I recently attended a Celebration of Life for a wonderful husband-father-grandfather.  During the service, his family shared about his love for Jesus, for his family, and for people.  The family expressed different examples of how he loved people by not judging, and how easily he forgave. 

I began to think of my own family.  I am the oldest of three children.  While growing up, I can remember my brother, sister, and myself “going at it.” There were days that we got along and then there were days where we argued and sometimes, fought like cats and dogs.  If you have siblings, you understand completely.  Oh, we truly loved each other but we too had our moments like most brothers and sisters. 

We lived in a neighborhood with a lot of kids our age.  We played outside until dark and went to school with them too.  And like all children do, there were moments where disagreements would arise and words were spoken, and sometimes, the threat of a fight would break out.  When words or a fight were directed at others, it wasn’t a big deal.  However, you let the threat be directed to my brother, sister, or me, and that was an entirely different story.  We could talk about each other and fight with one another, but no one else better do it!   We may have had our disagreements and words, but we forgave and moved on.  We stood up for one another then, and an incident occurred here recently that proved that our love for family hasn’t changed.  We are family and we have each other’s back.

After leaving the service, I began to think about my physical family and the family of God and began to compare how I treat the two.  The Holy Spirit began to show me some things about myself.  Things like how quick I am to stand up for my family, work through differences, forgive-loving them no matter what.  But then I realized that I don’t always apply the same principle to the family of God.  There are times where I am not so quick to forgive, to look at the situation from their perspective, or try to work out the disagreements with my brothers and sisters in Christ like I would with my own family. 

Don’t misunderstand my words.  I know from experience that church hurt is the worst kind of hurt.  We have all seen the effects of church people hurting church people.  Churches have split, lives were devastated, and hearts broken because of offenses.  The sad thing is that most of the time, it was all over a difference of opinions, miscommunications, misunderstandings, the wrong perception, and judging because of being misinformed.  And usually when situations like these take place, for most people, it is just easier for them to walk away and leave, go to another church or no church at all rather than to talk with the person, work through the struggles, extend grace and forgive.

The Bible instructs us as to how we are to treat one another.  Jesus says in John 13:34-35, “A new command I give you:  Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Colossians 3:13, Paul says, “…bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you almost must forgive.” 

Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

In I John 4:11 we read, “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  Hang on, just one more - I John 4:19, “We love because he first loved us.” 

I know this is not easy.  These devotions hit me in the face and go straight to my heart before you read it.  This is not to cast guilt towards anyone – the finger is pointed at me before anyone else.  I realize that this part of the Word of God causes us to do some serious soul searching.  We choose to either love and forgive one another, or we don’t.  It really is a choice that we make. 

Families are not perfect, and neither are the individuals in the family of God.  I am not there and just when I think that I am, another layer is peeled back, and I need Jesus to help me once again.  Yes, there will be times when we will need space for God’s healing power to do His work in us.  And you should know that it is good to seek healing, counseling, or whatever you need to do to heal. 

We forget that the world is watching how the Body of Christ treats one another.  They see through the masquerade and know if we really love one another like a family.  So here we are with this realization:  if we don’t love one another, forgive each other, and stand as a family, how will the world see or know that we are disciples of Jesus Christ?  How will they see that we are disciples of the only One that showed us how to love by willingly dying on the cross for you and for me?