Jesus and His Family
Today's Three-minute Bible Study
Print, Study and Apply
Title: Jesus and His Family ------------------- Date: 11/15/2002
Keywords:
"disciple" "family"
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Passage: Mark 3:20-21, 31-35*
20. And He came home, and the crowd gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal.
21. When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, "He has lost His senses."
...
31. Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him and called Him.
32. A crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, "Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You."
33. Answering them, He said, "Who are My mother and My brothers?"
34. Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, "Behold My mother and My brothers!
35. For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother."
Questions
1. How important are your family relationships to your religious affiliations?
2. According to verse 35, if you do what God wants, how close does He consider your relationship to Him?
Practical help
Pornography is a sign of problems in the family. It could be that you have family members who abuse or have abused you. It could be that your family is cold and distant and porn is a way of getting back at them. The possibilities of how families and porn are interrelated are probably a mile long, but the point is that those closest to you have a tremendous affect on your behavior — good or bad. You can also use them as the excuse for why you are the way you are.
Take a look at Jesus. Did he embarrass his family? Yep. Evidently they were taking some heat for his popularity, and so they came to calm him down. What was his response? It didn’t change his plans because his relationship to his Heavenly Father overruled all other relationships. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his family, he loved his Heavenly Father more.
This love for God must also be true for you and me, if we are to be Jesus’ followers. This will help you make sense of his strong words found in Luke 14:26, "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple." Let’s clearly interpret this passage. What Jesus is NOT saying is he wants us to hate others. Rather, he is saying that the first thing you must do to be his disciple is re-order your relationship with everyone and everything else. Nothing and no one can be more important to you than Jesus is. He will not play second fiddle in your life. Now once you accept this relationship, he then turns around and commands you to love others through him. In John 13:34-35 Jesus says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
In summary, your relationships with others, even close family members, do not need to harm your life, if you have trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior. Once you have given him your life, it stands to reason that you must do what he says, and he commands us to love one another. With this said, pornography simply doesn’t fit into God’s plan for you.
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*"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright
The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by
permission."
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