Hear the word of God and act on it!

Luke 8:19-21

Then his mother and his brothers came to him but were unable to join him because of the crowd. He was told, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside and they wish to see you." He said to them in reply, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it."

Food for thought!

I want you to get this scene in your head. Jesus is teaching. He is surrounded by a vast multitude of people. Meanwhile, His family shows up. Their arrival creates a moment of tension for everyone there. Jesus is teaching and His family is on the outside of the crowd. They can’t get to Him because of the multitude, so they send word through the crowd to tell Jesus to come to where they are. His family wants Him to stop His teaching, leave the multitude, and attend to them. They want Jesus to come home, and it is not the first time.

Mark 3:20-21 Then Jesus went to a house [probably Peter’s], but a throng came together again, so that He and His disciples could not even take food. 21 And when those who belonged to Him ( His family) heard it, they went out to take Him by force, for they kept saying, He is out of His mind!

You can see the scene if you try. His mother Mary, or perhaps one of the family members, tells someone at the back of the crowd to pass the word to Jesus that they are there to see Him. That fellow tells another fellow and he tells another. Soon enough the word reaches Jesus that His family is there to see Him and that they want Him to stop teaching and go with them.

Instead of stopping what He was doing and going to His mother and family, Jesus simply said, “Who is My mother, or my brethren?” The crowd must have been shocked. His mother must have been devastated. His brothers probably got angry. They had travelled all the way from Nazareth to get Him and He refused to even stop teaching to talk with them.

Instead of trying to ease the tension, Jesus intensifies it. Instead of reaching out to his earthly family, He speaks to all the members of His spiritual family. Jesus used this moment as an opportunity to teach some eternal truth. This is a tense scene and the Lord’s reaction to His family seems cold on the surface. But His response to them was designed to teach some very important truths.

The lessons. Sometimes it is our dear ones like mother, father, husband, wife and friends that stand in between us and God. Of course they don't do it out of evil intentions; Mary and the others weren't acting out evil intentions; they were trying to help Jesus, so they thought. This was a misguided help of good intentioned people. Jesus, however used the occasion to teach us all that OBEDIENCE TO GOD, DOING GOD'S WILL, DOING THE RIGHT THING IS ABOVE EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY.