• Some today have taken to calling themselves “Christ followers or disciples.” But Jesus said in John’s Gospel, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). The evidence of our being a true disciple of Jesus, according to Him, depends upon how we love one another and bear each other’s burdens. 
  • To bear someone’s burden requires us to walk alongside them – to be a part of their life.To operate out of love, so that a person will feel comfortable sharing what weighs them down.
  • It’s not a relationship that can be formed in our Sunday services or sometimes even in our Small Groups. It only materializes when you place yourself in another person’s life and demonstrate genuine love and concern for them. 
• John 15:16-20 – You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.  “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
• When can we truly call ourselves disciples of Christ? Do we take time in our day to spend quality time with God (relationship through reading His word, worship, and prayer) and to truly see the people around us, their pain, and their struggles? Are we moved with compassion for those we observe? 
• Bearing one another’s burdens is not only to get people to think and believe like us, and it’s not something we reserve for those we feel comfortable with. When a religious expert asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”, He turned the question around and challenged the man to be a good neighbor like the Good Samaritan in His parable (Luke 10:29-37). 
• Matthew 5:43-47 – “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so?