"Blood is thicker than water."
I've heard it. I've felt it. I've lived it. I was brought up to believe that family is next to God. You stand by them, defend them at all cost, help them when humanly possible, and remain loyal. Actually, I teach my children similar theology. God placed us within our families by His divine design, not by our choosing, or even by our parents' choosing. We learn loyalty, unconditional love and acceptance, and enjoy immeasurable support when we belong to a family.
So, when this ideology was tested in my own life, I was shaken to the core. To take a stand against someone you love, more importantly, someone who loves you, to blatantly refuse assistance, support, or help...to withhold approval and affirmation, even to the point of condemning or judging his/her actions, was not only unheard of, but completely unsanctioned behavior according to our core beliefs. Of course, a parent had the option, even responsibility, to correct and discipline the bad behavior of a child, but once grown, we were to stick together. Ironically, that didn't apply to husbands and wives. Though my dad didn't want a divorce, my mother and grandmother left these as options to positively deal with relationships. But, brothers and sisters, parents and children, were inseparable. Honestly, I like it that way, too. It more readily fits the fairytale existence that I would like to live.
Then, there's life. Messy, real, imperfect life. As I came out of house and home into my marriage, and began our own family, I started in the course of What Everybody Really Believes 101. I began to see through adult eyes, you know, the eyes that find out why certain things were the way they were in your family? The eyes that opened to the reality of long bitter relationships, unresolved conflict, and broken hearts within the ranks of your own gathered together unit called family. The eyes that saw for the first time that mom and dad were not perfect, though you held the firm conviction that they were. Not to mention aunts and uncles, and even grandparents indelibly endeared to the foundations of your heart. Yes, I knew they were not literally perfect, no one is. But, I did truly believe that they always and forever had my best interest at heart, and would choose only to guard and protect me, and everything relating to me, including and especially my children.
To hold your baby for the first time in your hands, so vulnerable and entirely dependent upon you is life changing. All of a sudden, everything and everyone is expendable for the great and holy cause to bring up a child in the way he should go. I struggled as I witnessed compromising decisions from one or the other of my beloved family members, and wondered how I could let that one take my baby into his/her world unsure of the soundness of the further decisions to be made with me away. At first, I was accused of being downright audacious to question the choices of another family member. After all, I got here alright, didn't I? And furthermore, I could surely count on the purity of heart and intentions from the ones I knew best. The problem: the very decisions I questioned indicated the willingness in their own hearts to compromise and live a life in opposition to the sacred faith we all claimed in Jesus.
I gingerly took steps early on, mostly through oceans of tears, to stand on my convictions and turn away one and then another, hoping and praying for change and conviction of their righteousness in Christ so that we could be restored to the normal quality of relationship to which we were accustomed. I didn't like the cost. I hated to be removed, even a little, from the ones I held dearest, from my favorite companions. Now, I was in limbo, waiting for the sure return of the family that would stand by me and my children, but more importantly stand by our Lord and all we said throughout my entire formative years of growing up that we believed. I waited, and waited.
You see, the truth about the one who chooses to stay the course is not that he is perfect, or has attained some level of sainthood; it is simply that he has found something worth living for that is far greater than himself, a cause for which he'd die. The truth is that the one who stayed the course is the one who feels abandoned and left for dead. We had been in this thing together. We had lived our faith outright and unyielding. We had sung together in church, prayed together at home, listened to a thousand sermons and teachings together that anchored us tightly to the foundations of what we believed, the Bible. Now, I was forbidden their friendship and company, not by an overbearing God who requires my happiness and comforts, but by the self-centered choices of the ones who would rather have what they want when they want it with no regard for Scripture or those left in the wake of their tumultuous decisions. I did not abandon them, they abandoned me.
When you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you have accepted the Bible as the final authority over your life. What He says goes. But, what He says is the only way to life, and life abundant. He doesn't require blood sacrifice from us, He became our blood sacrifice. Therefore, we have been bought with a price and are no longer our own (1 Corinthians 6:20). My choices are to be His made through me. In those very choices are life, health, strength, and liberty.
Take a look with me at these verses, written after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, written in the period called "grace:"
1 Corinthians 5
I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you...you should remove this man from your fellowship. ...you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don't even eat with such people. It isn't my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, "You must remove the evil person from among you."
