[image: Laborers Together, 2013, JA Van Devender]
Location: Colonial Williamsburg, Va.
Matthew 12:49–50 (NKJV)
49 And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”
Today I am focused on the astonishing thing that our Lord has done... He has made us family...
Think about it! Out of all the tribes and peoples of the earth, He has reached down in time and space and connected with a few... and He has arranged heaven and earth and all the events that transpire between them, so that these few are gathered together... and become acquainted with each other... and bound together to each other though Him.
Nothing is by chance. It is not a roll of the die that one person has black parents and another white ones... or that one has the name Smith and the other Rockefeller... or that this one has a PhD but that one barely finished elementary school. Those differences are the whole point... that is the grand design... He has arranged it that way so that the fact that we are one family is not because we are linked together by any other common trait other than that of our relation to Christ... each of us.
We are brothers and sisters together with each other because we are first and foremost a brother or sister of Jesus. Because we have a "family" relation with Him then we are bound, with bonds "stronger than blood", to each other.
"Who ever does the will of my Father in heaven, is my brother, and sister, and mother". That is what Jesus Himself declared. And if it is true for HIm, as it most certainly is, then it is... it must be... true for me also. I am not alone, I belong.... to a family... the family of God.
What an world changing thought that is.
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