What Does Family Really Mean?

Heavenly Father I praise You for my family that I am a part of here on the earth, and I praise You for the family I am a part of as an adopted child through salvation. I praise You for allowing me to grow in a family that believed and trusted in You but I also praise You for all the people who became a part of my family through Christ who may not have had a very good earthly family.

Holy Spirit Christ was informed his family was now at where he was speaking, He replied: Who is my mother? And who are my brethren? [Matthew 12:48] Christ was not denying them, but He was teaching everyone to think bigger about family. As believers, it has been referred to often throughout history as all of us being one body or family. That we are all brothers and sisters. Well, when we accept the gift of salvation as I have, we become a united bond through Christ and His forgiveness. We also become heirs under Abraham as Paul laid out in the scriptures. Just as I can not deny my family whether I am getting along with them or not, neither should I deny my spiritual brothers or

sisters just because I may not see the world the way they do. After all, the world holds me accountable for every one of their actions whether I like it or not. Besides, If Christ has accepted them into His fold, who am I to say they don’t belong? I have never read in the Bible where there are fences separating doctrines, denominations, races, or ages of people. God does not segregate, and neither should I. Help me to understand we are all different but if God accepts them into the family then I have no choice, for like Isaiah pointed out: See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before me. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will

be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, says, “Yet I will gather to him others besides those who are gathered to him.” And even James, Christ’s half-brother taught the early church: If you fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are sinning and are convicted by the law as sinners. For whoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point is guilty of breaking the whole law…. So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For he who has shown no mercy will have judgment without mercy, for mercy triumphs over judgment. [Isaiah 49:16; Isaiah 55:8&9; Isaiah 56:6&7; Isaiah 56:7&8; James 2:8-13]

May I be honest before all people and not think I am more than anyone else? For I, just like everyone else was a sinner, and now I am bought with a price to be an heir to Christ and to have the opportunity to reach heaven for eternity as long as I abide in Christ and He in me. Thank You for this

wonderful gift help me to live in it with all of who I am. Amen.