The Origin of Life (witness number seventeen) ...

Where do you come from?  Is your heritage of birth something you take pride in?  Or perhaps, is the lineage of the great patriarchs of your faith something you have grown comfortable resting within, leaning on, and somehow have come to believe their faith and accomplishments transfers in some way to you?  The Pharisees in the days of Christ had this in their Patriarch Abraham.  He was both progenitor and founding icon of the Jewish system of belief.  And thus the Pharisees took pride in their lineage; and in the comparative wisdom of their faith over the ideas of the heathen, idol-worshipping, ignorant lot of the surrounding nation states.  The Pharisees reasoned they descended from greatness, and therefore must also be great in some way.  But are we any different?

While our parentage may not trace back to Abraham, the founding icons of our various faiths are often something we take pride in.  Whether it be a particular Papal leader, or Martin Luther, or John Wesley, or Joseph Smith, or Ellen White, or Billy Graham, or Joel Osteen; often modern Christians seem to look backwards for those who performed great deeds of sacrifice, or spoke great words of inspiration, or penned great books of enlightenment.  We believe, like our spiritual Pharisee forefathers, that the actions of the founding fathers of our particular faith, transfer to us a richness of heritage that somehow allow us to share in their deeds.  But most of us, have accomplished no such similar feats of faith or inspiration.  In truth, our only connection to them, may be that we share their ideals, while falling short of their actions and examples.  The idea, that we are somehow “better” because of where we come from, is a delusion the devil is all too happy to foster within us.  For the idea lulls us into inaction, and causes us to measure our faith and “goodness” against those around us, who because they do not share our brand of Christianity, must by definition be “ignorant”.  Comparative holiness, is not holy at all.  The myth that where we come from matters was a myth Christ must now redirect.

And so in John’s gospel account, in chapter eight, in verse 37, we resume the Sermon Christ would give in dialogue with His Pharisee accusers.  Christ had already identified Himself as the origin of light, and then the origin of truth.  Now He must add to this, that He was the origin of life itself.  The Pharisees offered the idea that since they descended from Abraham, they were somehow better than those around them, not bound to any man, or to sin itself.  Their pride, and self-reliance, stemmed from a false idea of transference from their ancestry.  But Jesus could not allow this idea to stand, if they were to be saved, they must cease from looking backwards, and begin to see the source of their salvation was standing in front of them.  We must seek the origin of life, and abandon the origins of pride.  So in verse 37 Christ responds to them … “I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. [verse 38] I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.”

Ancestry does not transfer to us, when our actions are in conflict with the source of salvation.  Abraham had been saved by faith (as pointed out in the book of Hebrews).  It was not faith in himself, that had saved Abraham, it was faith that God would save him.  This was faith the Pharisees had abandoned in their day, they were not looking to be saved by any Messiah from outside of themselves.  They did not believe they needed to be saved from themselves or from evil.  The only freedom they were looking for was from Roman oppression.  As far as spiritual matters went, they were fully comfortable that the forms of religion Abraham had given them were enough to keep them pure.  Here Christ cuts through the pretenses and articulates their supposedly hidden plans and motives – they plan to kill Him.  He then goes further and offers motive; they want to do this, because they do not want to accept the ideas or words of Christ, that they are in fact servants of sin, bound to it, and require salvation from outside of themselves.  The only response evil has for love is to kill it.  Their ancestry offers nothing to stop this.

Christ then identifies that the source of all evil began with the “father” of evil.  He contrasts the deeds of love that His Father is pleased by, with the intentions of these religious leaders to kill Him, in order to maintain their wealth, power, and control over the people.  Those actions trace to a source far earlier than Abraham, they trace back to Lucifer.  When once Lucifer chose to break trust with God, and pursue a course of self instead of service, evil was born into him, and into the universe.  The choice not to love was at the heart of evil itself.  And the addictive, degenerative nature of evil, spiraled Lucifer out of control, until Satan was the only name that fit him.  It was Satan who now stood masked within the crowds standing in that temple.  He strongly influenced the minds of religious leaders, who refused to accept the love standing in front of them, and instead only fueled their hatred as a response.  Their actions were not the heritage of one saved by faith, but instead the heritage of one steeped in evil.

