Kingdom and Family

Bill Johnson once said, "If you have left the concept of family, you have left the Kingdom."  I see this hunger in people's eyes to be part of the Body of Christ but as family, not church members, attendees, visitors, or any other such title.  These things all came much later but the only two relational structures in the Garden of Eden were marriage and family.  You could say that the desire to belong and be part of a family comes out of the depths of how we are designed, deep in the very fabric of our being.  Yet we see the breakdown of marriage at the Fall and the family is soon to follow as Cain kills Abel after the Lord did not receive Cain's offering.  The tearing apart of the family is like the fracturing of a rock hit with a sledge hammer, the fracture is jagged, brutal, raw, and tragic.  If you notice the Western Culture is quickly redefining family through media, government, and popular opinion.  No longer are a husband, wife, and kids the normal for a family, the "Modern Family" could be made up of two dads or two moms and kids.  There is much confusion in our culture of what family really is, I heard of one marriage ceremony where the vows were "As long as love shall last."  One of the most foundational relational structures  in our society is continuing to crumble from the initial fracture in the Fall.  Yet Jesus leads a revolution to not only restore what was lost but to go beyond bringing human beings into the glory of God.  The glory was the original target, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23).  Ever since becoming a Christian 28 years ago I knew deep inside that Christianity was about God's love and family, yet I didn't always see this lived out or modeled.  Since my family had been fractured at an early age, I had a deep desire for family but no idea how to live this out.  I believed that because other people came from an intact family that they did not have the same deep desire that I had.  Yet I did not realize that so many had had fracturing in their families and in their hearts in different ways then I had.  For so many the search for a father and family lay buried under other pursuits for love, approval, money, and success.  I have often talked about and meditated on identity, a foundational revelation for us to walk in freedom and life.  Yet it is the family, the relational structure, in which a child is nurtured, blessed, loved, affirmed, and raised up so they can walk in their identity.  How can you have sons and daughters without the love of a father and mother?  In Ephesians 3:14-15 it's said, "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,"  God is the beginning of all fatherhood and motherhood, because Adam and Eve were created in His image.  God created Adam and Eve, gave life to them and thus is the beginning of family.  The Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the first family.  Name means origin and includes identity, thus God is the originator of both family in heaven and on earth.  It is deep in our DNA to desire family, the belonging, the love, the acceptance, the protection, and the empowerment.  Amazingly we are invited into the family of God, not to just be servants but to be His sons and daughters.  We are truly brothers and sisters "in Christ" because of this Father's love to bring us home by sacrificing His Son Jesus.  What the Father has done to bring us home into His love as sons and daughters is a very worthy subject to explore in-depth.

In Father's Amazing Love,
Bret