JESUS was so busy that no doubt he rarely was able to spend time with his mother, and relations. He had to be about his Father's business, as he told his mother when she found him spending time listening and speaking to the Jewish teachers (Luke 2: 41-52). When Mary asked him then why he had given her and Joseph a scare because he was not in the party returning home, Jesus replied that he had to be doing his Father's business. His obedience to God, his Father, came before all other claims on his time and attention. In these three verses we are told how his mother and his brothers had come to see him, and how they found it impossible to reach him because the crowds around Jesus, and listening to him, were so large. His mother and brothers must have spoken of their wanting to see Jesus, and so the message was passed to Jesus through the crowd. Then we hear what seems to be, on the surface, rather a rude and uncaring speech. Jesus says "My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice." The answer seems to show discourtesy, and lack of filial obedience. Yet it is nothing of the kind, for in fact he was giving filial obedience to his supreme and heavenly Father.

The first lesson we learn from this incident is the importance of obedience to God. Jesus teaches us that this must come before all other allegiance, and claims upon our life. This does not mean we should neglect our family and other responsibilities, but whatever claims there are on our attention the claim of God comes first.

In fact what Jesus is teaching us is a great wonder. In the first place God is revealing something about himself. Although, according to his human nature, Jesus had a human mother, yet in his divine nature he had a heavenly Father, even God himself. And this was not something a believer can say, for He was God incarnate, and very God of very God. In this capacity his life was different to ours.

The wonder of the answer Jesus gave here to the claims of his mother and brothers is the revelation of the wonderful relationship every true believer in Jesus has. This is the relationship we have with God. God is our creator, and ruler, and in this capacity we owe all obedience and reverence to God. Yet it Christ there is a relationship much more wonderful, intimate and comforting, and that is that in Christ God becomes our Father, and Jesus becomes our elder brother, and we are given the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry 'Abba, Father'. We have a human family but through faith in Christ we enter a greater family, which is the family of God, where we have a myriad of brothers and sisters, and heaven is our home, and we possess eternal life.

Entrance into the family of God is the blessing of all true Christians. These are they who have put their trust in Christ as Saviour and Lord, believing the promise that "As many as received him, to those who believe on his name, he gave the right to become children of God". Many call themselves Christian today, and many say they believe on Christ as Saviour, so it is important to understand what it means to believe in Jesus. Is it a bare belief? Not really. It is simple faith, but this faith has substance and reality more than just bare belief, for it is a change of direction and living. Jesus describes the nature of saving faith here in his answer to the request of his earthly family to see him.

What is the nature of saving faith? Jesus tells us it is hearing God's word and putting into practice. How strange this sounds to much evangelical teaching we have heard. It is not that that teaching is wrong, but that it is is less than it ought to be.

Hearing God's word does not just mean hearing the message of salvation but describes an attitude of heart and mind. True, we do hear the message of salvation, and receive it by faith, but if this is real it produces a change of heart and mind whereby the Word of God, becomes the food of our soul, which we not only hunger after, but is a delight of our soul. The word of God becomes our daily bread. Jesus as the bread of life is what we long to partake of. Hearing is not a bare listening to understand the message, but to receive it so that our life is lived by it.

When there is true hearing of the word of God, then there is a discernment as to what is true bread and what is not, and the soul can't be content with sermons and discourses that fall short of the true teaching of the bible, and are rejected as poison to the soul. Real hearing is known in the soul, that when we go to hear the word of God, and the sermon lacks the truth of God's word, then we go home hungry. If we hear the word of God truly, then we must have it to feed our soul, and we will not be content to simply hear a sermon on Sunday, however good and nourishing it is, but we will seek the word of God every day, by the study of the Bible, and earnest reading of books where the word of God is faithfully and fully expounded.