The Real Motive

The state of Indiana has been in the national news spotlight in recent days over the protests of Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The protest began in earnest this past Saturday, March 28, 2015, with a march in Indianapolis and has since spread nationwide with businesses threatening to pull out of Indiana and/or boycott the state.

The law attempts to provide some degree of protection to Christians, in particular Christians who run businesses, who, due to religious beliefs, do not want to be forced by law into taking part in things that would violate their conscience, things like gay marriage. The protesters claim the law gives a license to discriminate against gays by refusing them services that a business would provide to others.

The truth is, no Christian who reads the New Testament and actually believes what it says (there are some who no longer believe) is going to be willing to aid and assist anyone determined to commit sin when he realizes that is what is happening. The sin does not matter. It could be homosexuality, adultery, theft, deception, whatever the sin might be. No Christian becomes a party to sin. No Christian helps another commit sin.

If the homosexual is discriminated against because the Christian will not help him sin, if that is your definition of discrimination, then by the same standard of reasoning the adulterer, the thief, the deceiver, and all others are likewise discriminated against by the Christian who lives his faith. The Christian faith does not allow one to facilitate sin. Yes, the Christian does business with sinners every day. However, he does not do it in a way to help in the commission of a sin.

A Christian who aids and abets one determined to sin is little better than Balaam, who Jesus said, “taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.” (Rev. 2:14 NKJV) Balaam was going to help Israel commit sin via Balak.

The agenda, the real motive behind the protests, is to drive Christian faith into silence and out of the public sphere, to marginalize it and make it as insignificant a part of American life as possible. There have already been a few instances nationwide where small Christian businesses have been sued successfully for their failure to provide services for those gay couples planning weddings. When court costs, fines, etc., are figured into the equation, such suits essentially destroy the tiny family-owned business and threaten even the financial survival of the family that owns it.

This is really a matter of vengeance against those of faith. How hard would it be to get a wedding cake made or a photographer in to have pictures taken? How hard would it be to get one in willing to do that? Would not the loving thing be to just take the wrong and go on? It would if they were Christians, which they are obviously not. “Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong?” (1 Cor. 6:7 NKJV) Of course, this is not to say the one who refuses to bake the cake for a gay wedding ceremony is in the wrong, but only that the Christian thing to do is to refrain from suing. But there is no Christianity in gay marriage.

Those who oppose this Indiana law on the basis that they think it discriminates against gays feel that such discrimination would be wrong—in their eyes sinful, evil. That is strange, almost inexplicable, coming as it does from those who have rejected God’s word on the subject of sin. How do they define sin if they are not going to use the Bible to do it? How do I know what is sinful and what is not apart from God’s word? Well, let me guess; man makes himself into God and decides what is sinful and what is not.

If it had not been for the Bible, the word sin would never have been in man’s vocabulary. The word “sin” is first used in Gen. 4:7, where God is speaking to Cain, although sin itself was first committed by Adam and Eve. John the apostle defined sin as “the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4 KJV), the law being the law of God.

The gay lobbyists have rejected Rom. 1:24-27, 1 Cor. 6:9-10, 1 Tim. 1:9-10, and Jude 6-7, so I am sure they are not willing to take the Bible’s word for what constitutes sin nor are they willing to let God define love. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.” (1 John 5:3 NKJV) If they do not like what a passage teaches, they just put it into a category like foot washing, confine it to the first century, or make it figurative. They cannot endure a literal interpretation of the word.

It is not that hard to reject God’s word, if you are so inclined, and still claim Christianity, which is the very thing many of the non-atheists among them do. Of course, many among them are outright atheists, and none will accept the word of God as is. You will hear much about love from them, but be aware and be certain they will get to define it, not God. Their definition is toleration, toleration, toleration.

It is a smorgasbord man-made religion that supports these protests. It is the kind of religion a secular world desires if it must endure religion at all. If this group believed God meant what he said, and believed it was applicable today, they would have no part of Christianity, declare God the sinner, and become God-haters. Their Bible has been made flexible, so its meaning changes with the changing cultural seasons of society. They alone will decide what is sin.