In verse 39 they repeat to Jesus … “They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. …”  This was all they had to offer to Christ who only seconds before had revealed plans and motives they thought were completely hidden to Him and the crowd.  The best defense they could muster.  But then, often when we are caught in our sin, when our true motives are revealed publicly to our surprise, we have little to say.  It takes our minds time, to find a lie that might cover our sins, or make us appear less evil than we truly are.  But as Christ was speaking truth, he needed no time to think to continue; and so he responds continuing in verse 39 … “Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. [verse 40] But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. [verse 41] Ye do the deeds of your father.”  Ouch.  The source of their intent to murder Christ could not be traced back to Abraham in any way.  All those present knew that Abraham was not a murderer.

The beauty of the truth Christ had offered them came from His Father.  The beauty of salvation, the offer of love, the chance to be “made free” from sin by Him, the Truth, and the Light, was something Christ brought to them in concert with His Father.  He contrasts His own record of action and love with what they intend and again points out that only the devil is the author of this kind of behavior.  At this revelation, they forget for a moment that they do not to accept that Christ descended from God the Father.  They fully understood what He was pointing out, and they were not going to sit still for it.  So instead they too want to claim God as their father continuing in verse 41 … “Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.”  Again they introduce ideas of their own about how holiness is achieved.  They claim that since their parents were married, and committed no sin in the origin of their birth, they are somehow pure and descend from God the Father.  This was a not too subtle dig at the idea that Mary was pregnant before she and Joseph were married.  In effect, they are calling Christ’s birth into ill repute compared with their own.  They continue to ignore the revelation that they intend to kill Christ, and that this alone could not be reconciled with the God of love.

In verse 42 Jesus responds … “Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.”  Notice that Jesus does not respond defensively to the slight about His own birth.  But instead restates that His birth was orchestrated by God the Father.  He was not here by chance, but by design.  And He further reveals that “love” is the hallmark of descending from His Father.  For His Father is the Father of love.  I wonder how often the reputation of modern Christians is associated with a people who are known first and foremost for the love they show to the world around them.  More often, the association that springs to mind when contemplating modern Christianity is one of judgment, condemnation, and a propensity to “defend” our moral rights with the full force of the power of the state to compel by law.  Perhaps we too have lost sight, of what the hallmark of following our God reveals most within us.  If we too descend from God, we would “love” and not judge or condemn.

In verse 43 Jesus continues … “Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.”  When we walk away from Christ, when we look to self, and our heritage to save us, instead of to the source of Light and Truth, we become unable to perceive truth even when it is right in front of us.  This was the state of the Pharisees that day.  Is it also the state of our faith today?  Have we too decided to look into the mirror to find relief from sin, and a source of truth and light?   Jesus continues in verse 44 … “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. [verse 45] And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.”  When we look to self, we embrace the path of Satan.  It is self-gratification that lies behind every deed of depravity and evil.  It is the quest to please self, that can embrace the idea, that we could take from others if we believe it is something we need.  It is the embrace of self, that would allow us to rationalize that if we need to kill another to take what we deserve, or defend what is ours, that these actions are acceptable.  And to cover our deeds, both to others, and to ourselves, we embrace the lies we tell ourselves.  The path of Satan rejects truth, because it prefers a lie.  A lie feels better than a revelation of the evil of “who” we are.  Darkness for our deeds is better than light that shows them for what they really look like, and who they hurt as we commit them.  This was the contrast the savior was laying out for the men who were on that day refusing to see Light, or hear truth.

In verse 46 Jesus continued … “Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? [verse 47] He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.”  Here Christ challenges them to prove that anything He has said or done is something that is sin.  This is particularly poignant since one of the supposed crimes Christ committed was to restore a lame man to complete health on the Sabbath day.  Despite their dislike of this action, none of the educated men of the law, were able to prove this act of love was in any way wrong.  Jesus then asserts a logical conclusion, if He is speaking the truth (otherwise they could prove He lied and was sinful), then the fact that they refuse to hear Him and His truth, indicates “who” they can truly trace their origins back to.  Those who look to God, hear God; those who look away do not.

