Mark 3: 31-35 (NLT)
Then Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him. They stood outside and sent word for him to come out and talk with them. There was a crowd sitting around Jesus, and someone said, “Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.” Jesus replied, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” Then he looked at those around him and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Some years ago, my friends and band mates and I crammed into the drummer’s truck and drove down to Biloxi for the Family Values tour. While this may sound like a wonderful Christian conference featuring Dr. James Dobson as the key note speaker and the Newsboys leading worship, it was a far cry from that vision. Rather, it was a hard rock concert featuring bands with impressionable names like Korn, Papa Roach, Orgy, and Limp Bizkit. Bands that were the antithesis of acceptable family values. Bands that channeled their anger, disillusionment, and lusts into explicit lyrics and hammering beats. Strange as it sounds, as I looked out on the throbbing mass of people banging into one another and screaming, it was like a family. A dysfunctional family, yes. But a family. Brought together by the inner pain and confusion and a hole in the heart that only Jesus can fill.
Thankfully, God brought me out of such an environment and into His family. All that come to Jesus become part of God’s family. No matter how good or bad your family life was before, you can be a part of His family. With His family comes great love and security. A love that reaches out to people the way Jesus did (and does). A love which leads you to say that the people of Refuge, other churches, believers struggling on the streets or in offices or in classrooms, believers who don’t see things exactly the way we do, are still a part of the family.
The family of God. And therefore, the family of Love.
