Last Wednesday I shared in our mid-week
prayer meeting ten principles that functional families live by:
- Expectations/hope from one another.
- Forgiveness (Matthew 6:12)
- Encouragement (Hebrews 10:24-25)
- Discipline (Hebrews 12:7-8)
- Family is a support group (1st Cor. 12:26)
- Problems are solved together, in unity (Matthew 12:25)
- Identity in the Name
- Security of caring for the needs
- Acceptance, unconditional love
- Comfort
As you consider the Church, which is the
Family of God, God’s household (1 Timothy 3:15), we are to have same
principles, same values among our fellowship.
Paul writes “the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy
are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.” (Hebrews
2:11) Our identity is in the name –
Christian, since we had put on Christ at our baptism (Galatians 3:26-27).
As a church family we must apply the
above mentioned principles to our fellowship.
Our expectations from one another are based on Biblical instructions, we
are to be forgiving as we are forgiven by God.
As I read Adventist Home advice
to parents to make family homes attractive, comfortable, so the children would
want to be home, and would not look elsewhere to spend time, I think about our
church family. We ought to also have
this church facility and our gathering times so comfortable, attractive, that
we would not want to leave J
Pastor Sam Pascoe is credited with this
short version of Christian history: “Christianity
started in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a
philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and
became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise.”
Our church is not a philosophy club, even though we do
study and seek wisdom; it is not an enterprise, we are not here to make money
but to do charity; we are not an institution, or an organization, even though
we have policy and rules. We are the
Body of Christ, an organism, a movement, a Family of God. Let’s not forget that.
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