We might often tell someone that we love them, but what does that love mean in real terms? If that love were tested - with a cost applied, how far would you be willing to go for them ... really? And what value would our definition of love have against God's? What if God called us to love someone loud, un-bathed and shabby, destitute and begging for our compassion? What if they came from a foreign nation, bearing a different skin color - a color that Father God chose for them like He chose for each of us. Even to the very least in all of humanity's suffering eyes, they would have been created by God and if they belong to Him ... they'd be royalty and under His watchful eye. Who would we have to think we were in order to judge or reject them because of our own personal bias? Would we dare? We tend to recognize family through our own personal definitions. We might define it by blood, relational longevity, marriage, a combination of all of these or some other personally define...
A much loved spiritual mentor pointed out to me the difference between the Apostle Paul's past will (a life without Christ) and His new will that evolved after the Lord called Him. He then challenged me to define what my own new will would say... ...let my response be found here...
"It is not the title that people give to themselves that defines who they are; it is the fruit of what they produce." Graham Cooke