamb slain. He returned to glory and is there now while we, His body, the true church, remain and are doing His work. It has to be His body that receives the blows (all of the sin which afflicts His body)so we receive it. Paul said these blows that Jesus took for our sin as He became sin for us, continue today and we take them up in our flesh, which is actually and not just spiritually His body. We are bruised and afflicted now because His physical body has ascended never to be bruised again. He is the Lion.
We are finishing up His work…which was His commandment to us who believe. So we will see physical manifestations at times in our flesh, when we are receiving the sin blows of another that only His body can receive. Paul’s burden was for a nation who would not See. Maybe our burden is for children who will not walk as they should. Could it be that a physical ailment of a holy believer is bearing the burden for a time until the one whose burden we bear will follow God? Its very clearly what Paul said.
Galatians 6:1 says that if we see a man overtaken in a fault (sin) correct them in a spirit of meekness lest we also are tempted. The next verse finishes the thought by telling us to bear their burden in the meantime.
The burden bearing for a believer not in sin but just suffering, might not and probably won’t result in a physical manifestation by the one bearing the faithful believer’s burden. Joseph is another example of bearing burdens for the sin of others. He went to prison…that was his physical manifestation. He said that he was rejected and imprisoned in order to save many people alive!
This is all part of being crucified with Christ…fruit bearing.
Now as with all serious spiritual truth, Satan loves to counterfeit. This truth spoken to the unprepared, the un-sanctified heart, will be miss applied. We cannot just look at all physical illness as spiritual or even as a result of bearing a burden. Sometimes the sinner himself bears his own sin burden…especially if they are a believer and should know better but they remain willful in sin or even a willful source of stumbling, inhibiting the Master’s work in a heart.
I also think that a believer could suffer a physical affliction (burden) for the sin of one in his life, when the believer has failed to lead properly the one sinning. They have fallen down on the job and have not spoken truth and have not corrected in season but have encouraged by permission the one sinning. God knows, either way.
What a true burden it is then to afflict the Lord’s body with my sin if I am one doing that. I seek to never be that one afflicting the burden. I rather seek to be a blessing and to never let my sin afflict another…whether it’s a blatant sin or one not so detectable. A holy life is the remedy to that. If we seek God first in all things, we can be sure that affliction for others is coming, maybe even in a physically manifested way. The affliction or burden that blesses God though is the sweetest. The one like Simon the Cyrenian. He just came alongside and helped with the weight of a cross righteously borne. This is an easy one. Jesus said …My burden is light…” The burden He has us carry is light. His was heavy.
Galatians 4:15 Paul’s eye ailment
Mark 15:21 Simon of Cyrene
Matthew 11:30 Christ’s burden is light for us