Don't Equate Faith And Family

Often times when people are asked what they value most, they answer "faith and family." That's a cute cliche, but should we really put faith and family on the same level?

Don't get me wrong here. I think family is very important. I love my wife, someday kids (Lord willing), my parents, and my sister. That's not to mention my in-laws and my extended family. However, the reason I think that family is important is because it is a means to an end.

So, don't equate faith and family.

Faith represents a connecting agent; the God-granted allotment that allows us to be right with God. When we are justified by faith we are adopted as sons and daughters into a much larger, much more important family.

Take Jesus' words in Matthew 12:

While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

And in Mark 10:

Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Maybe when people say that "faith and family" are the most important things to them, they actually mean that faith is a far superior number one and family is a distant second. Maybe. But somehow the proximity seems unwarrented.

Faith is such an amazing gift. It is an awakening to the knowledge that we can be completely satisfied with all God is for us through Jesus. And when we have faith, we are sure of what we hope for, that is, that God is faithful to all the promises that He has made. We hope in God.

Family, while not on the same plain, is also a gift. But take note: the spouses, children, parents, and siblings God has put into our lives, good or bad, are only means to reach an end. The end is the belief that we can be completely satisfied with all God is for us through Jesus connecting us to a right standing with God, or in fewer words: justified by faith.

Praise God for each of these gifts, but don't equate faith and family.