This post is part of the Free to Live series. Find the whole series here.
Over the past five weeks, we’ve looked at some of the different ways we are free to live as Christians.
We’re free to live with joy—knowing that Jesus has done all things for our salvation. We’re free to live by faith—knowing that it is by grace we’re saved through Spirit-worked faith. We’re free to live as God’s children—knowing that God is our Father and heaven is our home because of Jesus. We’re free to live in service—knowing that serving others in love is a joy-filled response to Christ’s love for us.
Now, for the last post in this Free to Live blog series, we’ll look at what it means to be free to live . . . as God’s family.
What does that mean?
To answer that, I thought I’d turn to how other Christians have explained it before. My church’s succinct answer to who we are is that we’re “a family growing in Christ.” That’s who we are—a family. That’s how we want to be known by others and how we want to think of ourselves.
Yes, we’re a church family—a congregation, a gathering of believers—but we’re more than that. We’re part of God’s family. We aren’t a family related by flesh and blood, but we’re certainly a family brought together by the flesh and blood of Jesus—through his perfect life, sacrificial death, and triumphant resurrection.
In and because of Jesus, God has made us—and everyone who believes in Jesus as the Savior from sin—his own. He has brought us into his family.
And what a wonderful blessing it is to be a part of God’s amazing family! As brothers and sisters in Christ, we have the opportunity and responsibility to support each other. The apostle Paul laid out what we get to do for each other so well: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2)—that law being to love one another as Jesus has loved us (John 13:34).
As God’s family, we carry each other’s burdens, in whatever way that might be. We help each other, pointing each other to Christ. We live in God’s Word with each other. We speak God’s Word to each other—whether our brother or sister (or us!) needs to hear the harsh, but necessary, rebuke of the law spoken in love or the gentle, comforting reconciliation of the gospel message.
As Pastor Roy W. Hefti explained it so beautifully in his devotional commentary, “It is a Christlike thing to help someone bear a burden, to lighten a load, to bind up a broken heart with words the Good Shepherd has loaned us, to help that abused fellow traveler on the road, to apply the ointment of the gospel to a bruised and embarrassed heart” (Galatians: The Beating Heart of the Gospel, Northwestern Publishing House: Waukesha, WI, 2024, p. 110).
What else do we do as God’s family?
To answer that question, I’d like to turn to the succinct answer of another church near and dear to my heart. As God’s family, we exist to “Gather, Grow, and GO!” We gather around God’s Word and sacraments to strengthen our faith. As we do, we grow (that’s what happens when we spend time in the Word) and are equipped . . . to go! We go and tell other people about Jesus so they might be brought into God’s family as well.
That’s what we do; that’s what being part of God’s family is all about.
Why do we do all of this? Because we want to see the people sitting next to us or in the church pew two rows ahead of our own in heaven. We want to see them standing in joy, seeing Jesus face-to-face someday.
That’s what we want more than anything else for each other. It’s also why we strive to do what we can to make God’s family a little bit bigger, one person at a time. To be sure, the Holy Spirit is the one at work creating faith in hearts, but he’s given us the opportunity—and responsibility—to share the means through which he promises to work: the good news about Jesus.
We strive to tell the people in our lives, neighborhoods, workplaces, and communities about Jesus and his love for them. We want them to be part of God’s family as well. We want them to know the freedom that is theirs in and because of Christ Jesus.
We are free to live . . . as God’s family.
Dear Christian, may God bless you as you live freely and joyfully by faith as God’s children in humble service to your fellow members of God’s family!
Free to Live is a five-part series on Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It doesn’t cover everything though, so if you want to study the entire book of Galatians, Pastor Roy W. Hefti’s devotional commentary, Galatians: The Beating Heart of the Gospel, is an excellent choice.
Alex Brown is the marketing and content copywriter at Northwestern Publishing House. He has his Master of Divinity degree from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary and enjoys reading, writing, and spending time in God’s creation.
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