family bonds

Had a family from the Netherlands visiting with us in our church services yesterday. They are here as a vacation with a desire to see some of the US. What a neat family! Neat… because they were just… neat, but neat also because there was an immediate connection. By that, I mean that we are from the same family… the family of God. The wonders of being a follower of Christ are numerous, one being the doctrine of regeneration; that is new birth. New birth provides for a new creation, born not of Adam (man’s federal head), but of God. Being made a new creation, old things are past away and all things become new (2 Corinthians 5:17), that is, a new slate is given in life. New birth also places a person into a new family, the family of God. This is my point! The family visiting with us in our church services yesterday was family… our family… the family of God. They are my brother and my sisters in Christ and as a result there was an immediate connection even though we had never met before. The Spirit of Christ who dwells in me also dwells in them… and we connected as a result. How cool is that! God’s family is not confined merely to a local body of believers in a given geographical location, nor is it restricted to only English speaking people, or to a particular ethnic group. God’s family is universal and therefore, wherever I may be, whatever I may be doing I can know that family is never to far away.