This infuriated the Pharisee accusers who stood in that crowd.  They would now question his Jewish purity by calling Him a Samaritan, and take it further to say He was completely crazy, perhaps possessed by a devil as in verse 48 they retort … “Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?”  My guess is the Samaritan reference was based on His known interactions with the Samaritan woman and her village, as well as the fact that Christ was raised in Nazareth (where no good thing had ever come from).  Again the Jews are attempting to say that His origin makes Him unfit to be the Messiah.  They ignore their own intentions and motives, and instead try to cast focus on the qualities of Christ they believe make Him unfit by comparison.  How often do we modern Christians when caught in our sins, try to cast the blame on others who either joined us in our sins, or committed “worse” ones that we are aware of.  We do nothing to accept our own condition, and instead try to rationalize that we are still better than some other folks we know.  Comparative holiness is not holiness at all.

Jesus simply responded in verse 49 … “Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me. [verse 50] And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth.”  Ouch.  Did you hear that modern Christians, and the guy who stares back at me in the mirror; there is “one” that seeketh and judgeth – It is not Christ that does that – it is the father they serve – Satan.  When Christians are known more for their judgment than their love, it is not Christ they truly serve, but His enemy instead.  The hallmark of those who follow the God of love, is that they love, without precondition or restraint.  The hallmark of those who demand justice, and seek to judge, is of the enemy of love, not its author.  Forgiveness after all, is an expression of continued love, in the face of wrong doing and pain and hurt.  This is the response our God offers our slights, our misdeeds, and our actions that cause Him and everyone pain as we try to serve self.  He does not judge, He is bent on redemption and salvation and reform and freedom from this condition.  Sin condemns itself.  It needs no help from God on this matter.  It is Satan who demands we “pay” for what we have done, and continue to do.  It is Satan who relishes when we spend our time focused on the sin of others, rather than on how to love them back to Christ.  The lesson of the rebuke of Christ to the religious leaders of His day, is NO less relevant to us today.

But in a last plea to those who hate Him, despise Him, and are bent on killing Him; Christ reveals one more truth to them regarding origins.  He reveals that life itself originates within Him.  In verse 51 He continues … “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.”  Christ is not talking about the mortal death that comes with age or misfortune.  He is referring to the only death that matters, the second death, the death that results in eternal non-existence.  Those who followed Him that day all died and sleep in their graves.  But sleep lasts but an instant for those engaged in it.  When they awake to the resurrection of the righteous, they will sleep no more the sleep of death.  Those however, who refuse the offer of redemption and salvation, will awake only to see the result of their choices played out for a short time.  They will then taste of the eternal death in the lake of fire until finally death itself is consumed there.  This second death is the only one that truly matters, for from its grasp there will be no escape, or additional resurrection.  It is the eternal sleep of the second death that Christ is here referring to.  It is that death that those who believe on Him will never taste.  For Christ reveals here, he is the origin of our life.

The listening Pharisees however, did not see this larger view.  They thought only that Christ was making an offer of immediate immortality, and believed now for sure they had Him.  In verse 52 they answer … “Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. [verse 53] Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?”  This was an attempt to get the other people listening, to see Christ as having an ego the size of the great outdoors.  If they could get the people to believe this was pride talking, they could win the debate.  Human mortality was something they were certain of, the idea of a second death never crossed their minds, nor did the concept that God being the author of all life, could restore that which evil had taken away.

To their attempts at associating Him with pride Jesus responds in verse 54 … “Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: [verse 55] Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying.”  Christ is not here to seek glory for Himself, but for His Father.  It is the revelation of the love of God the Father that glorifies Him.  If those who stood accusing Christ, truly knew the love of God His Father, they would have rejoiced at the offers of love Christ was extending to them and to all who would choose to believe.  But the proof is in the pudding as they say, those accusers were all too happy to lie to themselves and to those around them about where the origins of Christ were. 

The learned men in front of Him, had studied Abraham well, and were familiar with the stories of sojourning, looking for the promised land.  They knew of his trip to Egypt and the miraculous way in which God restored Sarah back to him from the grasp of the Pharoah.  They knew of the miraculous birth of Isaac when both parents were long thought to be beyond the ability to conceive.  They knew of the visit by God and his two angels on the way to survey the evil of Sodom, and the deal which Abraham proposed to God to spare the city if only 10 righteous people could be found in it.  Jesus now appeals to their study as he further states in verse 56 … “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.”

