The Family You Choose to Love

Family isn't only the people who share your blood. In faith, family is bigger than that. It's the sister from church you met five years ago and have been through more with than with some of your own cousins. It's the friend who prayed with you in the middle of the night. It's the community that took you in when you were broken.

Paul writes to the Christians in Rome — people of completely different backgrounds, cultures, and histories — and calls them to love with brotherly love. As family.

That calls for a level of care that goes beyond politeness. Family cares, even when it's hard. Family doesn't disappear after the first fight. Family stays.

"In honour preferring one another" — inside family, competition disappears. In its place, there's mutual care. There's genuine delight in the other person's good.

How is brotherly love showing up in your relationships today? With your family of faith, with your friends, with the community where you're planted?

Is there someone you could honor today — with recognition, a word of affirmation, a sign that you truly see and value them?