Loving Your Family
The word family can carry a lot of different meanings, depending on who you ask. But, the command to love your family comes straight from God.
In the Old Testament, the command to honor your father and mother was included in the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses for the people of Israel:
Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
Exodus 20:12 NIV
As Paul, the author of Ephesians, is teaching the church in Ephesus about the implications of following Jesus, he repeats this command from the Ten Commandments. Paul knew that if we are to follow Jesus then we need to learn to love everybody, even those who are closest to us—and especially our own family.
Now, everybody grows up in different family circumstances. Some are born into nuclear families, some are raised in situations of brokenness, and others are welcomed into adoptive families. Regardless of how or where we grew up, God calls us to love those who raised us.
That may be a hard thing to do. Sometimes a family member seems like our greatest enemy because of how they’ve hurt us. But even in that, Jesus encourages us to love our enemies and pray for them.
While learning to love those who are closest to us may be one of the most difficult things we do, it is also one of the most life-changing. It increases our capacity to see and love others, as well as honor God with our life. Consider how you can take steps today to better love those God has placed in your life.
Are You Ready?
The greatest measure of who we are and what we love is how we spend our time.
Where do you spend most of your time? Most of us spend the majority of it with family, at work, or on hobbies. All of those are important things that we should invest in. But Jesus says there’s another thing that we need to spend time doing.
There are a lot of different ideas people have for when Jesus will return, but ultimately, Jesus says that nobody will know the time and date. He will come at a time when we least expect Him.
So until He does come, He says that we should be ready. We tend to spend most of our time working on finding the right career, or pursuing certain relationships, or building wealth and possessions. And yet, none of those things will prepare us for when Jesus returns.
So what can we do to prepare?
The first thing is to put your faith in Jesus, by believing that He gave His life so that you could have eternal life. Next, commit to spending time with Him, confessing your ...