The apostle does not tire of reminding us that for a Christian the matter is never about one's own successes, achievements, or, conversely, failures. Of course, Christian life is a spiritual path that must be walked. But the main thing on this path is not self-improvement, but the manifestation of the Kingdom to the world. A Christian lives not for himself, but for others. True, not in the sense of the altruism that people around us for some reason often expect from Christians, but in the sense of one's participation in the Kingdom.

The ministry of a Christian is his very life, provided that it is truly Christian, because in that case the life of the Kingdom shows through it, further and further, ever more brightly and clearly, and everyone who communicates with him can partake of it. But such a life is possible only if from the very beginning a person renounces the thought of living by himself. Not for himself or for others, but by himself.

The life of a Christian ceases to belong to him; it becomes God's, Christ's, flowing into the stream of the life of the Kingdom, which surpasses everything a person could imagine. But the stream of this life must flow freely. It is impossible to keep it for oneself, to stop it, to separate out a few streams from it so that they are guaranteed to belong to some particular person. Here it is either free movement or nothing. But then one has to renounce the absolutizing of any forms, ways, and images of Christian life, including one's own. One has to realize that the life of all Christians, if they are truly Christians, is one, while the forms - organizational, liturgical, religious in general - are secondary. And none of them is better than any other; each is good when it is appropriate, when it is adequate to existence in the Kingdom for certain people or communities. And if so, then the refusal to absolutize one's own form becomes not simply a concession to the neighbor, but a necessary condition for abiding in the Kingdom.

Indeed, even those forms, including religious ones, which we consider our own, native, and organic, are relative in their essence, and at some point we will very likely have to give them up. Then an observant Jew can discover that what he was so proud of and held on to so tightly - his own religiosity - gives him no advantages at all in the main thing over a Gentile who had nothing of the kind. That is why the apostle advises not to absolutize any forms: for absolutizing presupposes self-identification, which in spiritual life will hinder rather than help.

We know many different biblical names for God, and at the very beginning of chapter 15 of the letter to the Romans Paul gives us two more: the God of patience and consolation, and the God of hope. These are astonishing names, and what deep meaning is contained in them. They tell us about qualities of God that we often forget. Much more often we remember the punishing God, the almighty God who appears in lightning, power, and glory. And this too is wonderful.

But do we remember divine patience, and the fact that there is far more within us that ought to separate us from God completely? We often remember God on the difficult days of our lives, take offense at Him, present Him with long bills or even longer lists of our needs. But when everything gets better, we do not see a miracle in it; we find logical explanations for what is in fact a gift from the Lord. And He still bears with us, loves us, and always waits, even when we turn away from Him. And when we return, He comforts us again and gives hope that not everything is lost in our life.

And He calls us to this same thing: to bear with one another, comfort one another in sorrows, and give hope. "Receive one another, as Christ also received you, to the glory of God." This means forgiving injuries and insults, accepting without setting conditions ("if you behave well..." or "if you do such and such"). Accepting simply because Christ accepts us in exactly the same way: sinful, angry, touchy, forgetful, all kinds. Not because we have earned it, but simply because He loves us.

The main meaning we give to the word “accept” when speaking of someone is to accept that person as he or she is. The apostle certainly means this too: a call to bear with other people, accept them as they are, and not try to remake them. Even this alone is far from easy, because the passion for reeducating and lecturing those around us is characteristic of most of us.

But the word the apostle uses twice in this phrase has, in Greek, the primary meaning “to take to oneself, take along, bring into one's company.” It means not merely tolerating someone, but including that person in one's life, joining that person to oneself, taking that person along on one's journey into eternity. This is what the apostle calls us to do, grounding his appeal in the fact that this is how Christ took us to Himself, into the glory of God. Christ does not merely tolerate us as we are; more than that, He takes us to Himself precisely as we are.

And because He promised that whoever receives another receives Christ Himself, this inclusion of one another in our lives becomes an encounter with the Risen One Himself.