So what is the standard that man uses to determine right from wrong, righteousness from unrighteousness, when one has rejected literal New Testament texts on sin? If the word of Christ is not reliable, where is the text that is reliable, that provides a standard for judging right from wrong? Without a standard, who dares make himself God and declare for all men what is righteous? The answer is the gay lobbyists, at least on this and related subjects.

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The Army of The Lord

“The army of the Lord” is a phrase found only once in the NKJV of the Bible, and that in the Old Testament in Joshua 5:14, where Joshua, in the vicinity of Jericho, meets up with one who says of himself that he is the “Commander of the army of the Lord.” (NKJV) However, having said that, it is clear from many different New Testament passages that while the church is never called an army, it is clearly described as an army in that each Christian is considered a soldier, outfitted with battle gear, a weapon, and is to be engaged in spiritual warfare. Since the church is composed of its individual members, each member a soldier, it follows that the church is the army of the Lord here on earth.

In the book of Philippians, Paul refers to Epaphroditus as his “fellow soldier.” (Phil. 2:25 NKJV) He does the same with Archippus in Philemon verse 2, and almost every Bible student is familiar with Paul’s admonition to Timothy where he tells him, “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” (2 Tim. 2:3 NKJV) If we are honest, we realize that is an admonition to us as well if we desire to be a faithful Christian.

We ought to put emphasis on the phrase “must endure hardship,” for it is easy to think that, in our day and age and in our country, there is no hardship to be endured as a Christian. Wrong! Paul made it clear it is not a matter of whether or not we will be persecuted, but more a matter of when or where or to what degree, for he says, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” (2 Tim. 3:12 NKJV)

There is, I think, a greater implication in Paul’s statement than we generally are willing to accept. We think if someone on the national scene has spoken against Christianity, and we hear about it, that we have been personally persecuted because we are a Christian. Yet, in the first century, when Paul was writing, there was no national news that you were going to get instantly, unlike today. The persecution Paul spoke about was far more direct and personal.

Paul was speaking to a single individual in his letter to Timothy and saying to him, paraphrasing, if you are a Christian and are living like it and talking about it—the command is to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15 NKJV)—then you are going to suffer for it. If we do not suffer for it (sooner or later), then maybe that says a lot about our failure to live the life as God intended it to be lived. That is the implied teaching of the passage; if there is no suffering personally, then there is likely no actual living of the life as Christ intended one to live it.

The Christian life is referred to as warfare. Paul says, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God … .” (2 Cor. 10:4-5 NKJV) Timothy was encouraged to “wage the good warfare.” (1 Tim. 1:18 NKJV) To Timothy, Paul says in the second letter to him, “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.” (2 Tim. 2:4 NKJV) This was in the very next verse after Paul told him he must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ (2 Tim. 2:3).

A lot of people enter into the Christian life sort of unaware. They are thinking love, peace, mercy, grace, and hope. They are not expecting combat and are ill-prepared and often unready and unwilling to engage in it. Yes, there is love, peace, mercy, grace, and hope in Christ, but one has to remember these are mostly things that are found within one’s inner being because of what he has become in Christ and what Christ has done for him. As far as the outside world goes, it is an entirely different matter.

You have, to a large degree, become the enemy to the world unless you are going to try and be a secret disciple and never speak of Jesus or just go on living like the world. If you decide on that course, you will get along fine in this world, but there is always the Day of Judgment to look ahead to. That will be a looking forward to “a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.” (Heb. 10:27 NKJV)

But, as I said, many are not ready for the combat. In the parable of the soils, the one unprepared for combat is the one represented by the stony soil (describing the heart of man) where when the seed was sown (the word of God) it was received and sprouted and came up, but “when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he (the person with this kind of heart—DS) stumbles.” (Matt. 13:21 NKJV) He is neither prepared for nor willing to engage in the fight. The heart’s desire is only for the smooth things of Christianity, the blessings.

