PSALM 26:8 – O Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells.
THEME OF THE DAY. FAMILY DAY. Many of us guard “family time” when it comes to ensuring quality investments of ourselves with our families. Some families hold “family game night”, spouses have “date nights”, and families schedule extended outings to be together. Family time, in whatever shape or form it takes, should be committed to, safeguarded, and given the best of ourselves in communication, energy, and effort.
Lord willing, counting today, we are five days from waking up to our weekly “Family Day.” However, this is not with our temporal physical family. It is our meeting with our eternal spiritual family on the coming Lord’s Day. Are we excited about it? Are we already experiencing anticipation in our hearts for gathering with our brothers and sisters in the Lord? In answering those questions, let’s do so from two perspectives. First, a negative, then, a positive.
The negative – When God chose us from the foundation of the world, placed us in His Son the Lord Jesus, called us to believe in Him, and enabled us to exercise repentance and faith, He placed us in His forever family. Salvation in its simplest of definitions is “God creating a forever spiritual family in His Son for a people who love Him and love one another.” The question we must ask is, “Do we see salvation in this light?” If we don’t, then the Lord’s Day will not be “Family Day.” It will be viewed as something less, and easily substituted for a worldly activity or personal pursuit. Now if we don’t understand salvation as God calling us to be in a family relationship with Him and His people, we will have little to no commitment to a local Bible-believing church. This will be seen in our relationships with other Christians, other family members. They will be shallow, lacking the practice of genuine spiritual fellowship and Biblical Christianity. If this describes us in our attitude and practice toward other Christians and our churches, let’s ask God to correct our thinking.
The positive – When Christians see their walk with the Lord as not private, but in the context of God’s forever spiritual family, we are on the way to discovering the Christian life. Yes, we walk with the Lord as individuals, but we grow in the Lord publicly with His people. As we grasp our family privileges and responsibilities in God’s family, deeper joy in the Lord; greater satisfaction in serving the Lord; and our relationships with other Christians will blossom as God designed and desires. And how does God describe this family relationship with one another? Allow the Apostle Paul to tell us, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19-22).
Family day is coming; our spiritual family day – the Lord’s Day. May the Lord create within us a greater understanding of His wonderful work of making us His forever family. And let that understanding deepen our love for Him and other members of His family; a love moving us to be together in prayer and the Word to seek Him who made us His family – together.
PRAYER: “Father, deepen my love for Your people and to be with Your people.”
QUOTE: “The best day of the week for the Christian is the Lord’s Day, and the best company is the Lord’s people.”