What Is A Family?

Family. A word that means something different to everyone. Yet, by definition, it means this; a group of one or more parents and their children living together as a unit. What if I told you that God’s definition of a family is completely different? Have you grown up being called the ‘black sheep’ of the family? Almost like you were born to the wrong family? You just never seemed to fit in, maybe you didn’t even get along with the people in your family. This is how I grew up. I never understood why I felt like such an outcast. Not only in my family, but at school, in my neighborhood, pretty much everywhere I went. I did not have a good perception of family. I just didn’t understand why God would put me somewhere that I didn’t belong. This took me from Him for several years. It wasn’t until I finally left my home and moved far away for me to grasp what a family really was. Family is not necessarily the group of people you are born into. Sometimes that is the furthest from the truth. Blood makes you related, loyalty makes you family. We all know the saying, ‘you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family’. I do not agree. I believe you can’t pick your relatives, but you can pick your family. A family is who accepts you, loves you, picks you up when you fall, is there for you no matter what. Loyalty. Jesus or as I call Him, Yeshua, is above just being considered family. Why? Because He gave His unconditional love to us through His blood and He is loyal. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” 1 John 3:16.

If God has chosen you, sometimes He has chosen you out of your family. “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” Matthew 19:29. This is how I found a family that I belong to, under the Blood of Yeshua. Family is what you make of it. Where God leads you, and who He leads you to. Under the Blood of Yeshua, who ever confesses His Name, that is your family. You may feel out of place now, but trust God, He will put you around people that will fill your heart and connect with your spirit. All families argue at some point. A real family won’t turn away from you, they won’t stab you in the back and they won’t leave your side when you are struggling. A real family fights with you through your struggles and pain. They go through the mud with you and clean you off when you get through it, not point out all the dirt on you. Sometimes this starts with strangers who become brothers and sisters. Closer than any relative that you grew up with. “God sets the lonely in families” Psalm 68:6. God is our Father, Yeshua is our Brother and everyone who lives in Him are our brothers and sisters. This does not mean that our parents, aunts, uncles, cousins or grandparents will understand. Sometimes we are the only one in the family that gets led to Yeshua. We can either be used to lead the way OR we get pushed away. Yes, this is painful, but do not lose hope. Jesus is faithful and He will surround you with the people you need to continue forward. Your loyalty to Jesus will richly reward you. And, if your family doesn’t see your light, God will send someone or something else to show the way. “Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” Mark 6:4.

Another difficult situation in a family can also be what I call the ‘pharisee mentality’. Some people call it the “God complex” but really all it amounts to is a person being entitled. Sometimes some people believe that because they went through hard times and worked their whole lives, they deserve to be treated a certain way, and in turn treat you as though you are beneath them. DO NOT LOSE HOPE. If someone in your family talks down to you and acts like a holy roller because they believe they are owed something, that is not the love of Yeshua. We owe Yeshua everything and He gave it all for us- who deserve nothing. We are to look at those around us as if they are better than us. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3 The love of Yeshua is not proud, and it will never talk down to someone else. His love rests on the ones who are humble and who serves those around them, despite what they have been through.

The good news is that even if we are not surrounded by a big family, we will never be alone. Our Brother and our Father are always with us. From the beginning to the end and everywhere in between. He will give us what and who we need at just at the right time. Follow Him and He will always give you more than you’ve sacrificed, because He sacrificed Himself in order for us to become His. Under His blood we are all family. We were adopted into the Kingdom of God through Christ.

“For he chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will— to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of His glory.” Ephesians 1:4-14