As It Is in HeavenНамуна

Day 5: Bringing the Dream to Life Pt. 2:

Today, we have one more way to combat racism and division in the church. Our focus for this section is on not letting small differences within the church pull you away from your eternal family.

Making a difference in the way the church looks to the rest of the world starts with a simple decision: this group of people is going to be your spiritual family, and you are going to stick with them come what may.

Many of us just cut and run at the first sign of trouble. We treat the church like a restaurant: Do we like the decor? Do we like the music? Do we feel like we are getting value for our money?

I’m not suggesting you go and find the most uncomfortable situation you can, just for the sake of it. Being part of a church means being with kindred spirits, but that connection is meant to be based on something deeper than just a similar taste in music or even agreement on every little point of doctrine.

We are put together in a body to learn from and to support one another, drawing from their strengths and giving of our own. That is how we “encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11) and “stimulate one another to love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24).

The church is not the physical building; it’s the people there. It is where we, “like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 5:11).

You should love your earthly family. But your spiritual family is just as important. We may not share physical characteristics with them like we do with our relatives, but we share spiritual DNA and a heritage. Our earthly bloodlines may be different, but we are united by Jesus’s blood that was shed on the cross for us.This love may not come as easily as love for your earthly family, but through intentionality, you can establish it in your heart.

Jesus loved His earthly family. When He was dying on the cross, He was still concerned enough for His mother’s well-being after He was gone—widows in those days had to rely on family to care for them—that He asked John, one of the disciples, to look out for her (John 19:2-27). Yet He also made the point that the family of God was even more important.

One time, early in His ministry, Mary and some of Jesus’s half-siblings came to where He was teaching to try to get him to come home; they thought all this ministry stuff was getting out of hand. What was Jesus’s response?

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:33-35).

He wasn’t dissing His own; He was just making His priorities clear. On another occasion, when Jesus was emphasizing the cost of being His disciple, He said:

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27).

The point was not literally that people had to hate their parents—just as He didn’t mean for people to literally pluck out their eye if it was an avenue of temptation to sin (Matthew 5:29). Jesus was emphasizing the importance of spiritual family.

Don’t turn your back on your natural family by any means, but you need to commit to the one you are adopted into as one of God’s children, the church. It is going to last forever, and, even more than your earthly family, it can reflect something of heaven while you’re here.

By adopting this biblical mindset and not turning and running anytime something in the church happens that is not to our liking, we can begin to transform the church into a lasting family—as it is in heaven. This will not happen on its own – it requires intentionality on our part.