At the end of his life, Paul said he had “fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim. 4:7 NKJV) It had been a fight indeed. Remember when Paul was being converted? Do you remember the words of Jesus when speaking with Ananias about Paul? He said, “I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” (Acts 9:16 NKJV)

One can read about the life of Paul and his sufferings in summary in 2 Cor. 11:23-33. He talks about his beatings, imprisonments, being stoned, and many other things that came his way in his life as a Christian. It had been a fight, a lifelong fight after his conversion. And here is the lesson we need to learn from this, those of us who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus: the battle Paul fought was a religious fight, the very kind many feel is too unchristian, or un-Christ-like, to fight.

It was a fight over doctrine, over who was right and who was wrong, over who would be saved and who would not, over the way to heaven. Too many people today see this as an exceedingly nasty type of fighting that drives people away from Christ, they say. Don’t talk to me about that. Your fight would be with Jesus, Paul, Peter, and others. Jesus and Paul were in religious debates nearly all of the time.

Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.’ And ‘a man’s foes will be those of his own household.’” (Matt. 10:34-36 NKJV) Paul got in trouble because he was unwilling to remain quiet about his religion and insisted on evangelizing and debating. Come to think about it, that was pretty much the same reason Jesus was crucified, was it not?

But most of the talk today by the Christian community, as the world would define it, seems to be about getting along, how we are all going to the same place no matter what we believe or practice, and how it is so unchristian to fight with one another. Some are willing to go so far with this approach as to say one does not even have to be a Christian to go to heaven.

Jude says he wrote “exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith.” (Jude 3 NKJV) One cannot do that and not debate religion. “We do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Cor. 10:3-5 NKJV) Christian debating (casting down arguments) is a part of the Christian warfare.

Debating is as far as it goes. No Christian, living as a Christian, would ever do harm to another. “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” (Matt. 5:44 NKJV) Christian wars are a misnomer. The Crusades and other European religious wars were not Christian. Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world.

When one looks at the armor a Christian is to put on to fight the Christian warfare, “put on the whole armor of God” (Eph. 6:11 NKJV), that he might stand and not fall, one finds that he is given “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Eph. 6:17 NKJV) This is the word which is described in the Hebrew letter as being, “living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb. 4:12 NKJV)

There are those today who would remake the sword of the Spirit into a butter knife. Just sharp enough to cut soft butter, and that’s it. They do not want a sharp two-edged sword, one that pierces in the way described in Hebrews 4:12. The fear is that someone might get hurt, that is, get their feelings hurt. They are not going to wield any such sword, and so you can forget them as an active soldier in the Lord’s army. They will not debate the truth; they will not contend earnestly for the faith; they will not wield a two-edged sword.

One of the great failings of Christian understanding is to understand that until the heart is pricked with the sword of the Spirit (and someone has to wield it), there can be no repentance, no seeking of salvation, and no turning from error or sin to the truth. You may hurt a man’s feelings for a day, yet save his soul for eternity. Until a man is convicted of the truth in his heart, the truth of his own sin, of his own error, the truth of what God requires of him, there will be no movement on that man’s part and thus no salvation.

I will never forget the wisdom of an old, long-gone preacher of my youth, one I never met but knew of, who has now been gone for a few decades. He was talking to a man who had been convicted of the truth but who was nevertheless unhappy with the preaching; the man felt the preacher had not spoken as softly and kindly as perhaps he could have, and this offended the man. The old wise preacher made a comment along these lines concerning the preacher the man was critical of—“That preacher is the best friend you will ever have. He taught you the truth and convicted you of it.” Obviously, this is a paraphrase, but that is pretty much the exact thought expressed and how true it was and is yet to this day. Many is the man who will speak softly to us and who will allow us to go to hell before they will offend us, but how many men are there who will tell us the truth? Which of the two is really our friend?

