We read in Holy Scripture the answer to the above question so asked by Jesus: “For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Matthew 12: 50). It is well to remember, that Jesus the Christ, was the bearer of truth, and therefore it is to our eternal benefit to contemplate and to meditate upon these invaluable words.
Most people are quite cognizant as to who their mother is, as well as their siblings, and even in the most dysfunctional of families, we usually find that blood truly is thicker than water. As good as that may well be, for familial love, duty, and obligation most definitely has its place; we must, in order to grow and to mature, rise above the narrow belief that it is always our family first, and therefore society or others, being seen as the lesser.
The bottom line is this, that God has no favorites, plays no favorites, and thereby equally values each one of us, good or bad, sinful or saintly, the same. That is how it should be, for we are all equally created by the loving hand of God, and if we were to find out to our dismay, that God actually had those special souls that He valued more, then that God could not conceivably be just, and we would not be at peace. So then, it follows, that the human family that we are born into, as well as the family we typically create later in our personal life, should best be seen as our loving tribute to our Father in Heaven, of which we are, at our best, trying to emulate the familial love that God so freely and unconditionally provides to all of us.
Further to the point, many people are most forgiving of their own blood, of which, there are also plenty of people that will do just about anything for those that they are intimately connected to. But why should these positive attributes be restricted to just our immediate family? In reality, we need to broaden our horizon, and to recognize that the good that we are so willing to do, for example, for our parents, for our spouse, for our children, and for our siblings, should not be the be-all and end-all of our existence, but rather should be the impetus to desire to connect with those others that are in harmony with Godly virtues.
So too, for those brothers of ours, that are stumbling, that are confused, lost, misguided, abused, and forsaken, we should demonstrate by our compassion, by our patience, and by our wisdom, that we have a sacred obligation to lend that helping hand and to be that good Samaritan for those others in need, especially in the understanding and the knowledge that but for the grace of God, that could very well be us.
This world is meant to demonstrate to us, that we are all interconnected, and because we are all of the same equal substance, that we should wish to do right one to another, so that together, we can all get to that special place of eternal sanctuary of which there is no more sorrow and no more pain.