Brothers and Sisters

Having alittle problem. What should I do? Well a member of my family is not a christian and he is a racist and all so I read galatians and it said "be not fooled bad company corrupts good ways." Thus, I am not haning out with the family member as usual it usally just a hi and whats up thing now. My question is should I hang out with this person or should I just go my own way. I read "If a person is not willing to give up his brother, sister, mother, father for me he is not worthy to be my disciple."

hi unitynlove you can still be around your family. we witness to them in all sorts of ways. unless he is a stumbling block. then i'd drop things down to hi and run.

"If a person is not willing to give up his brother, sister, mother, father for me he is not worthy to be my disciple."......
when we give someone up it is what we love. so that scripture applies to our obsticals of comfort.

i have some family that i walk away from praying for forgiveness for what i hear (fowl lanuage)... i'd give them up in a heart beat. lol... but they need my longsuffering, gentleness, (fruits of the spirit) light. i love them. it all boils down to exstending our love and mercy that we mirror: discipleship.

Greetings,

My interpretation of that bible verse is that you are not to be more loyal to family than you are to God. Also, if a family member tempts you to leave your faith it is best to stay away from them.

But there is a space for evengelism that is allowed. If by living a Christian life you somehow inspire this person to change, that would be a good thing.

In my family we have people who are nominal christians and some who are antiChristian as well as people of different levels of faith and spiritual growth. The people who are really opposed my faith I communicate with them at family gatherings and am always very polite and nice but avoid the rest of the time. The family who ask me questions about my faith have plenty of my time for me to answer them. That is how I handle it.

I had a family member (now deceased) who would get very angry that people who were Christian would choose to go to Church and come late to a family gathering rather than miss church. He would carry on and make a fuss about it and say very bad things about them. But when they showed up they were always very nice to him. I watched that growing up as the man was my grandfather.

I remember late in his life he made the comment that he never wanted to be at Church but he would never live in a town that didn't have a church.

Toward the last of his life he became really good friend with the minister who worked at his nursing home. This minister told us that he thought my grandfather accepted Christ to the best of his ability by the end of his life.

I think it is possible that over time we wore off on him. I would like to think this at least.

It's rough to be in that situation. But just like you're probably surrounding yourself with people of your own mind to reinforce your beliefs, he is probably surrounding himself with people of his own mind (racists, in this case) who reinforce his beliefs.

If you can take the risk to be a positive influence on his life, it's worth it. Yours may be the only voice of reason he hears. There is, of course, the danger of his bitterness infecting you.

Do what you need to do. As long as you're doing what you know is right, I'm sure everything will be fine.

speaking of family, i just got asked to put them on my prayer list... by them. Praise the Lord... i had a friend dig out their bible once to ask a question about scripture too. we make people think just by being ourselves.