Christ is here referring to the visit He paid Abraham while traveling to survey the city of Sodom.  It was to Abraham’s great joy that He was able to spend time with His God, face to face, attempting to serve a meal to His honored guests.  Christ here reveals it was Him who Abraham met with on that day, and with Him that Abraham tried to negotiate a deal around Sodom.  But His accusers could not accept this idea either.  Human logic dictates that Christ is nowhere near old enough to have met Abraham.  They counter Him in verse 57 saying … “Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?”  They expected this would end the argument in their favor.  First they believed Christ was boasting about being able to offer life to those who would believe on Him.  Then they thought they had Him, on claiming to have seen Abraham.  For sure they had proven to the crowd that Christ was a mad man at the least.  They never imagined the response that would follow.  To quote the words offered Moses when He asked for the name of God to reveal to the Israelites who would want to know who sent him to them, Jesus now applies to Himself.

In verse 58 He exclaims … “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.”  Only God had ever uttered these words.  Only God could legitimately state them, as only He would be our creator, the author of the life given to us as a gift.  Being the “I am” was a term that could ONLY be associated with God.  And the response of evil in the face of love, was to kill it.  The Pharisees would not hear this idea, and in a fruitless effort to silence the truth, they took up stones to stone Him with.  Had it been the appointed time of His sacrifice, they might have succeeded.  Surely the devil longed to see God’s creations reject His offers of salvation, and take up stones to kill their very creator.  It would be the ultimate irony to have the objects of so great love, kill that love as a response.  But the time was not yet.  And so Jesus hid himself from them and left the temple, passing right through the midst of them.  John does not omit this detail, because again, it is a miracle that the mob was unable to kill Him.  It is beyond the realm of human possibility that He could have passed right through the middle of a mob bent on stoning Him, without so much as a pebble being cast His way.  His offer of light, of truth that changes who we are, of life that has no end and of love to His accusers was rejected again.  But love is never too busy to notice one in need …

 

A New Earth ...

At last … death itself is finally an obsolete concept, as is pain, heart ache, remorse, and guilt. It is only AFTER hell is ceased that all who love like He loves can finally be free. It is only AFTER death itself is done away with, no more to remind us of our former frailty, no more to bring to mind those things that cause us such pain; that we who have been redeemed are set free to love without boundary or regret. Scripture in Revelations chapter 21 begin by quoting the prophet … “and I John saw a new heaven, and a new earth, … for the former things are passed away.” John begins describing the beauty of heaven, but not before he stops to note the absence of death, pain, and sorrow. This sequence of events is required before our ultimate freedom can finally be realized. The last great controversy between good and evil must end.

Human minds are a frail thing. Our imaginations are colored by our perceptions of what is important, what we wish we could do, and limited by what reality has imposed on us. In John’s day, nations were made up of tribal peoples (extended families) generally settled in a similar region, joined together if prosperous by city states, possibly under a king. The height of civilization as John knew it would have been a giant city state. And so with intricate care John proceeds to give us the details of the Holy City of heaven that God has prepared for us to live in eternally. He enumerates the foundation and shows it depth of various valuable stones. He tries to give us an idea of the size, by modern dimensions about 300 miles square, but also as tall as it is wide, at its highest zenith, the throne of God Himself. The city is gated with solid pearl gates, a phenomenon that would have confounded the wisdom of his day both financially and militarily. Never has so large a single pearl ever been imagined, and if it existed, no known battering ram would likely have success in forcing it open. Just in its description of the gates, heaven is set out as an unconquerable city. It is impregnable.

Farming cultures dream of farming mansions, but in every modern city, grass tends to give way to streets, and development. Only parks maintain a connection with nature as it were, and houses or places of residence tend to be stacked on top of each other forming tall towers in order to fit higher numbers of people into small spaces. John might have marveled at New York City, or Los Angeles, but it might have only inspired him to better understand the need for height in the vision of our heavenly city. I imagine a great number of us may be living in penthouse type structures within large towering buildings, but then my imagination is colored by my current realities of large American cities.

Were I more of a quantum physicist I might imagine the same physical space occupied by heaven used in an infinite number of dimensions each with a different cultural or physical expression. Groups of families or perhaps simply random beings might move from one dimension and configuration to another in the blink of the mind’s eye; all occupying the same space and time, but segregated by which dimensional configuration they choose to exist within at one time; or if you really want to bend your mind a bit more; perhaps existing in several dimensions at once.

