My
precious wife, Lucy, loves her mother and her sister more than I can tell
you. When we were married, about ten years ago, her family considered me a
hypocrite or at least a fanatic. They disliked me so much that they dropped
Lucy completely, having nothing to do with her. Lucy has been extremely
close to her family all her life, rarely going very many days without
contact.
When we married, it was our commitment to serve the Lord Jesus Christ above
all else. We had known each other since 1978 and her family resented her
even knowing me then. She knew there would be division from her family if
she followed the Lord’s leading to serve Him by my side. Her decision would
cost her greatly, but she desired to serve the Lord with me more than to
continue in the fellowship of the family she loved so very, very much. Even
her grown son and daughter joined forces against her and have nothing to do
with her to this day. She never gets to see her grandchildren or have any
part in their lives.
She
never questions her decision, but her grief for her loss is still very
deep. On the human side, the flesh side, her pain can only be relieved by
the realization the church is her true “family,” her eternal spiritual
family in Christ. So far none of her earthly family knows the Lord, but she
never ceases to pray for their salvation.
Jesus has given Lucy and all believers this promise: “Every
one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or
mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an
hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.”
Many clients that I have dealt with over the years have had such an
attachment and obligation to their families that they were plagued with many
unnecessary woes in their life. Their families do not know the Lord, yet
because of a wrong sense of obligation to them, certain family members
victimized these clients. Many were led into sin because the clients felt
they “had” to go along with their lost family in what they suggested, even
though it put their Christian spouse and children in jeopardy. All our
decisions must be made on a Spiritual basis and not because of fleshly ties
Jesus said, “Think
not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a
sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the
daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in
law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or
daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
Jesus is the Great
Divider.
When people would say they wanted to be His follower, He would tell them to
“count
the cost.”
When a certain man asked to go arrange for the burial of his ailing father
with the intention that after the burial of his father he would then follow
Jesus, Jesus would not allow it. It appears his father was not a
Christian. Jesus would not allow the man to attend to his obligations to
his earthly family. He told the man,
“Follow
me.”
The
man replied,
“Lord,
suffer me first to go and bury my father.”
Jesus said unto him, “Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach
the kingdom of God.”
Thus, Jesus made it clear that our fleshly obligations to our lost family
members must always take second place to our obedience in following Him.
One
man simply wanted to go tell his family “good-bye” and Jesus would not hear
of it. “And
another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them
farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man,
having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom
of God.”
It was obvious to everyone that Jesus expected no fleshly attachments to
have rule over their commitment to Him.
People around Jesus were very aware of who His family was according to
Matthew 13:55, “Is
not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? and his
brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they
not all with us?”
When we look at Jesus’ life in the Scriptures we can easily prove that He
refused to allow earthly connections in the flesh to rule His conduct. From
the beginning of His ministry, when He turned the water to wine, to His time
of suffering on the cross He is seen detached from His earthly family in the
flesh.
At
the wedding feast He refuses to act on the basis of His mother’s concerns
and “Jesus
saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet
come.”
When His mother, brothers, and sisters were asking for Him He turned His
back on them to point to His true family, the believers. “He
answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my
brethren? He stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold
my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father
which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
His
brothers in the flesh, who did not believe in Him, tried to tell Him how to
conduct His ministry, but He would have nothing to do with their suggestions
(See John 7:2-8). Once a woman tried to point out the significance of Mary
being the mother of Jesus in the flesh, but Jesus would not hear of it. “And
it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company
lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare
thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked
(a
completely fleshly application).
But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and
keep it
(a completely Spiritual application).”
Jesus would not allow Himself to be obligated by fleshly ties.
When Jesus was hanging on the cross, He made sure that His mother (a
believer) was taken care of by John (another believer). He certainly could
have referred her to His lost brothers and sisters if there was an
obligation from the fleshly standpoint. “Then
saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that
disciple took her unto his own home.”
Jesus made sure that her care and living environment was Christian and not
among the lost, even if those lost ones were her own children.
Even when we pray for
our lost family, Chambers says, “We
may find that our obedience to God is going to cost other people more than
we thought. The danger then is to begin to intercede in sympathy with those
whom God was gradually lifting to a totally different sphere in answer to
our prayers. Whenever we step back from identification with God's interest
in others into sympathy with them, the vital connection with God has gone,
we have put our sympathy, our consideration for them in the way, and this is
a deliberate rebuke to God.
