Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
Jesus asked the question, "Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?" In other words, "Who is my family?" Then, he answered his own question so that his listeners would know: "Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Mt. 12:50).
Jesus was teaching in a crowded house when he spoke these words. It was so crowded that Mary, his mother, and some of Mary's other children with her could not squeeze in to see him. So, Mary sent a messenger in to let Jesus know that she and his brothers were outside. She wanted Jesus to come out to see them. When the messenger squeezed through the tightly packed crowd and told Jesus that his mother and brothers were outside, Jesus disagreed. His mother and brothers, he replied, were not outside. His mother and brothers were there inside the house with him, loving the Word of God and obeying it.
Try to imagine the response of Mary and her children when the messenger returned to them with Jesus' reply. How do you think it made Mary feel, after walking all that distance to see Jesus, only to have him deny in public that she was even his mother? It must have humiliated her in the presence of those standing round. Can you see her with her sons awkwardly turning around and walking away, unable to reach Jesus and unable to convince him to come outside to speak with them?
Mark suggests that Mary and her other sons were part of a family plot to "rescue" Jesus from himself. In Mark's words, when Jesus' earthly relatives heard of the multitudes following him, "they went out to lay hold on him, for they said, 'He is beside himself'" (Mk. 3:21). Instead of Jesus' family rescuing him, however, by refusing to go out to Mary and her other children, Jesus probably rescued them all from doing something very foolish that day.
The words of Jesus concerning who his family is are some of the very most enlightening statements the Lord ever made. It ranks near the top of his most challenging declarations, right up there with his demand that the man who desires eternal life from God must eat his flesh and drink his blood (Jn. 6). If God's children would put just this one soul-testing statement of the Lord Jesus into effect; if in their hearts they really would believe and behave as if their family is ONLY those who do the will of God, the body of Christ would be purified from a thousand unclean things, and the world would misunderstand and persecute them as it has never done before.
You will never be filled with the holy Ghost and fire without some people thinking that you are "beside yourself". If your purpose is to please God and to let God re-create you in the image of Christ, then prepare yourself to be misunderstood. There are no options. He was misunderstood, and all who are fashioned in his image will be. Are you willing to face the hot fire of being wrongfully hated? If you are willing, if you can believe that your family is God's family, and if you are then abused, verbally or otherwise for it, then you have a great reward laid up for you in heaven. Jesus said so (Mt. 5:10-12).
Once, someone asked Preacher Clark how many of his relatives had received the baptism of the holy Ghost. Sincerely and shrewdly, he replied, "All of them."
If someone had asked Jesus how many of his relatives were doing the will of God, he would also have replied, "All of them." In fact, that is what he did say when he told the people in that crowded house, "They who do the will of my Father are my brother, my sister, and my mother." And that was what Preacher Clark was saying, too, because all people-but only they-who obey God receive the baptism of the holy Ghost (Acts 5:32).
Who are your relatives? We know who Jesus considered to be his family. And though he suffered much abuse for it while he was on earth, he never wavered in that holy conviction. Now, it is our turn to be the light. And if we are to be that light for this lost and dying world, then we must answer from our hearts, as Jesus answered, this singular, defining question: Who is our family?