Is God interested in how we relate to our family?

[RedTent]

All the people God tells of in scripture, both Old and New Testament, thought of the family in a completely different way from the way we think of it today.The Hebrew people that populate the bible were tribal people.We don’t identify with our family, we think of ourselves as individuals. They thought of themselves as members of a family. Our thoughts and goals in life are very different from those scripture tells of who illustrate God principles for us.Definitely in all the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament.Most of the people living in the lands bible speaks of are tribal people to this day.

We know that most tribal people do not follow God today.Yet, scripture often points to the family unit as the way God created us to be and live, as long as we know God comes first, before the family unit. To complicate this, we have new guidelines in today’s culture, all against the family as a basic unit.No person can so completely separate themselves from the world they live in that they are not affected by the current culture of the world and that culture does not support family.

We have post after post telling of all sorts of breaks in family today.Even marriage as God defines it is becoming quite rare.Few people think of sex as becoming one in all ways between a male and female and starting a family unit.

When we give ourselves to Christ, die to self and live for Christ, how does family fit into our way of doing this?Scripture tells us that we are to respect that God used parents to create us, and we are to respect our parents for that.We are also told that it is wrong to put the love and care for family ahead of our love and care for the Lord.What other guidelines do you think we have for family in our Christian walk?

 

[zeroturbulence]

Yes, I think God does care to a certain degree about how we relate to our family, but in God's eyes we are all brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. So I don't think he places much more emphasis on how we treat immediate family as compared to how we treat each other. The scripture also says that 'God is not a respecter of persons' and so He might not put more weight on how we treat our own family just because they are our family. I hope that helps.


Matthew 12:48-49 NASB

But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, "Who is My mother and who are My brothers?" 49And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, "Behold My mother and My brothers!"

 

[tourist]

All the people God tells of in scripture, both Old and New Testament, thought of the family in a completely different way from the way we think of it today.The Hebrew people that populate the bible were tribal people.We don’t identify with our family, we think of ourselves as individuals. They thought of themselves as members of a family. Our thoughts and goals in life are very different from those scripture tells of who illustrate God principles for us.Definitely in all the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament.Most of the people living in the lands bible speaks of are tribal people to this day.

We know that most tribal people do not follow God today.Yet, scripture often points to the family unit as the way God created us to be and live, as long as we know God comes first, before the family unit. To complicate this, we have new guidelines in today’s culture, all against the family as a basic unit.No person can so completely separate themselves from the world they live in that they are not affected by the current culture of the world and that culture does not support family.

We have post after post telling of all sorts of breaks in family today.Even marriage as God defines it is becoming quite rare.Few people think of sex as becoming one in all ways between a male and female and starting a family unit.

When we give ourselves to Christ, die to self and live for Christ, how does family fit into our way of doing this?Scripture tells us that we are to respect that God used parents to create us, and we are to respect our parents for that.We are also told that it is wrong to put the love and care for family ahead of our love and care for the Lord.What other guidelines do you think we have for family in our Christian walk?

This post is fascinating.

 

[RedTent]

Yes, I think God does care to a certain degree about how we relate to our family, but in God's eyes we are all brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. So I don't think he places much more emphasis on how we treat immediate family as compared to how we treat each other. The scripture also says that 'God is not a respecter of persons' and so He might not put more weight on how we treat our own family just because they are our family. I hope that helps.

Matthew 12:48-49 NASB But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, "Who is My mother and who are My brothers?" 49And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, "Behold My mother and My brothers!"

Thanks so very much for your answer, you have truly thought about how God sees family and brought out wonderful points we all need to think about.

I am watching the break up in my extended family, so watching it from a sort of inside view. The thought that has come to me is that God chose family for each of us, and that we cannot break what God puts together. My family's choice is to break up the love and support together so some are told they will never be spoken to again sort of things, mostly based on very petty things. As an example of just how petty, one lost all peripheral vision so closed a door on another not knowing, and made a terrible fuss was made about how inconsiderate that door closing was. There is also money involved that once was given by one to help the other. Every one in this family stays close to the church, each is praying for the other's "lost" salvation. The statement has been made that we are forced to take our family, we can choose our friends wisely.

Nothing in this situation fits with scripture, but I often wonder just how the Lord sees it all.

 

[Joidevivre]

Red Tent - We often break what God has put together - be it marriage or family because of our own selfishness and lack of love. Of course, this would grieve the Holy Spirit. Yet, sometimes the break in families might be just what happens when Jesus begins to take the main focus. Jesus even said that believing in him would cause separation in families.

I question if God chooses our families for us. Or if this is just a matter of a sperm meeting an egg and "here I am". Why would God choose a father for me who was involved in the KKK, espoused racial supremacy, and who would be selfish enough to leave my mother when she was pregnant and I was 5? To not really be a father to me? Or a mother who was more or less not there for me emotionally. Yet, in me lives the genes of both ancestors, some of which are wonderful and godly, some of which are not. And makes me unique. With a thumbprint all my own.