“It is impossible to intercede vitally
unless we are perfectly sure of God, and the greatest dissipater of our
relationship to God is personal sympathy and personal prejudice.
Identification is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being
identified with God, it is by sympathy, not by sin. It is not likely that
sin will interfere with our relationship to God, but sympathy will, sympathy
with ourselves or with others which makes us say - "I will not allow that
thing to happen." Instantly we are out of vital connection with God.
“The conditions of discipleship laid down
by Our Lord in Luke 14:26, 27 and 33 mean that the men and women He is going
to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done
everything. "If any man come to me, and hate not
his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters,
yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Our
Lord implies that the only men and women He will use in His building
enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately and devotedly
beyond any of the closest ties on earth. The conditions are stern, but they
are glorious.”
God demanded separation from parents before
there was a father and a mother on the earth, before sin, before the fall. “Therefore
shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:
and they shall be one flesh.” Genesis 2:24 I think it is
significant we have this command at the very beginning of creation.
So many times I have seen mothers sacrifice
everything and everyone for their children. Nowadays we seem to think
everything in our life must in some way be governed by what is best for the
children. If Father is leading a man to venture into what appears to be a
risk, many times the wife will hear nothing of it because it appears it
would not be “best” for the children. The man thus forfeits his obedience to
God’s voice in favor of the “voice of thy
wife” (Genesis 3:17) all in the interest of the children.
There is a way in which it appears the children run our society. Wives
can’t be wives for serving the children. Families can’t be families
for all the activities in which the children have to be involved. So many
are “run ragged” trying to get the children to this activity or that
activity. Could we have our values misplaced? It seems we have removed what
used to be a “work ethic” for boys and girls and replaced it with an
“activity ethic.”
Quoting Jeremiah 16:20, Spurgeon said, “Shall
a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods.” One great
besetting sin of ancient Israel was idolatry, and the spiritual Israel are
vexed with a tendency to the same folly. Remphan's star shines no longer,
and the women weep no more for Tammuz
(See CONCLUSION article), but Mammon still intrudes his golden
calf, and the shrines of pride are not forsaken. Self in various forms
struggles to subdue the chosen ones under its dominion, and the flesh sets
up its altars wherever it can find space for them. Favorite children are
often the cause of much sin in believers; the Lord is grieved when He sees
us doting upon them above measure; they will live to be as great a curse to
us as Absalom was to David, or they will be taken from us to leave our homes
desolate. If Christians desire to grow thorns to stuff their sleepless
pillows, let them dote on their dear ones.
“The heathen bows to a false deity, but the
true God he has never known; we commit two evils, inasmuch as we forsake
the living God and turn unto idols. May the Lord purge us all from this
grievous iniquity!”
"The dearest idol I have
known,
Whate'er that idol be;
Help me to tear it from
thy throne,
And worship only thee."
Remember when Israel refused to go
into the Promised Land. Their excuse was “our
children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?”
They refused to obey God by entering the Promised Land because they feared
for their children. According to 1Corinthians 10, “these
things were our examples.” The Promised Land never pictures
heaven. It pictures the life of the Christian who lives by faith. There
were giants in the land. How could it picture heaven?
What did God do to them as a result
of their choice to “protect” their children instead of obeying God? “Your
carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you,
according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have
murmured against me.” So for forty years they wandered in the
wilderness because they put their concern for their children before trusting
God. They did not just live until they died a natural death. The Scriptures
tell us “The hand of the LORD was against
them, to destroy them from among the host, until they were consumed.”
What happened to the
children? “But
your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I
bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised.
But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness. And
your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your
whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.”
God gave the parents what they chose, but as their children grew up in the
adversity of the wilderness, the children were equipped to enter the
Promised Land forty years later WITHOUT THEIR PARENTS. God can be trusted
to take better care of your children than you can. You must simply obey God
and trust the welfare of your children to Him. The New Testament admonishes
us in1Corinthians 10: “Now
all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for
our admonition.”
“Neither
be ye idolaters, as were some of them.”
Beware! The ties of the flesh are
often confused with duty and obligation that God never intends. We must
learn to listen to His Voice and follow His way that we may do His will.
His will is not based on fleshly ties, as evidenced in the life of Jesus.
If His call to us means we must part from all our family ties, we will obey
Him above all else. We dare not worship any but Him alone Who is worthy.
“Dear
children, keep yourselves from idols.”
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