Biblical worldview on my two dads

Welcome to episode 203.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 203. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I am going to talk today about a current event, and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything going on to your world or the world around us or the whole universe, but it's my little world. And since this is a snapshot imperfect action as I follow after a perfect example. I figured it was appropriate to let you know, kind of, and to give honor, because I really want to give honor to one of my dads. I'm titling this My Two Dads. I want to give honor. It says to honor your mother and father. That made God's top 10 list, the 10 laws that were etched in stone. These are big deals. And to honor your mom and dad— and my mom passed away in 2014, and she married a man. I think they were probably 18, 18, 19 years old. I got married when I was about 30, so I mean, just to put that in perspective, I can't even imagine getting married at 18. I wasn't worth shooting at 18 years old. So my mom and dad got married and they had me. So one of my dads created me. After 5 years, my mom and dad decided they could not lived together. I don't know which one decided it was mutually inclusive. I don't have any idea what— I was there, but I was only 5. So they got a divorce, and back then I think that was a big deal. And then when I was 9 years old, 9 or 10, right around, you know, between 9 and 10, again, I was little, my mom remarried. And I want to talk this episode about one of my two dads because we just found out Labor Day of 2021 that Larry Spinney, my dad, one of my dads, passed away on Labor Day, and it caught all of us by surprise. We've got— there's 5— he had 5 children. It was all a shock. He was very healthy. He went into the hospital and did not come out. It's been a little bit of a struggle, and I just want to honor him, and I want to give a testimony of the man that he was, because he, I believe, shaped who I am as much or more than probably any other man that I associated with, at least for the first half of my life. So I want to give him credit. I want to give him the honor that goes to that. And this man was not perfect. In fact, I've told you our story. 29 and a half years it took me to get saved, and it took him longer than that. My brother was the baby of the family, and he was the last one to be born, and he'll tell you he was the first one to get born again, and he is a Southern Baptist preacher, very good preacher, very well-respected, great guy, love him to death. He was the first one in our family. I think I might have been next, but our whole family has accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and for 30 years it wasn't that. We grew up across the street from a Baptist church. So what I'm gonna tell you about this man had nothing to do with being saved. This was the example that this man lived. He wasn't perfect. He had flaws just like you and I have flaws, but this man did the best he could with what he had. And I just wanna honor him. He did a great job. Raising, he was there all the time. He kind of had an anger spot. He was awesome when he was awesome. When he was mad, he was mad. I can't just let it go that he's passed away and I'm never gonna see him again and I've got a podcast and don't talk about him. What I wanna say, I wanna go to Matthew 28 because I wanna tie all this into the Great Commission because as I was reading that again, It just jumped off the page, and I think that's the Holy Spirit, and you can argue it was gas or pizza. Jesus was talking to his disciples, and he said, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and in earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all of the things that I've commanded you to do. And lo, I am with you to the end of the age. And I did that out of memory, and I'm, I'm just sitting here in front of my microphone, and I, and I've argued with myself on whether I was going to make this podcast or not, and one of my selves won, and I'm doing it. When I read that, when it said teaching them to observe all of the things I've commanded you, the teaching them to observe, that means Somebody has to do it for them to see it. If you observe something, you're watching someone else do it. And I just want to say, I watched this man come home from work every day. I watched this man love on his wife, love on his kids. He wasn't perfect. He didn't do that perfect, but he went to work. He came home. He was home every night. And he provided for his family. And in his way, before he come to know Jesus, this man created in me an attitude that I'm not going to miss any of my kids' ball games. I'm not going to miss any of their events, and I'm going to be there. I'm going to be present. And I think it helped me become the man— I know it did. It helped me to become the father and the man that I am, the husband that I am. The, the most important thing was Jesus, because when you see that example of your father doing that and living that, and then you see the example of Jesus and the Holy Spirit helping you, and you use that as a guide, and you think, if my dad was imperfect and did it this way, what would a perfect father do? And so I just want to say that this man In his imperfection, did a wonderful job raising us boys. He has a daughter that he didn't get to spend as much time with. I think she would say he did a wonderful job. This man's superpower, he made every person around him feel like they were the most important. It was incredible. This man made you feel, if you were one of his kids, he made you feel like you were his favorite. And if you were one of his grandkids, I imagine every one of them, probably right now this day, thinks in their heart, "I don't know about them other grandkids, but I know Grandpa thought I was the favorite." All of mine, they told me, you know, and we reminisce, you know, after somebody passes on and goes home, and I know I'm gonna see him again, and I'm sad, my heart is heavy when I'm talking to you, But I just want to, I just want to get this out while it's still fresh and while it's still raw. And I just want you to know that you don't have to be perfect. And I've harped on this. You don't have to be perfect. But the most important thing that you can do is you can spend your time doing the things that are important and the things that are closest to perfect. And there's this soapbox moment number however many we're at now, that you got to get in the word of God. The only perfection was Jesus. And so the perfect example— if we, if we take our imperfect father and then we put it up against a perfect father and think, ah, if this guy did this, what would Father God do? It's just amazing when you start looking at it. And you know, and everybody— I think everybody's got a superpower. Mine's kind of encouragement. I think his was just an encourager as well, but it was more of a promoter. He would talk everybody up and everybody was the best. I mean, when he was on Facebook, we made fun of him because he would laugh at his little Facebook stuff. And he would have— when he was staying here for a few days, he had some surgery or whatever, was here, and we were helping him recover. He would just laugh and he would stop us as we're walking through the house and say, Greg, Greg, come look at this! This is the funniest thing ever! I bet you he said that 5 or 6 times in a 3-night period, or 3-day, 3-night period, that I got to see the funniest thing ever on Facebook. And I'm not sure, but I think 2 or 3 times there were cats involved. So that's all I'm going to say. It was a joy to have this man in my life. It's going to be a wonderful joy to see him and my mom in heaven. And I just want to say, you know, you don't have to be perfect. The Bible is clear. It says to honor your your mother and father, and it comes with a promise. And the Ten Commandments, in case you didn't know, are in Exodus 20. But I want to read Exodus 20:12. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. And the promise that I was talking about is if you honor your mother and your father, or your father and your mother, your days will be long. There is a promise of length of days and it will be good for you. It is just a good thing in the biblical worldview to honor your father and your mother, and that's what I want to do here. Was, was Larry Spinney perfect? No, he was not. Was Larry Spinney a man? 100%, he was a man. And was he a father and a grandfather and a brother? He was all of those things. He was a great and loving Dad. He was a great and loving grandpa and brother. He was all of those things. He was wonderful example to a young boy who was living in a single mom's house, and he came in as a man and taught me how to be a man. And for that, I am eternally grateful, and we will spend eternity talking about all of the things. And I'm not going to tell you all this stuff that he did. He was pretty goofy, but if you know me, you had to be a little bit goofy to survive in our household. So I think that I'm going to leave it at that. I want to say thank you, Dad, for doing everything you did, and I look forward to seeing you in heaven. I want to pray. God, I thank you so much for everything you've done in my life. I want to thank you for the men that you've put in my life. And I want to thank you specifically for Dad, for Larry Spinney, and I want to thank you that you allowed him to come into your family. God, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.

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