I told my children when they were growing up that one of the worst things that happens with adulthood is that when you reach that point, there are few who are willing to tell you the truth, even when you are dead wrong. When we are growing up, we have parents, teachers, and other adults who do not hesitate to jump in and let us know we are in the wrong, but once a man or woman reaches adulthood, suddenly no one is friend enough to any longer tell us the truth about ourselves. They nod and say yes to whatever we say. The days of being rebuked for a bad attitude and wrongdoing, whether toward God or man, have come to an end. We are thus always right and never wrong, so we are led to believe, and how dangerous that is.

I close with this. God has an army. A man is either going to be in it and be a faithful soldier and take the sword of the Spirit and use it properly, which means for something other than buttering sinners up, or else he is not. Either way, there are consequences that follow. For the one who picks up the sword of the Spirit and then drops it and turns tail and runs, the Bible says, “The cowardly … shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Rev. 21:8 NKJV) Since that is the case, the only real choice a man or woman has, accept it or not, is to use the sword or not, fight or die.

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Politics and Christianity

(Although this was written in 2012, and it is now 2026, I think it has relevance for today and likely for a long time to come, so I post it.)

I write this under the date of March 6, 2012. By now virtually everyone who follows the news at all has heard of Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student, who testified before a portion of Congress recently arguing that birth control pills should be covered by her employer’s health care plan. She argued that it is just too expensive for students to purchase the pills on their own.

As you know, the President’s health care plan has a contraception mandate in it requiring employers or their insurance companies to cover the cost of contraceptives. This has aroused a fight between the President and the leaders of the Catholic Church, whose church doctrine opposes the use of contraceptives. They argue his mandate is a matter of the violation of the church and state relationship whereby the state is trying to force upon the church a requirement that they provide a service or pay for it that is directly contrary to their church doctrine, while the President and his party argue it is a matter of women’s rights and health care.

Rush Limbaugh, the well-known conservative talk radio personality, got involved last week by calling Ms. Fluke a slut. Here is a part of Limbaugh’s monologue quoted from the March 2nd ABC News Web Site online, from the blog posted there by Mary Bruce.

“‘What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute,’ Limbaugh said Wednesday. ‘She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.’”

The President then became involved making a phone call to Ms. Fluke to offer his support to her, commending her for her testimony, and expressing his disappointment that she had been subjected to these personal attacks.

I have written all of the above so you, the reader, have the necessary background information before you to see where I am coming from in the remarks I am about to make. First, I want to tell you what this article is not about. It is not about the use of contraceptives. It is not about whether or not the government should mandate that health care plans cover contraceptives. It is not about the Catholic Church or any of its doctrines. It is not about Rush Limbaugh and whether or not he should have said what he said. What it is about is defending that which is scripturally indefensible, fornication.

What kind of a country do we live in when we have national leaders that go to bat for unmarried college women, commending them for basically committing fornication? Now I fully understand that some women may have health issues that require birth control pills for reasons other than birth control. I am fine with that, but do not be misled or so naive that you think that Ms. Fluke was advocating for that reason or for that small group of college-age women who fit into that category. She had in mind birth control pills for college co-eds who needed them for birth control, pure and simple. President Obama was not so naive that he did not know that, and yet his desire was to render support.

Paul, guided by the Holy Spirit, said, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Cor. 6:9-10 KJV) Paul spoke of these acts as being unrighteous. He says those who do such things “shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

He says in 1 Cor. 6:18, “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.” (KJV) Did you get that? The Bible calls fornication a sin. Now who is worse—Rush Limbaugh for calling names or our national leaders whose desire it is to defend the indefensible, defend sin? God will decide.

