Letter Excerpts About "Family Life"

12/26/1994

ANY true, *loving* family works together to find God’s Ways and a representative way of life. ANY true family does. Even in a mere flesh and blood, loving, responsible family: Is it OK for the 16 year-old to be out until dawn on Friday night? Is there some regard for where he or she is, and who they are with? Is this just for children? Is it then OK for the mother or father in the house to leave town without planning together with the rest of the family and considering it together?

What kind of family would that be if everyone “did what was right in their own eyes,” rather than the Family that Paul described in 1Cor. 12? Certainly, as Paul prophesied, the world has many professed christians and professed churches that do whatever they please with no regard for one another. That is the preference of too many, since they do not love the Light, nor do they love others more than themselves.

Yet, Jesus has begun a new Way and we mean, with the Help of the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit, and His Gifts and Family to walk in it! It IS totally different than what the flesh desires and what the world demands. It was so different that Jesus said that this visibly different lifestyle, totally different than ANYTHING else on earth, would be “the” mark of His Disciples (Jn. 13, 17). Few families love each other enough to care about the details of the family members’ hearts and souls and minds. And virtually NO “churches” give a HOOT about people’s daily lives and the reality (or lack of it) of their EXPERIENCE of Christ.

So, for anyone that does not WANT anyone “messing” with their life and obeying God (“admonish one another daily so that none are hardened and deceived by sin...”), there are but few courageous souls out there in the world church system that will “mess” with them at all. So, the utopia of having “nothing restrained” is available to all. But oh, what a high price!