Well, tonight we had some younger friends of ours over for dinner who love my tacos. They were really excited when we invited them over for "taco night". I really enjoyed this past week as they would continuously talk about it every time I would see them. The excitement was growing.
But with them it has always been much more than "taco night"... they call it "family night". In fact, the first time they came over, their mother questioned where they were going, to which they replied "family night" and walked out the door.
And that got me thinking...who is your family? Who are the people with whom you associate? Do you hang out with people that are like-minded? Or do you find yourself always defending your faith with your friends and family? Do you even talk about Jesus with your friends?
Please realize that I am not talking about reaching out and building relationships with people who do not know the Lord. That is an absolutely necessary thing--we need to be around and witness Jesus' love to those that don't know Him. But those people should not be your main group of friends. You need a group of people that are going to support you in your walk with the Lord; you need people to encourage you in your struggles; you need people to hold you accountable in your relationship with the Lord.
I know that these young men have a wonderful family and they mean nothing disrespectful to their mother with their statement about "family night". I hope that is the case with all of our family relationships, but I also hope that you agree that the relationships with your family--or anyone close to you--come second to your relationship with the Lord. I love the paraphrase from The Message for the verse below, "Obedience is thicker than blood."
Spend time with the Lord; get together with like-minded friends; have "family night".
"[Jesus'] mother and brothers showed up but couldn't get through to him because of the crowd. He was given the message, 'Your mother and brothers are standing outside wanting to see you.' He replied, 'My mother and brothers are the ones who hear and do God's Word. Obedience is thicker than blood.'" -Luke 8:19-21 (MSG)-
