Monday, October 14, 2013

WHO IS FAMILY, REALLY?

I was reading Mark 3:31-35 this morning.  Jesus was told that His mother and brothers were outside and wanted to see Him.  He looked at the crowd sitting around Him and asked the question, "Who are My mother and brothers?"  Then He answered His own question.  He said, "Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."

Was He rejecting His mother, His family?  I think Jesus was making a point that the people who are submitted to God have a stronger bond to Him because it is a spiritual bond.  Sure Jesus' mother and brother share DNA and makes them related in some ways, but it's about so much more than that.

We all go back to one ancestor.  Even Eve came from Adam.  Our bodies are made up of DNA, cells, blood, muscles, bones, etc., chemistry that reproduces over and over again, giving us a body, but that isn't all there is to us.  We have a spirit and that spirit gives our body it's personality, thoughts, emotions, it remembers and feels.  Without a spirit we are an empty shell.

I was with my mother when she died.  At the instant she exhaled her last breath, her spirit was gone.  She no longer looked like my mom.  It looked to me like an empty suit of clothes laying on the bed where she once was.  She departed from that room.  I knew that in theory, but now I experienced a body void of what made it come to life.

A good example is a contractor building a new house.  He builds it and it stands empty amid a row of other new houses, all unoccupied.  Not until a family moves in does it become a home.  They bring their furniture, pictures, their personality to the house.  Now it becomes a home.  There are activities happening in the house, new people are invited in, memories are being made.  It becomes their home.  And when they are away they say they are going back home, not to a house, because who lives there gives it its meaning and it is something different than just a house.

When our spirit is born again, our spirit uniting with Jesus', we are a new person.  It is like an egg and a sperm coming together at fertilization.  A new person is born.  That makes us family with others who share the same Father.  Now we share a family history.  That bond is stronger than the DNA we share with other mortals.

I am sure Jesus loved His earthly family, but He came to call us to a more secure family.  He was teaching that to His disciples.  Did they understand?  Do you?

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