Of course you may read my ideas and decide this kind of multi-dimensional existence is impossible, or against the laws of physics as we know them today. But this is sort of my point; we do not know if a parallel universe exists or not but God would. We study the laws of physics, God writes them. We make mistakes in what we dream is possible, while God is not bound by our limitations or mistakes. We only use a fraction of our polluted brains today, while consuming poisonous foods, in a contaminated atmosphere, where moderation and temperance are by gone concepts. It is no wonder our minds are too finite now to truly understand what heaven will be like. But once there, our diets will be sheer exuberance, feasting on foods that baffle the taste buds in pleasure, while being converted completely without waste into pure energy. The water will bear no resemblance to the tainted earth we poisoned in our greed and arrogance, it will be clear, pure, refreshing and more satisfying that anything we could even imagine now. With water this pure, think of the ripple effects in the fruit drinks we make, the smoothies we enjoy, the shakes and frozen ambrosia’s we could construct. Imagine not being bound to the idea of seasonal harvests, but having them year round. What a restaurant we could open in the New Jerusalem.

But the construction of heaven is hardly the important thing that makes it special. And while our diets will no longer make us fat, and we can partake of every good thing the Lord makes for us, eating is only a minor distraction in the world to come. At first brush, I used to cringe at John Lennon’s famous song “Imagine” thinking it was an agnostic view of utopian life. But in later years, I have begun to see his line of … “imagining there was no religion” … as being a statement against the organized fanaticism that grips our world. “Nothing to live or die for” removes all the political motivations, as well as the basic need for survival motivation that today cause us so much harm. Perhaps my earlier hesitations about his song were incorrect; perhaps John Lennon is describing life in heaven. But even the peace and harmony he describes is not the singular thing that makes our heaven special.

I can imagine no limits on learning or travel. I can imagine touring stars, galaxies, and even to the edges of the Universe and back. I can imagine putting the knowledge I gain to use in constructing an entire solar system, planet by planet with housing, entertainment, food, places to visit – live – or enjoy for any who are interested. I can imagine creating more enhanced musical instruments, carving ornate furniture from rare woods, building elaborate swimming pools with fountains, slides, frozen fruit bars, waterfalls, and perhaps even a few log flumes as well. My earthly imagination can stretch beyond what is practical in this world. I believe we will travel at the speed of thought. But while I can imagine a great deal, still my imagination is stunted by my current environment, in short, I see through a glass darkly. But again it is not even the limits or lack of them, in my imagination that makes heaven special.

I will finally be free to live to serve others. This will be a decided change for me, as now I seem to live mostly to serve me (a trait I recognize requires Christ to change in me). But there my service to others will be my top priority, and will not be hampered by lack of resources, time, or imagination. I can find new ways to please my wife, my children, my parents, my friends, my heroes, and the strangers I encounter in any way I am able. The freedom to serve will be the most liberating feeling I will ever experience, and with it a joy there are no words to describe it with. The deepest contentment will dwell within me as I strive harder and harder to raise the standard for my service to others. This liberation, the antidote for sin and self-centered-ness, this is close to the best thing about heaven. But then my freedom is not the number one thing making heaven special.

Love, exploring the depths of love, and in so doing beginning to understand God better is close to it. We have only sampled what love is on this earth. It will take new creations to begin to contemplate it properly. The love of God for us will be something we will study for eternity, and will always learn something new and more about it in that time. To explore Love is to explore God. But even the largest attribute about God being love, is not what makes Heaven special. There is something even more than that.

It is God. It is His Son Jesus Christ. It is His Holy Spirit. It is God. Before we existed there was God. He made us with the thought of spending time with us. We are His children, created individually for His purposes for all space and time. To be with God, reconciled of our evil, rejoined with Him finally. This will be what makes heaven – Heaven. It is not the dazzling brilliance of the city. It is not the intricate architecture, swimming in the river of life, petting the tigers, talking to Moses, or even pleasing the wife that makes heaven ultimately so special. It is being with God. It is being close to the source of infinite love. It is feeling Him, hearing Him, learning from Him, sharing with Him, receiving from Him, giving to Him, honoring Him, and worshipping Him from a heart that cannot sit still. It is being with the God we have been forced by our evil to remain distant from. This is salvation. This is freedom. To be rejoined with our God; NEVER to be parted again. Multi-dimensional universes of infinite distance across cannot separate us anymore from our God. For where we are, He will be.

