1 Timothy 1-2
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus, our hope, To Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Timothy and Paul had a what today we would consider a unique relationship. Though outside of blood borne, Paul considered Timothy to be his true son in the faith. Through this relationship, Paul gives us an example of what it truly means to be sisters and brothers to our fellow believers. He demonstrates what it means to step outside of our worldly family borders and embrace others into our inner circle that we typical would consider reserve for family members only.....even those whom we only see on holidays, we don't speak to or that we may not even recognize them on a photo. Blood is thicker than water, yes?
But, maybe it is not. While God has placed us in a family and while God has given some of us our own family, maybe we were not meant to draw borders around such a personal family tree. Maybe we were created to be apart of a bigger picture....a much bigger family tree. Quite possibly, we were designed to pour love, mercy and grace not only into our families but into our family of believers.
In today's world, we find our families to be corralled, of sorts. This is my family. These are my kids. This is our home. This is our life. And then we dole out hastily written note cards, thrown-together casseroles, quick personal visits and even quicker prayers on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Christ....because, frankly, there is little left over after we have served our own family. And this is the part of the family that we love and cherish, but what about the other part of the family? The family part that is difficult. The family part that we know we have to love just because...so no matter what, no matter what....they are family. So we muster up what we have left and we try to create something that was never there to begin with...or will never be. And again, our Christian family receives the aftermath...quick embraces at church, handshakes as we walk through the halls and, if we are lucky, one guiltily taken luncheon a year.
God has given us other Christian believers in which to walk this path of life with. He has surrounded each us with "Paul's" and "Timothy's" as we journey through our path in this world. Each of these relationships, when steeped firm in God's Word and love, can offer us the encouragement, accountability, intercessory prayer and true, true love that, quite frankly, will bring us to our knees...to know that Our Father loves us so much that He sent us soldiers in this battle that we fight in this life. But we will never know it, we will never experience it, we will never even find it, if we don't look outside of our worldly-built lives beyond ourselves.
Does this mean we love our families less? Absolutely, not. This means we extend our inner circle. This means that we stop being superficial with those that we share our common faith and that we delve into each others lives....really delve. Not just for nosiness, not just for appearances but we truly start to purposefully walk this journey with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We hear of so many that are lonely, so many that are depressed and lacking encouragement while we all smile at each other and we benignly pass each other. "But it might get messy." "I shouldn't get involved." "I don't have time to get involved." It may mean a phone call at midnight that says "I need you" and you go. It will get messy and it is part of our obedience to our Heavenly Father to be involved....to walk together. Satan will hate it and will try everything in his power to forge up the walls of superficiality within our Christian circles. But we serve a Father that is more powerful than all.
Paul later would spend three years of his life in Ephesus with Timothy to serve the church alongside him. Three years. Who of our Christian faith do you know that would come and intimately walk with you? For whom would you? It is so incredibly easy now to share our Christian journey's together. We have internet, phones, cars and planes! But, yet, we seem even more distant than maybe before. Separated.
Invest purposefully in whom God has sent you. Love them, cry with them, be messy with them.
No comments:
Post a Comment