If you ask people you know why families are formed and what a family is, you will most likely hear answers such as these:
So that a person will not be alone or die of boredom;
To give birth to and raise children;
To carry out a shared ministry;
So that the human race will not come to an end;
To have the lawful right of access to the body of one’s marriage partner;
To receive a spouse’s inheritance and wealth;
So that someone will care for you and feed you;
So that, so that, so that…
The family is the most amazing and diverse unit within any society. Every nation flourishes through the family. The family is the place where a person’s soul finds peace and comfort, rests, and gains strength for a new workday.
If you ask better-informed specialists about the purpose of starting a family, they will tell you that the most important part of the relationship is coming to know one another and continually discovering new qualities in one’s partner. The Lord and His Word must be the foundation of this relationship. When people understand the purpose and possess a firm foundation, they can build and plan anything.
The family was established by God and given to humanity at Creation. By gaining a family, a person receives something important that is part of his very nature. Ideally, all people should live in families or have good families of their own for wholesome relationships. But what do we see? The enemy of the soul destroys everything God designed and presents the world with a mirage that is difficult to pursue.
Yet God’s plan for the family remains in force. It must be studied, put into practice, and presented to the world as an unshakable monument to the Lord’s love and wisdom embodied in human beings.
According to God’s design, friendship should be present in every relationship between people and continually gladden our hearts with an abundance of warmth and light through such heartfelt interaction.
Love binds the souls of people and friends into something beautiful and makes our relationships delightful and valuable, genuine and interesting.
The Eternity for which we all wait will contain all these elements of God’s design. According to these very laws, we will grow and develop throughout the unceasing years of Eternity. We do not know what families will be like there, how the daily lives of the redeemed will be arranged, or what heavenly celebrations will look like. But we can say that everyone will be joyful and very happy.
God’s design for the last days, however, is to restore the ruins of human relationships and reveal to the entire visible and invisible world God’s glory written within the hearts of Christ’s followers.
The love for one another that Jesus commanded us to possess before His death is God’s primary strategic plan for the last days. Although love has always been relevant and needed, because iniquity has abounded, the love of many has grown cold. In people’s minds it has become like medieval ruins that many do not wish to approach. But the Lord desires to plant His banner in this territory and in this very way overcome every sin.
Friendship gives me another person as a human being with whom I can have friendly relations and close bonds, carry out a shared ministry, and do many good things for each other and for those around us. Love for one another makes this relationship special, sincere, and united in heart.
Faith in God and unity of thought create favorable soil for a relationship of friendship and love. When we enter this path by making a mutual decision to become friends and love one another, we invite the Godhead into our lives. The seed of love sown within our hearts begins to germinate and bear abundant fruit—much fruit.
Love for one another lifts for loving people the veil over the relationship that exists within God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In loving a friend, I gain Eternity within this relationship, understanding that I have approached an endlessly beautiful object for profound study. This study will never end, but will continually gladden me with its discoveries and with the blessings contained in the deep recesses of my friend’s heart. Throughout all this discovery, God’s seal of the infinite wisdom and creative power of our dear Creator will be present.
Nowhere does God reveal Himself as deeply and accessibly as within our love for one another. The Bible introduces us to the truth about God. Nature reveals the Creator’s beauty and majesty. Jesus shows us the magnificence of God’s character. Love for one another embodies all this knowledge and the knowledge of God in the practice and reality of our lives—not excluding God from our relationship, but revealing Him even more deeply within this mutual love. As a result of such a relationship, continual praise and gratitude rise from our lips to the One Who has arranged everything so wonderfully.
A person who has not been born from Above cannot love, because he has no access to this Source of life. But through personally knowing Jesus as one’s Savior, these springs are opened to the thirsty soul. As the soul is satisfied, it seeks ways to glorify God.
Herein is the Father glorified: that, while connected to Jesus, we begin loving one another and bear much fruit of the Holy Spirit within this love.
Building a happy family is a good plan, and true happiness has laws that are worth knowing and observing. Ideally, people who believe in God and share unity of faith would first become friends and, within this friendship, decide to love one another always. Then, rejoicing in this love, they would choose a life partner with whom they would decide to establish a happy family union. Then there would be no family conflicts, no divorces, and no children effectively orphaned while both parents are still alive.
Love for one another is the great mystery of God’s presence within the relationship of two people. When these loving friends decide to enter into marriage, this spiritual mystery becomes even more incomprehensible from outside, yet opens its doors to a profound knowledge of one another and of God within the relationship. And this mystery is very great.
When I first set out upon the path of love for one another, I already understand that I am plunging into something great and inaccessible that I did not know before. Establishing a family within such a union of two friends is an unfathomable universe with all its amazing mysteries and discoveries, which you come to know from within.
To understand how incomprehensible everything I am describing is, try to explain why Christ needs a bride whom He plans to marry, as the Bible tells us. This is an unfathomable mystery that will soon become reality. It will reveal the beauty of the relationship to the bride from within and give the entire universe something to contemplate as it seeks to unravel this great mystery.
This is why the enemy of the soul now attacks the institution of the family so furiously, seeking to make it a curse and an unbearable burden for humanity.
But God’s plans are being fulfilled despite everything. Love is making a way. Those who desire to enter the path of love will learn through their own experience the advantage of such a life and will never again choose anything else.
For a very long time, the enemy imposed his abominations upon the world. Now the time has come to love. The time has come for God to act, for they have made void His law.
Where will I stand in this conflict? I alone decide.
Where will you stand, my friend? The decision is yours.
Shall we unite in love for one another and see that the Lord is good?
Bible Verses for Reflection
1 Peter 1:22; 1 Corinthians 1:4–10; 3:10–17; 4:1–2; 13:12–13; Ecclesiastes 3:1, 8; Psalm 119:126; Colossians 3:18–19; Ephesians 5:25, 31–33; Revelation 19:7–9; 21:2; John 13:34–35.