Judge? I was taught, "Judge not lest ye be judged." Who am I to judge another person when I myself am a sinner, saved by grace? What right do I have to speak to another concerning the error of his/her ways?
Matthew 7:1-5
Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, 'Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.
(First of all, this entire passage is dealing with a hypocrite, or one who claims to live righteously when he himself is compromising in the very area he condemns others. Secondly, the point of dealing with the log in your own eye is to be able to deal with the speck in the other's.)
Think about it a minute: If we are not supposed to judge another, or call out sin when we see it, then why the need for preachers? What right do they have to preach morality? Don't they sin, too? What about laws, in general? Doesn't the person, or people, that make the laws sin? What about a teacher in school? I saw a bumper sticker one day at Sprouts that said, "I teach facts. I'm an educator. I don't legislate morality." I find that hilariously funny. So, what does this educator do about the bully in her class? If she calls him down, or tells him "No," has she not legislated morality? What right does she have to tell him "No"? He's only doing what's right for him. And, isn't there sin in her life, as well? The bottom line is that we have to not only live our convictions, but speak the truth in love, as well.
Matthew 18:15-17
If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won't accept the church's decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.
(A pagan or tax collector is considered an unregenerate, or unsaved person.)
...and many other references in the New Testament as to how and why we are to "judge" other believers. Peter himself condemned a husband and wife to death for lying about the price of land they sold and claiming they gave the full amount to the Lord. (Acts 5:1-11) That's grace? That's love? That's forgiveness? Wow. The north American society called "church" has yet to read for themselves what living the Christian life really looks like. Me, included. I'm changing that. We are reading together as a family, and changing some of our fundamental views on grace, truth, love, and forgiveness, based on what the Bible actually says....not on what a preacher filters for us to hear that will be more politically correct and palatable for our weak kneed version of halfhearted commitment to our faith.
God gave us a free will. He dignified us by creating us with the ability to make choices, even if it meant choosing against Him. If I refuse to tell another person the truth, I love that person less than God does, what the Bible calls "hate". In effect, I'm choosing for that person what he will want to hear, assuming that he will choose against truth, or against God, just because it is a hard truth to handle. I am choosing myself, my own comfort, and my own popularity with that person by refusing to tell the truth. I don't want to be disliked. I don't want to be uninvited. I don't want to be left out. And I certainly don't want to be considered a goody-two-shoes. But, it's not about me. It is about Him. And, it is about the other person making choices that end in death, death of conscience, death of the soul, and finally physical death, whereby disease, overdose, suicide, etc. has overtaken him and won.
I was told in recent months that my family has teased about me that my favorite Scripture is in Matthew 10, verses 34-36, "Don't imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Your enemies will be right in your own household!" Of course, I was crushed. Like I walk around looking for someone else to offend, and someone else to run off. I enjoy solitude. I really enjoy broken relationships. The crickets over here are charming. Not.
As I pined away to Curtis about it one day, He said quite frankly, "Well, it is a verse in the Bible. God did say it." So, in desperation one night, after visiting Facebook through a friend's account, looking in on Madison to see how she was doing, since she wasn't communicating with us at all, I threw myself onto my bed shutting my door behind me, and cried out to the Lord. What do you say about this whole thing? What do you say about me? I opened the Book for myself, and read those exact verses, but this time, I read the entire chapter. This is what He said about me:
Matthew 10:37-40 "If you love your father or mother more than you love Me, you are not worthy of being Mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than Me, you are not worthy of being Mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow Me, you are not worthy of being Mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for Me, you will find it. Anyone who receives you receives Me, and anyone who receives Me receives the Father who sent Me."
I will not love any other more than I love Jesus. I have sought to demonstrate that with every breath I breathe. I have ached and cried over the loss I have endured because of that commitment, but Jesus has taken my sorrows. He daily exchanges my sadness for joy. You see, blood is thicker than water, His blood. And when you come into the family of God, by grace, you exchange your blood family for the family of God. You exchange your earthly lineage for the lineage of Christ. Your inheritance has changed from that of your earthly father's to that of your Heavenly Father's. Praise God!
It is because we take Him at His Word that He can bring about His promises according to His Word. He doesn't shove it down our throats. He gives us the choice.
Joshua 24:15
"Choose today whom you will serve. But as for me and my family, we will serve the LORD." 
No comments:
Post a Comment