In an article entitled “Rush Limbaugh Apologizes for Calling Sandra Fluke a ‘Slut,’” dated Sat., Mar. 3, 2012, by Dean Schabner and Matt Negrin on the ABC NEWS online site, President Obama is said to have called Ms. Fluke “to tell her that her parents should be proud of her for speaking out for women.” I can tell you, had that been my sister, in the 1960s, testifying before Congress, unmarried, a single college student, that she needed insurance coverage for her birth control pills, I don’t know what would have happened at home at our house, but it would not have been pretty, and “proud” is the last thing in the world my parents would have been. Don’t confound the holding of high political office with holiness and righteousness.

It is past time to quit calling this country a Christian nation. It has aborted millions of babies (a holocaust); every year we have more and more states legalizing gay marriages, which involve the sexual act the Bible refers to as an abomination (Lev. 18:22); we are slowly but surely destroying God’s definition of marriage; and now we think it is wonderful that a college student advocate for birth control for fornication and commend her for taking such a stand.

As I write this piece, I am 65, just having had a birthday about 3 weeks ago. I think back on the days of my childhood and youth and how the morals of this country have changed. The big push toward massive national immorality came in my college years in the late 60s with the hippie generation, the sexual revolution, Woodstock, drugs, etc. I came from a very tiny rural community and graduated from high school in a class of 10 students. A big class for our small community’s high school was 16, which is what the class ahead of me had. But the point I want to make is I never knew of but one kid among us who came from a divorced family. Nearly every child lived with their biological family. I graduated from high school in 1965.

Children today do not have parents. They have live-ins, here today, gone tomorrow. It is mom’s boyfriend, not dad. It is dad’s girlfriend, not mom. What a life we live today, but I thought everything was supposed to get better with time. I thought it was called progress and was inevitable. Man was to be his own master. Maybe we just need a few more laws passed by our legislatures or a few more mandates to make us what we ought to be. Maybe a little more ignoring of God would help (hope you recognize satire).

This article was not written with the intent to condemn or attack Ms. Fluke. The truth is “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23 KJV) Furthermore, if people would study up on the Greek word translated fornication (the Greek being the word porneia), they would quickly learn why most modern translations have dropped the word fornication and replaced it with the more general term “sexual immorality.” Some want to argue that “sexual immorality” is too broad a term and covers too much ground for the Greek. That is wishful thinking and reflects a lack of in-depth study. (The best study I have ever come across on the subject is a 21 page article by Oscar Miles in Faith and Facts Quarterly, April 2008, Vol. 36, Number 2, pages 36-56. It is a scholarly work with in-depth research with 39 footnotes reflecting that research.)

The purpose of what I just said was to make the point that there are a lot more people guilty of fornication (Greek “porneia”) than you might think. One does not have to be involved in the act of procreation to commit the sin of fornication, for all sexual immorality is covered by the Greek word as accurately reflected by the more modern-day Bible translations. People commit fornication, sexual immorality, who have no need of birth control pills.

So this article is not about Ms. Fluke specifically, or even about a particular sin or group of sins, but it is about a so-called Christian nation that has lost its way and no longer has any use for the Bible; a nation whose desire is to become a wholly secular state and discard any thought of Christianity guiding our decision making. It is about government and government officials who would not know what a sin is if it slapped them in the face and who promote sin and applaud it. We get what we want, what we desire. We also get to reap the consequences; we get to reap what we sow (Gal. 6:7).

People on the one hand do not want to obey God and want to ridicule his outdated commandments, as they see them, but on the other hand, when tragedy strikes, they want to think it could not possibly be God punishing this great righteous nation. It is foolish for a man to say any one event is an act of God in punishment of a nation, for no man can know that. However, is it not also foolishness to think God is just going to continue endlessly to put up with our sins? You certainly do not see that when you read the Old Testament scriptures.

“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” (Psalm 9:17 NKJV) We have forgotten God in our morality and our government. We govern ourselves by the men and women we vote into office. We have no one to blame but ourselves for what happens to us as a nation. I hope I am not here when God decides the day has come for our punishment. We are surely not a righteous nation. There ought to be things more important to people than how fat their pocketbook or billfold is.

