Ecclesial Life is Family Life

We can easily overlook the importance of being together with our brothers and sisters of the ecclesia, just as we can overlook the love and responsibility we have towards our natural family members, simply because we are with them so much. We are not just the same people who attend the same meetings regularly, but we are a called out people who have the common purpose and understanding of the Gospel. We are one body, one family, in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are together when we pray together, God sees us all saying and thinking the same words to Him as one family. The body cannot exist without each individual member, and likewise, we are all important to God, and therefore we should all be important to each other. The world tries to lead us away from really loving each other, it tells us to worry about so many things which are not worthy to worry about, and to forget our family, spiritual and physical.

If we keep meditating on what we read daily in the Bible, we will see that love of our brothers and sisters is a really basic thing that God expects of all who believe in Him. We know that God’s Kingdom will last for ever, and that all the faithful will be there, so it means that we will all be together for ever, and that process starts right now in this life. We are, of course, imperfect, but 2 Cor. 3:18 says that we are all being changed to reflect the Lord’s glory, bit by bit. So love for each other must not be simply an emotion, a feeling, words. We must come to the agape love, the love that is beyond these things, and show it to our brothers and sisters and feel it for them. It is this love which will make true unity, in families and in ecclesias. Through our frequent contact with the words of God in the Bible, we see and know His love and the love which His true people had for others, even if they were weak. The prophets of Israel are the great example.

We must really be serious about this need for love and unity amongst us. By it, we can convert people to the Truth. And yet we are we doing this? Is the love so great that they see we are something very special? So I am writing this in the hope that I can reach the hearts of all brethren in the world and show them all the importance of true love for each other.

Sis Liberty Mandap (Hong Kong)