The Love of Our Father
Exploring what it means to show others the love of our Father in heaven...
Shalom everyone! I hope you are all doing well!
How many of you reading this know of Dr. Michael L. Brown? Well, I just learned of him and have been checking out his YouTube channel. Just today, March 4th, 2024, he streamed this video.1 Check it out if you haven’t already, it is really good.
It got me to thinking almost immediately. In the video, Dr. Brown spoke about homosexuality. He says that homosexuals are not his enemy. Instead, he speaks of showing the love of God to these individuals.
What do you think about this? To me, it was one of the best messages that I have ever heard. It made sense to me in every possible way. Don’t take that the wrong way, as I am totally against homosexuality in any form. I certainly will never condone such behavior. But what was the commandment that our Messiah said was the second most important commandment?
34 But the Pharisees, when they heard that Yeshua had silenced the Sadducees, gathered together in one place. 35 And testing Him, one of them, a lawyer, asked, 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Torah?”
37 And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love ADONAI your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire Torah and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22: 34-40, TLV)
That’s right, Yeshua declared as the second most important commandment from the Torah (it is a quote from Leviticus 19:18) to be the commandment ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’. And what does this mean, to love our neighbors as ourselves?
I have seen that some connect this to the “golden rule”, that is, “So in all things, do to others what you would want them to do to you—for this is the Torah and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12, TLV) That is a very good thing to always remember too, but that isn’t exactly what it fully means.
Of course, none of us wants to be treated badly, so it is a great rule of thumb to walk daily in treating others with kindness. It is one part, perhaps the first step, of what I am going to attempt to bring up in his article. Bare with me.
There is a saying that I have. “I hate ____ but I love ____.” The blanks in that sentence can be filled in with quite a bit of things. In this case, I would put “homosexuality” in place of the first blank and “homosexuals” in place of the second blank. Do you get what the sentence means? It means that I condemn the act, not the person.
First, I do try to keep in mind the challenge that Yeshua gave to those who were trying to trick Him into condemning a woman of adultery.
7 When they kept asking Him, He stood up and said, “The sinless one among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7, TLV)
He told the one without sin among them to cast the first stone at her. The point was that there isn’t one among any of us without sin. However, Yeshua himself was without sin, and if you think about that for a moment, if He was without sin and he didn’t condemn this woman, then why should we?
It was the ultimate act of love that Yeshua showed that woman that day, the same love that he has shown all of us. This was the ultimate act of love that we today should be showing in our everyday lives.
Yes, I condemn the act of homosexuality, among the many other sins being practiced by this world today, but I will never condemn an individual for practicing them. If someone had done that to me, I would not be a believer today. I’d be lost among the sinners, practicing my own various sins. Instead, today, I try to walk in love. I try to show people that I meet on the street the true love of our Father in heaven.
But people today, supposedly “well-meaning” pastors and preachers, are out there condemning the individuals. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Now I see why a lot of people out there are walking completely away from any kind of faith whatsoever. When people see “hate”, they will respond in kind.
I have witnessed so much venomous hate out there towards the Christian/Messianic faiths by people who thinks those loud mouth preachers represent all of the faith as a whole. Though I think it is in the process of reversing, there are still many within the Messianic faith that seems closed up about this issue. Instead, they end up coming across as stuck-up, that is, “better” than the ones that are feeling judged.
For some, addressing this issue makes them feel uncomfortable. Others, it goes against everything that they’ve been taught by their congregations. So they do nothing. That doesn’t help anyone in the long run. It’s time we change this.
19 We love, because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19, TLV)
We need to become proactive in this. We need to walk actively in our faith, displaying the very same love that our Father in heaven has shown us. What does this mean? And just who is our “neighbor”? A quick Google search for “Who is our neighbor?” brought up this quote:
By definition, our neighbor is “the other person,” or “anyone who is in front of us,” regardless of their nationality or religion.2
I couldn’t have said it any better. If someone does you wrong in something, even if that “wrong” was something like someone cutting you off on the highway, you need to show them the love that we ourselves have received. Instead of flipping them off, just let it roll off your back.
It’s the turning the other cheek concept that Yeshua spoke of:
39 But I tell you, do not resist an evildoer. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him also the other. (Matthew 5:39, TLV)
In addition, we need to be completely selfless in our daily lives. I struggle with this one, getting wrapped up in my life and interests, but I try every day to do something for someone even if it cost me something of my own.
I am currently taking care of my 81-year old father and while he is still doing fine, even working a full-time job, there are many things that he can’t do anymore. I have to take time out of my day to help him, sometimes even having to stop doing whatever I was doing in order to help. Of course, this is my own living father, but it is teaching me so much more.
When I am out, I do small simple things to help people. I hold doors open, for instance. Small things can lead to big things in life. I’m not perfect and neither are you, but imagine what this world would be like if we all could do “little things” for each other.
This can also means standing up for groups like homosexuals. We have to show them the love of Father in heaven to show them that our Father in heaven is also their Father in heaven as well. That He loves them as well. And when someone says something bad towards them, standing up for them. How else are we going to win them over? How else are they going to learn about the wonderful love of our Father in heaven?
I feel very strongly on this issue. This certainly was not the next article that I had planned to write for this blog, but I felt a pull to write this. I have several other articles in the works and I had hoped to have them up sometime later this week. In the meantime, please give me (and other that will read this) some feedback in the comments below!
https://www.youtube.com/live/38-EW0tBXro?feature=shared - I can not tell if the video is a rebroadcast or not, though the video’s title suggests that it is. So, I apologize if anything in the video is old.