Family

Family

Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor."1 Pet 2:17

One summer my husband was working at a sales job where he went into various offices in the area. One day, he made his sales pitch to a woman, and she asked his name. When he told her, she said, "that's my name, too! Who's your dad?" They talked for a while trying to place each other on the correct branch of the family tree. Then she told him that there was a family reunion in New Mexico a couple of weeks out. We were engaged at the time, and we talked it over with family. The two of us, my in-laws, and my brother-in-law drove to New Mexico together. We did  not know what to expect because this was a branch of the family we had never met. We were told, though that only a couple of McCabes had come over from Ireland, so if you were here, you belonged.  We were immediately made welcome, and quickly discovered similarities. There is "the nose", which appeared on most faces. (When I was telling this story to my children, they pointed to their faces and asked, "This one right here?) Most of the men had jobs that fell into one of three categories. The women were all crafty and had organized a craft sale over the weekend. There was also a cut-throat horseshoe tournament, which our family held their own in. Most everyone had sunflower seeds in their pocket, not just our men. The family church service on Sunday morning made it clear that beliefs were similar as well. We all enjoyed finding new family members and promised to keep in touch.

There is a tendency in the church today to be "clannish". It is easy to stick to the Sunday School, the church, or the denomination that we come from and to exclude others. We may do this from convenience and we may do it because of disagreements in doctrine or tradition such as sprinkling vs. immersion, instruments or no instruments, or blue song books vs. overheads. If we do separate ourselves we are depriving both ourselves and our extended Christian family. We truthfully have more similarities than differences. We all come together because of our love for God and our gratitude for what he has done for us. There is something that we can learn from every group of believers and there is something they can learn from us. In our part of the country we are seeing a greater unity in the body. In the past few months there have been gatherings of believers from every denomination, called One Kingdom, coming together to pray for the city and the nation. There have been Racial Unity Summits to help different cultures learn to understand each other and worship together. There was a wonderful rally, called Abilene for Israel, where Jewish and Gentile believers met to pray and worship together.  This really opened my eyes to our extended family in other countries. Aside from the fact that we are commanded to pray for Israel and to "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" we can learn so much from their reverence for God and their care for each other. Also, it helps us to understand the roots of our Christian faith.

John Chapter 1 tells us that to everyone who believed in Jesus God gave the right to become children of God.(John 1:12-13) Much of Romans 8 deals with the beautiful picture of God's adoption of us and the way we can call him Abba Father and have become joint heirs with Jesus. In 1 Peter 2:17, we read, "Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor."
and 1 Thessalonians commend the believers there for their love of the family of God everywhere.

God has given us a gift in our human families, our church families and the extended family of believers. Have the courage to accept that gift and receive the blessings it can give us.