JustDad.Blog

So… it’s true. I’m not the best at grammar. Which is interesting for a person that God called to write.

I am NOW aware that Daddies’ is both plural and possessive. I briefly contemplated changing the title to Daddy’s Tales… but decided against it.

The reality is this. These stories are not just my stories. They are given to me by God. God will often remind me of how he is fathering me through an encounter I have with one of my own children. Hence this blog.

I am aware that the title could be misinterpreted, but the Daddies here are my Heavenly Father and me.

God has often used my grammatical mistakes to speak to me in some way.

When I was younger I got so excited by the Hebraic roots of discipleship that I made my username: talmidim00. Talmidim is the plural form of disciples in Hebrew not the singular…. Later God showed me that as A Disciple… I really needed to be a part of the COMMUNITY of Disciples.

So what was initially a grammatical error became a happy accident. Admittedly this particular grammatical error (the subject of this post) comes with more of a culturally loaded connotation for two reasons:

1. The aversion we have to referring to our God as Daddy. Something I have addressed in a prior post.1

2. The disagreement and even fight in our culture and church over homosexuality. Something I do not intend to address here in detail. But I will make a few quick statements:

I. God loves everybody and wants them to come to Him.

II. I have personally found that the American church has often mishandled this question one way or the other. Personally, I think this is because of a lack of seeing His presence in our lives. So we often we try to live out righteousness first with fear, not driven by love and the words of Jesus (where we treat our own struggles as more important than the struggles of others in terms of pursuing goodness).

This fear drive has hurt many people.

III. The Holy Spirit is the only one who empowers goodness in our lives. Apart from Jesus we will not bear fruit, either in our own goodness or in drawing others to Jesus

IV. With these first three points FIRMLY in mind.. I will say that I hold to what is considered the traditionally “Christian” orthodox view. Homosexual activity is not the design of God, and though he loves you regardless of your sin: He is all about restoring His design, while at the same time loving you like crazy! In his mind these two things are not incompatible.

Putting my money where my mouth is: Pornography is not in the design of God and destroys marriages. I have been addicted to porn twice in my life.

The first time it’s power broke because I met Jesus. His grace took me and created goodness in me.

The second time it’s power broke when I confessed it to my soon to be girlfriend (now wife).. even then the consequences of this sin almost cost me my engagement and caused at least one deep time of pain in our marriage.

Since that time God has gone to work exposing and addressing anxiety, anger, selfishness and more.

To summarize my position on addressing sin:

1. Speak truth, but in love.2

2. Treat your own darkness / sin like it’s the biggest problem. 3

3. Treat others as you would want to be treated. 4

4. Focus on letting the Holy Spirit do the changing in our lives.5 It is His kindness that leads us to repentance.6

The preaching of repentance is preached to a group of people who have a history with God: to a group of people who have had Gods commands… and know what the apostles were saying when they said repent.

I hope I have treated this subject well… and I hope you hear my heart. I love you. Regardless of who you are… regardless of what you’ve done. Even if you have hurt me or intend to hurt me in the deepest possible way in the future. I love you.

Why?

Because my Dad does.

“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭5‬:‭44‬-‭45‬ ‭TLV‬‬

Do I do this perfectly? Absolutely not! In fact upon my words I expect there to be a test of my faith in this coming down the pipe. But right now with a clear conscience before God I can say that I love you… whoever you are, and when I fail to love you…. I will repent with the Holy Spirits help and love you all the more.

Footnotes

1. Prior post: Reflections on “The Lord’s Prayer”: A Sabbath Post

2. Ephesians 4:15

3. Luke 6:41

4.Luke 6:31

5. 1 Thessalonians 5:23

6. Romans 2:4