He will be able to talk with us one to one. He can answer our questions, give us a hug, ski with us down a snowy mountain (or perhaps teach me how), laugh with us, eat with us, and watch us while we sleep. And all of God can do this, not just Jesus, but Father and His Spirit – each distinct – each yearning to know us better without the wall of sin between. God’s ability to be everywhere allows Him to spend individual time with every single saved soul. The reunion with God will be unlike anything we can imagine. We are told today, that we are not alone. But our vision is blighted by our sin, and we do not see how our Father longs to show us He is at our side. In heaven, this will be visible to us. In heaven, spending time with God will be our ultimate reward. Like oxygen we cannot get enough of, we will be reconciled to our Father’s side forever. Nothing is more important than this, nothing else can even come close.

I take great assurance in knowing that everything ends with the death of evil, in me, and outside of me. I take comfort in the promise of my Savior to redeem even me. And I find joy unbridled that one day we will be united together never to be parted again. That is the home I seek. That is the mercy of the greatest gift of all time, that I will never be worthy of, and cannot be done praising Him for. That my friends, is the heaven I aspire to. I hope to see each of you there. I pray that Christ will begin by changing the core of me in preparation for that great day.

Adopted & Extended Family ...

My kingdom for a sense of belonging: how often we would trade our success as the world measures it for a place and a people we could truly call home. The embrace of evil has left many scars upon our world and our relationships. Death, disease, accidents have claimed lives of family members, left spouses alone to raise who remains, or parted siblings from each other. The loss of love and refusal to submit to Christ has torn marriages apart and left wounded souls moving from pain to pain. But in the chaos there is still hope. In the darkness there is still light. Our condition is not our destiny, we are called to something more and something deeper.

Family is often defined through accident of birth. Since my mother and father conceived me, I am their child, and so on with my children. But family of blood bonds is not the only measure, and sometimes not even the strongest. We are all descendants, and we are all adopted. We descend from Adam and Eve and are all part of the human family by blood. But greater than this we are ALL adopted by Christ into His family unit with God through His grace and love and ransom paid for our redemption. Christ called us more than servants He called us friends. He was not ashamed to call those who believe in Him, “His brothers”. We are family with Christ by His gift enabling it, and our choice confirming it. The bonds of family by choice then are sometimes greater than those of blood.

Our Christianity is not the only example of families forged by choice. Marriage itself is a union of diverse blood lines and genealogies. The Bible speaks of a man leaving his mother and a woman leaving her home to become “one flesh”. It is the formation or extension of a new family through the choice made to bond with God in love forever. And over a lifetime, not even a parent can claim to love their own child greater than the love one devoted spouse reliant upon God can do. The love inside a union made perfect by God is the strongest love known to us. Only a spouse can know someone to this level of intimacy. And this love was one of choice, just as the one to be saved by Christ is.

So how do we honor our adoption into the family of Christ? Do we guard the gates, close and bar the doors, and see to it no one else like us is ever permitted to enter again into our new family unit? It sometimes looks this way to the world. It is what happens when we internalize the love we have been shown rather than manifest it outwards, back to the world where it is needed. Sometimes it is our inclination to take our forgiveness, and our love from God, and go isolate ourselves away from the world. We mistakenly think this will protect us from evil influences. But it does not. Rather it teaches us a lesson of selfishness even with what is freely given of God to us. We become standard-bearers rather than lovers of lost souls. It is backwards, and it is mistaken. We should reflect the love God has shown us. We should embrace our forgiveness, let go our shame, and face the world renewed to make it better not worse.

It is possible to love someone like a brother without ever being related by birth or by marriage. It is possible to love a mother who does not come from a bloodline you are connected to. It is possible to honor them, to cherish them, to forgive them as they have need, and to call them to remembrance of where all love can be found. It is possible to extend our ideas of adoption well past the concept of only taking in a child without parents into our lives. While the formal adoption process for taking in children may be the highest calling of Christians demonstrating love for the world, the second highest calling may be in the taking in of others through a less formal process. When we adopt a grandmother for instance who has little family, or is shown little attention, we do no less an honorable thing.

