Building Faith Families with Steve Demme

My role as a husband and father is shaped by how I experience and perceive the love of God for me. The more love I receive, the more I am equipped to give.

As Jesus loves me, I am called and empowered to love my wife and children. As a husband, my role is not to be the king of my castle. My wife and children were not created to serve me, but I have been designed to serve them. By meditating on how Jesus loved me by serving me, I follow His example and do not treat my wife and children as second class citizens, but as fellow children of God, who were created in the image of God.

I am writing a book chronicling my journey of the past two years. These were the hardest years of my life and the best ones as well. They were hard because I experienced more personal sorrow and loss, but they were the best because I found God in a new and deeper way. Throughout this process I am continually boring down through layers of life lessons I have learned to discover fundamental foundational truths.

For example, I am convinced that the family is the basic unit of society. God created the institution of the family before Israel, before Abraham, before the flood, and way before the church. In fact, the primary qualification for elders and deacons is their ability to govern their own homes. Healthy God-fearing families are the foundation for healthy churches and communities.

Good marriages begin with two individuals who each love God, and have each been loved by God. Let me amplify on that last phrase. Each man and each woman must first have a vertical loving relationship with God themselves. But to love Him, we have to be first loved by Him.

Bottom line, the best thing I can do to love God, my family, and my neighbor, is to let God love me.

Etymologists speculate that the expression “Good bye” derives from the longer phrase, “May God be with ye.” Similarly, “Good morning” may come from “May God give you a good morning" or a “Good day.”

I find that how I begin each morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. When I want to have a “God” day or a “Good” day, then I begin the day by meeting God and investing time in His presence.

I still battle with believing the gospel. Even though I know that when I draw near to God, He draws near to me, I still have to remind myself almost every day that God really likes me. As I draw near to God, I recall scriptures that inform my mind of the veracity of His love and the unchangeableness of His nature.

For several weeks, my prayer when I awake has been Psalm 90:14, “Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love, that I may rejoice and be glad all my days.” I love this scripture. The writer of this prayer may have been tempted to doubt God’s love, but asked God to help him.

How did God prepare Jesus for His early ministry? What transpired during His formative years in the home of Joseph and Mary? We only have a few clues into those important years of preparation and training.

Join us as we engage in some edifying speculation on how Jesus became rooted and grounded in the love of God and developed a relationship with “The Father” before He embarked on his brief earthly mission.

God doesn’t have any baggage, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the Lord who changes not. His love doesn’t change either, for God is love. And God is light, with no darkness or shadows.

But we do have baggage, lots of it. Baggage is common to man. We each have our share of wounds, scars, and issues from past relationships. If we could see each other’s past, and have the ability to understand and discern what we have each experienced, we would have so much more compassion for one another.

Embracing our own issues, and acknowledging our specific weaknesses, failures, hurts, and dashed dreams, helps us to accept and love others. Sadly we have become experts at hiding our pain, and putting on a smiling face, but behind the masks we all are needy and messy. We have good days, and we have bad days.

God alone understands us fully. He shares in our joys and our sorrows. When we rejoice, He shares in our joy. When we weep He weeps. He gets us like no one else. And still He loves us completely, consistently, and unconditionally. His grace is amazing, because He is amazing.

God instructs us to be patient in scripture. He is uniquely qualified to offer this exhortation because He practices patience. In fact He is patience. God is the principal and He is the principle.

In the book of James, we are told to be patient and steadfast. Then as an example of patience, Job is held up as an example of patience and steadfastness. Then as a clincher, we learn that God is patient. In fact throughout scripture we see God described as stedfast, slow to anger, gracious, and merciful.

In the purpose and plan of God, we are not simply to acquire positive character qualities, we are to become like our Dad. We are being transformed into His image. May God help us to not only see the godly character qualities but God himself.