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The Family of God—The Church

The church in the New Testament is often referred to by men as the family of God. It is the designation that touches the heart with the greatest force. We long to be part of a family, to have people who care about us, care how we are doing, and who will help us willingly and gladly should we need it, people who love us. One of the most painful things one can experience in life, a gut-wrenching experience, is feeling totally alone, abandoned, and that you matter to no one. It rips your heart out and then shreds it to pieces. You become numb and robotic, just going through the motions of living.

Many people truly are alone; no one cares enough even to pray for them. They are nameless people in that no one is aware of their existence. They live among us as visible ghosts. The saddest thing is many who are in this condition realize it. It is not hidden from them, and they thus bear the burden of that knowledge, suffering the emotional pain that comes with it. I want to be clear here and add I am not talking about just the homeless.

The sickness of heart so many experience who feel abandoned and alone is far more painful than any physical ailment for it touches the soul. When one is unloved and unwanted, then what is left when that comes into a person’s life? “By sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.” (Prov. 15:13 NKJV) All human experience has borne out the truth of this Spirit-inspired statement of scripture.

In Christ one always has family, for the church of God is the family of God, people who love one another and care about one another, people who will help you as well as pray for you. How thankful we ought to be to find someone who cares enough for us to pray for us. Many people have no one who will do that for them. Have you ever wanted someone to pray for you and there was no one to do it, no one close enough to you even to know your need?

While the phrase “the family of God” is not found in the New Testament, the concept is. We are the children of God, “Beloved, now we are children of God.” (1 John 3:2 NKJV) Christians are born of God, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” (1 John 5:1 NKJV) We are begotten of God in that He has “according to His abundant mercy…begotten us again.” (1 Peter 1:3 NKJV) The Christian has been born again into the family of God. We call God Father, for, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1 NKJV) If we are His children, He is our Father.

We are God’s household, “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” (Eph. 2:19 NKJV) Paul wrote to Timothy saying, “I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God.” (1 Tim. 3:15 NKJV) Thus the church is our spiritual family, the house of God, and if we live in it long enough and are faithful, it becomes as close to us as physical family, even a closely knit physical family, and even dearer to us as the years go by and we grow older. That is the way God meant it to be. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, for in Jesus’ own words He says, “Whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” (Matt. 12:50 NKJV)

What should one experience in the family of God? Here are but a few of the things.

(1) Love. “In sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart.” (1 Peter 1:22 NKJV) “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35 NKJV) “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (1 John 3:16 NKJV) “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13 NKJV)

I think the greatest desire of the human heart is for love, to be loved and cared about. In the church, if the brethren are what they ought to be, they will love you and care about you. You are their beloved family.

(2) Compassion. “The members should have the same care for one another…if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” (1 Cor. 12:25-26 NKJV) Sounds like what we expect in our own homes, does it not? It sounds like people care for one another, does it not? That should be the church when the membership live as Christ has directed them and have the love of God in them.

(3) Kindness. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted.” (Eph. 4:32 NKJV) Every Christian is to have “brotherly kindness” (2 Peter 1:7 NKJV) in his life. Kindness is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22 NKJV). Have you ever wondered how much kindness the homeless receive? What value do you think they would place on a little kindness? How much value do we place on kindness in our life—kindness both shown to us and that which we show or should show to others? In the church one should always find kindness being shown one member to another, for we are family. We should show kindness to all, the Bible teaches that, but certainly we need kindness to one another in the family of God.

(4) Longsuffering or patience. Life in any family requires patience or longsuffering with one another. You should find that in the church as well. God’s people, His family, learn to put up with one another’s quirks of character—those things that can be annoying—because of the love we have for one another. We are “bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Eph. 4:2-3 NKJV) Is that not the way it is with a husband and wife? We all know it is, and that is the way it is in any successful family. It is that way in God’s family if it is the family God would have it to be.

