God's family

I John 3:1
Mark 3:31-35

When we become Christians, God adopts us as His children. And this new relationship with God as our Father automatically brings us into a brother/sister relationship with all other Christians. We are commanded to show love to everybody, but we have a special responsibility towards our fellow Christians (Galatians 6:10).
For an example, see Acts 11:27-30. The famine prediction was not just for the church’s information; it was given so that they could take action. In these days, when communications are so much more rapid, we have no excuse for not helping our brothers and sisters in need all over the world.

But family life doesn’t just ‘happen’. There are enough dysfunctional families around to warn us that things can go badly wrong. Behind the front door and the net curtains, you hope to find warmth, love and acceptance. But in many contemporary households, the various family members may spend very little time actually relating to each other; they sleep, eat and watch TV separately. We must not use this model as the basis for our church family life.

One problem is that, just as in our human families, we don’t always see eye to eye with our Christian brothers and sisters! We can choose our friends, but not our relatives; and though we can these days exert some choice over which church fellowship we belong to, there are still likely to be some members whom we don’t find it easy to get on with. There may even be some ‘black sheep’ that we would all rather disown – but we mustn’t.