Spend Some Time with Your Family

Yesterday we had a family reunion for the Apple side of my family. This is my Grandma on my dad's side's family. Now all jokes about crazy family aside, I really actually enjoy our family reunion.
I think my love for it came when my Great Grandma Apple had a stroke. You have never seen a family come together like ours did. We filled an entire waiting room at the hospital on more than one occasion. And when she came home, everyone came together and shared the responsibility for caring for her. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren took on the responsibility of staying nights so that her children could handle the daytime care without completely crashing. Granted, it helps that my Great-Grandma had four children, and that between them they all had sixteen children. And I'm not even going to try to count the grandchildren's children. Let's just say there are A LOT of us.
Anyway, from that point on, we've been a tighter family. No, we don't call each other everyday, but we look forward to seeing each other more. Most of us don't groan and say, "Not another family reunion." Because we've learned that time with family is something to be cherished because not one of us is guaranteed a tomorrow, and we've learned what coming together as a unit can do.
Kind of makes me wonder why so many Christians avoid spending time with their spiritual families. Now, I'm not trying to get up on a soapbox here or anything. But the Bible commands that we fellowship one with another. (Hebrews 10:25) Yet, so many people throw that command to the side. They put church off as something they can do "next week" then it becomes, "Well, I'll go next week." Pretty soon you have a Christian who has no fellowship with fellow believers at all.
As a pastor's granddaughter, it's easy to see how much people are missed when they aren't in church. And I do my best to encourage people to be there.
But the thing is that we shouldn't be there just because the pastor expects us to be there or because the person we share a pew there will whisper about us if we aren't there. We should be there because it will please Christ. And because it will help us to grow closer to Him by fellowshipping with His people.
Because, just as my family learned, we aren't guaranteed a "next time." We aren't guaranteed another Sunday to be in our place at church. Now is the time we should be doing all we can to grow in Christ. And trust me, there's a whole lot more we can do together as believers than any of us can do on our own.