What is more important is that God had His hand on me from the womb, led me into knowing Him as my real Father and Mother and brought me into the family of believers as Zeroturbulence mentioned. He used my background of a broken family to build compassion in me for others who came from such backgrounds, but more than anything used my background to cause me to seek after what I didn't have in a family. The very lack caused a hunger which He filled. Sometimes I look at very loving families and see that sometimes there is not the hunger "for more" that I had. The hunger to find a Father who would be perfect - who would be there at all times. Who would love me unconditionally and not for his own gratification. And who would take hold of Him like I was drowning without Him.

The Lord saw beyond my family and always knew that really I just belonged to Him. He used every piece missing in my family along with the pieces of godliness that was there. Because no family is all bad. There were those times in church, etc. Nothing was wasted. So I can only thank Him for the family that I had. And for the family of children and grandchildren who came from me that are even now being shaped by Him.

We aren't forced to take our families - they just are. We don't have to spend time with them if they are hurtful to us. We can set boundaries. But we are admonished by the Lord to love them by actions that are not vindictive or hateful. The entire love chapter in I Cor. 13 gives us exactly the guidelines for how we are to treat them. And all others too. Our families no more or no less.

 

[RedTent]

Red Tent - We often break what God has put together - be it marriage or family because of our own selfishness and lack of love. Of course, this would grieve the Holy Spirit. Yet, sometimes the break in families might be just what happens when Jesus begins to take the main focus. Jesus even said that believing in him would cause separation in families.

I question if God chooses our families for us. Or if this is just a matter of a sperm meeting an egg and "here I am". Why would God choose a father for me who was involved in the KKK, espoused racial supremacy, and who would be selfish enough to leave my mother when she was pregnant and I was 5? To not really be a father to me? Or a mother who was more or less not there for me emotionally. Yet, in me lives the genes of both ancestors, some of which are wonderful and godly, some of which are not. And makes me unique. With a thumbprint all my own.

What is more important is that God had His hand on me from the womb, led me into knowing Him as my real Father and Mother and brought me into the family of believers as Zeroturbulence mentioned. He used my background of a broken family to build compassion in me for others who came from such backgrounds, but more than anything used my background to cause me to seek after what I didn't have in a family. The very lack caused a hunger which He filled. Sometimes I look at very loving families and see that sometimes there is not the hunger "for more" that I had. The hunger to find a Father who would be perfect - who would be there at all times. Who would love me unconditionally and not for his own gratification. And who would take hold of Him like I was drowning without Him.

The Lord saw beyond my family and always knew that really I just belonged to Him. He used every piece missing in my family along with the pieces of godliness that was there. Because no family is all bad. There were those times in church, etc. Nothing was wasted. So I can only thank Him for the family that I had. And for the family of children and grandchildren who came from me that are even now being shaped by Him.

We aren't forced to take our families - they just are. We don't have to spend time with them if they are hurtful to us. We can set boundaries. But we are admonished by the Lord to love them by actions that are not vindictive or hateful. The entire love chapter in I Cor. 13 gives us exactly the guidelines for how we are to treat them. And all others too. Our families no more or no less.

How thoughtful, and what questions there are for those of us who want to live as God wants us to!

I think that God chooses to have each of us conceived by a man and women joined together in exactly the way that God told us, by parents who also were created and lived within a family as God planned. It would mean there is a family unit within an extended family who all care and nurture each other. God wants us all to strive for that, and it is rare and as demons are let loose in our world it is becoming rarer and rarer.

The problem is how we handle that when those things simply are not happening? For both you and I, that didn't happen in the family we were born in, and although I created a family like that for my kids, they have said, now I am infirm and old, they don't want anything to do with me and cancel any of the nurturing I gave until now. "You are not my Mom any more". So we ask God, how do we handle such things?

I seems to me we are asked to search for the pieces of how God wanted it to be for us and hang onto them. That would mean to acknowledge that God used a certain man and woman when he created you, and you need to respect them as ones God used even though they did not follow through with the rest of what they were asked to do by God.

You, through Christ, are doing that. You have built a good life through Christ. I did, too. My family has no idea that they are against the Lord in choosing to dispose of me because I walk slowly, I lost my sight and hearing, etc. They stay close to the church and are convinced they are truly Christian, all the many people our union produced. They have no divorces, no deep sadness, no addictions. They are, even through the great grandkids, producing something fine in their work, from schoolwork to their jobs.

But I question the amount of responsibility we each have to respecting and understanding family, and what God wants of the family as being even more special than the ones who are our family in Christ.

 

[RedTent]

Yes, I think God does care to a certain degree about how we relate to our family, but in God's eyes we are all brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. So I don't think he places much more emphasis on how we treat immediate family as compared to how we treat each other. The scripture also says that 'God is not a respecter of persons' and so He might not put more weight on how we treat our own family just because they are our family. I hope that helps.

Matthew 12:48-49 NASB But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, "Who is My mother and who are My brothers?" 49And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, "Behold My mother and My brothers!"

That is not what it says in scripture.

1Ti_5:4 But if any widow has children or grandchildren, they must learn to practice godliness toward their own family first and to repay their parents, for this pleases God.

1Ti_5:16 If any believing woman has widows in her family, she should help them, and the church should not be burdened, so that it can help those who are genuinely widows.