Family of God

"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:" Romans 8:16, KJV

I know I've never spent a whole lot of time talking about family, but I think it would be a good issue to get some discussion on. For those of you who don't know I have a large family, 3 brothers, 1 sister, 2 parents, 23 first cousins, 1 living grandparent, 16 aunts and uncles, and several great aunts, uncles, second cousins etc...

I have a huge biological family, and there are many people with families bigger then mine. However, as a Christian the people I consider family isn't limited to biological persons. Everyone is a child of God; everyone on Earth. Not everyone is in good standing with God and not everyone will make it to Heaven because not everyone wants to be in relationship with God, but we are all God's children.

That being established there are several things about families that make them special.

We have some kind of connection to them: Even in the blogosphere there are families and groups. Blogvillage would be one, I can go to any blog on blogvillage, know there won't be innappropriate material, and comment on someone elses blog. If the question comes up "well, what connection do I have to you?" I simply reply that I'm a villager on blogvillage just like them; we have a connection. Outside of the cyber world we also have connections to family groups. Our biological family is of course the most basic one we share common ancestors, common nationalities, common traits etc... We are connected to our families.

Now what does this connection bring? We'll there are really several things that we could bring up. It often brings unity, loyalty, commitment, trust, openness; we can experience all of these things in a family because the connections that bind us are so great that more or less there is nothing that could tear us apart.

A family is also a support system, when we can not bear everything life is throwing at us family is there to help us out; to share the burden. We often are able to put aside differences just because someone is family and we know that they need us.

Now don't get me wrong there are fights in families and arguments and all of that bad stuff; but all around, families are a pretty good deal.

Now the family of God is unique from our biological families in a few ways. I can honestly tell you this; my closest friends that I talk with the really deep stuff in life about are not always biological family. There is stuff I could tell a brother in Christ that I couldn't tell a biological family member. One of my closest cousins is so close not becuase of our biological relation, but because of our relation through God. "A man [that hath] friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend [that] sticketh closer than a brother." Proverbs 18:24, KJV. I have friends that I would say in many ways are closer to me then my biological brothers. Jesus is closer to me then anyone else on Earth, and He always will be.

I have one close friend that I worked with at Church camp, and I talked with him about stuff that I could never have talked to my brothers about. Because he and I were closer in Christ then my brothers and I.

The point I'm trying to make is families are good, but a Church family can offer you things that biological families can not.

Often biological family members are not believers; and that puts a gap between us. For me it's a pretty big gap too. It's discouraging to be around people who can't support you in your lifes purpose, and who can't grasp who you really are because they can't grasp who you really serve. It makes it difficult.

Well, I think I've gone on enough, let me know what you think. This may not be my most cohesive post ever, but it is emotional.

God bless!