(5) Forgiveness. “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.” (Eph. 4:32 NKJV) “Bearing with one another, and forgiving one another.” (Col. 3:13 NKJV) We all feel the need to be forgiven. In the church, God’s family, one needs to find that forgiveness, and I am speaking here of the forgiveness by our brethren specifically.

Sin is a burden we carry and yes, certainly, we must first be concerned with the forgiveness of God, but we also must feel our spiritual brothers and sisters in God’s family will forgive us and help us unload the burden and guilt of sin. “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal. 6:2 NKJV) To know our family will have us back, forgive us, and love us, despite our past sin, is a wonderful thing. An unforgiving Christian is an unsaved Christian. “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matt. 6:14-15 NKJV)

(6) Help and support. If it is needed, the family of God helps one another out with the matters of this life. “Whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17 NKJV) “As we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Gal. 6:10 NKJV) In 1 Tim. 5 Paul instructs Timothy as to how the church is to care for those who are “widows indeed” (1 Tim. 5:3 KJV) having no one to help them. It would be a disgrace for a church to have hungry and needy brethren without helping them.

This list could be extended, but brevity must rule. Based on the six items I have listed, without extending them, I think we would all agree that any family sharing those traits is going to be a happy and successful family in meeting the inner human needs of one another. Give me a family that loves me, has compassion for me when I need it, is kind to me, is patient with me, forgives me as needed, who helps me in my life, and I would say I have a wonderful family. God’s family, when it is what it ought to be, is a wonderful family.

A few comments are appropriate here as regards the head of our spiritual family, God the Father.

(1) God loves me and you. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16 NKJV) He is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV) He “desires all men to be saved.” (1 Tim. 2:4 NKJV) “We love Him because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19 NKJV)

(2) He will never give up on me or come to the point He no longer wants me as long as I will come home, come back to Him, even if I were to wander far away. Read the story of the prodigal son as found in Luke 15. He will always have me if I will repent and come to Him.

(3) He has prepared great things for me as a rich inheritance. (1 Peter 1:3-4)

(4) He has promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Heb. 13:5 NKJV) What a wonderful Father! That last promise means a lot to me, for I know, whether they want to or not, family and friends will leave me, and you, for death is inevitable. I have someone in God my Father who will be with me no matter what even if it comes down to being just the two of us alone. He is the only one who can go with me through the gate of my own personal death. It means a lot to know He will be by my side through life and death.

Finally, I must close with the elder son of the Christian family, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How much does He love me; how much does He love you? To ask is to answer, for there was and will ever be His cross bearing witness. “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 2:2 NKJV)

When I think of Jesus I cannot help but think of Him in the garden praying, “And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. And His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:44 NKJV) He “offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear.” (Heb. 5:7 NKJV) What more could one ask of an elder brother in giving Himself to save His younger brother or sister? Greater love has no man than this.

The family of God is the greatest family any man or woman can ever have. Likely, if it is not what it ought to be, the reason is you or me; we are not the children we ought to be. We know the Father is the best and the older son wonderful, but how are we as children—rebellious, or loving and faithful? The church can always be made better, made better as you and I make our lives better and become more like our elder brother. How Christ-like are we?

I end with this final thought. We have often sorrowed in our lives as our earthly family has been struck down by death. The family of God is not torn asunder by death. It is a family that will always be ours unless we leave it. When we die as a Christian, we just go on where other Christian family members have already gone, and there we are reunited with them. How wonderful that will be to be reunited with those we have loved in the past and who loved us and are now waiting on us.

But bear in mind the promise we have is only to those in God’s family. Everyone today seems to think they are in God’s family regardless of what they believe and practice. The Bible does not teach that every person, even if sincere, is going to be saved. There is a way to be born into the family of God (John 3:5), so study your Bible and compare what you did to become a Christian, a child of God, with what they did in the first century. Read Acts 2, as that is the day the family of God, the church, was established (a topic for another time). Do as they did, and God will add you to His family. That is where you want to be.

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