When eyes have been opened by the liberating power of Christ removing evil from our character and our behavior, we see need more acutely than we did before. Hearts are touched by infirmity that were once willfully ignorant of suffering all around us. Christians have a unique ability to see through the eyes of Christ and meet needs of those He leads us to encounter. We need not constrain our ideas of relationships to merely friends, but as Christ did, we can elevate people to the status of immediate family by simply willing to do so. We can “adopt” siblings, parents, and children into our core family units making room in our hearts for even more love to reign. Our cup will surely run over in so doing. You will discover what it means to love on a level you can only dream about today, when you are willing to share more of yourself with more people who have need of you.

This is not intended to dilute a marital relationship. We do not seek to add more spouses to our mix. For there can be only one of these if we are to honor our union with man and God. But we do not often confuse parental love with romantic, nor do we often crave the romantic embrace of a sister. Keeping away the impurities Satan would introduce and focusing only on the Love God would have us embrace, allows us to expand our concept of family to a much broader picture, and more accurate one. For in heaven, we will all call each other by our familial names. If you and I have never met, through Christ we are made brothers. When I encounter you in heaven, you will already be my brother. I will already feel for you, what I feel for my brothers by blood, and my brothers by choice. We will together have found a place of belonging.

One fear a parent may have in adopting another child into an existing family unit, is how the other siblings will react. When our attention seems diverted to the hurting who have great needs, sometimes others who still need us as well can feel abandoned or neglected. To avoid this, we must involve them in the sharing of love. We must make them part of the solution of meeting the needs of others themselves and not try to take the entire burden upon our own shoulders. As we share the work of love, we lighten our own loads, and create a vested interest in success across an entire family, rather than resting in the hands of only one person.

While it may be difficult to think about, the same process of sharing burdens needs to be applied when a family member becomes seriously ill, or is lost to death. These occurrences were not supposed to be something we must contend with, but with evil comes the pain of evil, and the loss it can inevitable cause even through no fault of your own. When confronting tragedy, it is not time to cover up, it is time to open up. Feelings should be shared, emotions let out, and responses respected. We should not try to force someone to react the same way we do. But we should try to employ them in the work of showing love and support to others who remain with needs. This work of reaching out, even when suffering inside continues can act as healing to all. Both the hurting one who shares can be healed, as well as the target of their efforts.

Who can know your pain, or your joy more than your family? Who accepts you for who you are more than your family? Our families know us, and love us in spite of our shortcomings. We need wear no mask when facing our families, as they would only see it anyway. There is no need to cover who we are when dealing with family, as they have shown us love in spite of that already. This is the advantage of family over friendships and acquaintances. There can be deeper love in a family. There can be more intimate love in a family.

Before a Christian casually calls a stranger a “brother”, they should consider the ramifications of what they are saying. Are you ready to loan your newly met “brother” $5,000 on nothing but a handshake? Are they free to come stay in your home, eat from your table, and have you look out for them until they die of old age? Some say they would not do this for their blood relatives, why would they consider doing this for merely a “Christian Brother?” I submit there is no difference between the two, and what Christ has already done for us is greater than anything I just listed. The early Christian church did exactly what I described above. They took it a step further and sold everything they owned of value and donated every cent to the church for distribution across the family, as the family had need. This church was symbolized with white for its purity. Seems our symbolic coloring has dimmed a few shades since then. I fear we look more like death, or perhaps worse, like mediocrity.

It takes trust to open oneself up to the world. Not trust in the world, but trust in Christ that our lives will go according to His plan. We may lose our wealth in expanding our ideas of family. The needs may simply overtake our ability to provide for them. If this is our lot, count yourself blessed. For it is Christ that holds ALL of our needs. We may lose our ideas of privacy by expanding our ideas of family. But if this is so, count yourself blessed. For what we lose in privacy we gain back many times in love shared with those in need. We were not put here on earth to be wealthy and alone. We were put here to love and to be known for how much we love. When we submit our wills to Christ, the great adventure of loving begins. I pray it takes hold of our hearts, and allows us to finally truly become one family.