The Spiritual Family
by Larry White 6/17/1992
What we are about is not what you see. Paul said that what you see is temporary but what you can’t see is eternal. The issues we deal with here in the church are issues of eternity, issues of such weight and moment that those who catch even a glimpse, and perceive what we’re about, have their countenance changed within them, and are never quite the same in their seriousness and sober zeal for the salvation of Man. What we do here concerns the souls of mankind and their eternal destinies.
God is bringing many sons unto glory. (Heb.2:10) So it’s a birthing process here on the earth – where we are born spiritually and are adopted into the household of God.
The Family of God. Sons of God. These are very serious ideas and concepts.
Sons of God act like their Father. They mirror the character and dignity of their Father – in love.
Jno.8:42
Jesus said unto them, “If God were your Father, you would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God;”1Jno.5:1
“Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loves him that begat loves him also that is begotten of him.”So being sons of God means that we bear the image of the one who created us, in our knowledge and our character of love.
Someone said that you can see a house, but you have to experience a home. So it is with the family of God. Our relationship as a family is not outward in the flesh. But our relationship is centered in the mutual experience of being Sons of the living God. Our love for each other is not just in word – but in deed and in truth (i.e. in action and in the spiritual reality that we all know and experience – the truth)
As the family of God, our relationship must not begin and end with social events – that’s not what we’re about. Social events are fine – but what we are about is much deeper – our love is much deeper, it goes through the bone and into the marrow; through the soul into the spirit, where we actually have our life, the life that is hidden from the world, the life it cannot see. It’s a serious love, a love where we would lay down our lives for our brethren.
Our home is in the spirit – and that’s where you have to be born, to be in it. Jesus said in
Jno.3:3-5
“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”That’s when we give our lives to Jesus Christ through faith in his sacrifice for our sins and are immersed by water into his death and are made alive with him in the spirit.
When we have that faith and experience that birth, only then can we see what we are about here, and share the love that goes deep, in the reality of our brotherhood in Christ.
LW