By Isabel Vorst | Intern
My whole life, I have wrestled with the question of what home and family are, and if I would ever truly find them on this earth. It was not until I found the family of Christ, those who had truly made him their everything, that I found what I had so long been searching for.
There is nothing so beautiful as the unity of a place filled with adoration for Christ. A humble gathering place crowded with friends, family and strangers, all drawn near by the blood of Christ and overflowing with a spirit unified in love.
There is an indescribable joy in the family of God. Joy that young men and women, linking arms to pray, can move the heart of the most high. That two women, little more than strangers, can meet each other’s tearful gaze and feel all the warmth of a lifetime of friendship in a single embrace.
That this single touch is burned into eternity, that moment that your souls say: I see you, all your loneliness and pain, and I understand. And it is gone now, swallowed by the deep, deep love of Christ. See how we all love each other, as we were meant to in the beginning.
Since finding home in the body of Christ, I have seen many drawn in through this love and watched their lives be completely transformed.
John 17:20-21 says: “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.”
The body of Christ is supposed to hold the same degree of oneness as the Father, Son and Spirit. A man’s spirit searches the depths of his soul, just as the Spirit reveals the deep things of God (1 Corinthians 2:10-11). The spirit of love between believers is a pure, unified love that flows from loving and seeking God and wanting to love his creation.
For so many, family is a source of pain and discontentment. The hurt that we experience from our temporal families are often a deep wound because they tarnish our image of God.
A family is supposed to mirror the ways God loves his children. The way we see our heavenly Father is colored by how our earthly father has loved us. He lets us experience the masculine and feminine sides of his love through parents.
When we have children, he shows us the depth of his love for his creation, and the grief he must feel when we shun his love.
Through marriage, the fullness of the image of God is displayed. A husband is supposed to love his wife as Christ loved the church — self-sacrificially, even unto death. It is to this deep, profound love that a wife is supposed to submit, stepping under the covering of the man as he imitates Christ. The two become one, as the church and Christ are one.
It is so important for the body of Christ to treat people like family. We live in a culture where individualism and isolation are normal and encouraged. We are trained to seek our own comfort and glory, prioritizing happiness to shield our hearts from the hurt we incur in the world.
But Christ calls us to turn from the things that give us identity in the world to the things that give us identity in him — calling us to be one as he and the Father are one. The same spirit lives inside each of us, and we as believers are united as his temple and dwelling place.
The heart of the family is crucifying selfishness, so that a unity of love may live in the body of the family. If we were to love how Christ designed, we would not have to prioritize ourselves, because everyone would be nourished by the love of Christ.
We cannot love ourselves in a fulfilling way. That is a lie that we have been fed by culture. We cannot love ourselves first. We love Christ, we love others and everything else flows from it.
Our own pursuit of happiness will not fulfill us. Rather, it is the surrendering of our wills so that the love that dwells between families and the church is of one accord — the same spirit of love, just as the Holy Spirit dwells in unity among us.
Even families that are submitted to Christ have shortcomings, and in this fallen world they always will.
But God has brought us into a family that is eternal.
When we are reborn as believers, family becomes more than blood. Our family is composed of those who are washed in the blood of Christ, having become sons of Abraham through the promise.
The people of the church of Christ have a responsibility to model what family ought to look like.
Jesus tells his mother Mary, who stands at the foot of the cross, gazing upon her dying son and Savior, “Woman, behold your son!” And to John, he says, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour forward, John 19:27 says, John took her to his own home.
God wants his family to be one, united by his steadfast love rather than the feebleness of our own. It is Christ’s love that unifies us, giving us a glimpse of our eternal family that transcends the fading world we can never fully call home.
