Bearing Burdens

“For every man shall bear his own burden.” (Galatians 6:5)

My Dad was preaching a sermon on personal responsibility for the Christian. Somewhere in his sermon he was making reference to what we call, “Chimney Corner Scripture.” It is not the inspired word of God but many people have adopted it as inspired Bible truth. He mentioned five or six as illustrations. One of several dad’s illustrations for “Chimney Corner Scripture” was, “Every tub has to sit on its own bottom.” An old gentleman was visiting that Sunday and gave a good and loud, “Amen, brother.” That certainly is not in the Bible but our text is.

Every person must accept the responsibility for his own burdens. However, in the verses previous to our text we are admonished to help others who are bearing burdens too heavy to bear alone. We Christians are to express Christian love by helping the person with a heavy burden. That does not mean that we should shirk the responsibility of bearing our own burdens.