All In the family

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:26-28

When you became a Christian, God not only saved you from your sin He also adopted you into His family. Some Christians act as though they would like it if God's family consisted only of themselves and the Trinity, but that's not how it works. You see on the same day you became a child of God you also became a spiritually adopted brother or sister in Christ to believers everywhere. The church universal is one spiritual family with God at its head. 

Galatians 3:26-28 teaches that we are all children of God, made one by our baptism into Christ. This passage lists several of the major ethnic, socioeconomic and spiritual barriers of the day and says that they no longer matter at all! Now, these barriers weren't obliterated overnight. A Jewish Christian was still Jewish. Slaves who got saved often remained slaves for some time. And certainly male and female distinctives never went away in the New Testament church. So what does it mean when it says that there is "neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus"? It simply means that no matter what divides us, what Christians have in common in Jesus far outweighs our differences!

This is an important reminder for believers today. Too many Christians would rather speak to a heathen from their own political party than a Christian from the other. Too many Christians claim to oppose racism but would rather their child marry an unbeliever from their own race than a Christian from another race. And far too many Christians are more comfortable socializing with people who have attained their own socioeconomic and educational level than they are socializing with poor, uneducated Christians in a bricko block church in a third world country on a mission trip. 

This isn't how it should be! All who believe in Jesus have been adopted into God’s family; and if we have been joined in one family in heaven, then certainly we can be on earth as well! If someone is good enough for God’s family, then who are you to say they aren't good enough for you?! Are you going to tell God that His child isn't good enough to marry your child? Are you going to tell God that you can't bear to talk to His child because of their political leanings? Are you going to tell God that some of His children are beneath you because they aren't as wealthy or as educated as you are? We would never dream of saying such things to God's face, so let us be careful and set a watch on ourselves to ensure we never think them in the dark recesses of our hearts and minds.