Many of us will spend time with extended family over the holidays. Perhaps you are grateful for the close and loving relationships you enjoy and for the many traditions that you share together. Or maybe you love your family members, but only tolerate some of their idiosyncrasies long enough to get through a festive feast. For some of you, there is such brokenness or geographical distance that being together is just too difficult. Maybe your church brothers and sisters are the only family you have. Or perhaps you will spend the first holidays without a loved one that passed away this year. Whatever your situation, God has sovereignly placed you in an earthly family.


We all long to be known, yet loved and accepted. We expect that from our relatives, and they expect it from us. But even if you know personally that doesn’t always happen, you have a Father who knows you intimately and loves you passionately. He has accepted you into His family through the life and death of His own Son. He has called you brothers, and that’s worth celebrating!