But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God. John 1:12-13

When Stevie was 5, neighborhood bullies roughed him up. His older sister marched down the street to show them a thing or two–and came home with a black eye.

I know firsthand about that black eye because I was that older sister! Family ties are strong, and this should be true, most true of all, about our relationships with other followers of Jesus.  But do we really think of all other Jesus followers as brothers or sisters? We come from different cultural backgrounds and have all kinds of different experiences.

Consider this:  Scripture says, we are all made in God’s image, “children of the same Father and… created by the same God” (Malachi 2:10a). The great equalizer is this: we all sin and “fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Romans 2:23). But those who have believed God about Jesus, the Bible says, have “the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). So, if you’re a Jesus follower, you’ve got family all over this globe!

When people are treated wrongly, we may think, “I’m not comfortable jumping in there—I might get a black eye!” “Do you hurt,” writes Harold Sala, “with Jesus-followers who are in pain? You can’t fight every injustice in the world. But, when you realize that we are one body, that we have one Father, that we have one faith, then all who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ lay aside their ethnic identity, their gender, and their culture to become brothers and sisters, belonging to each other.”

Look around today: Is there a brother or sister who needs you stand up with and for them?  Black eyes heal up just fine.