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Happy
Mother's Day to All! I want to say that I thank the Lord for
the privilege of being a mother and the opportunity to
influence a child's soul for the Glory of God. Every mother,
saved or lost, has a great influence on their child; I got
to thinking about what makes a good mother, and I came up
with three things that I would like to share with you today.
This is not a definitive list by no means, I'm sure you
could study it out and find some more to add to it.
1.
Salvation - it is impossible to be a good mother unless you
are born again. Oh, you may take care of your children's
physical needs and make sure they get an education, but can
never love them like you should until the love of God is
shed abroad in your heart (Romans 5:5). No one really knows
how to love someone else until they experience God's love.
Secondly, when you are born again, you get the Holy Spirit
and He is our teacher. John 14:26 says, "But the
Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will
send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring
all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto
you."
A person that does not have the
Holy Spirit living in them cannot know truth, they will not
understand how to train and instruct their children and when
their children are "driving them crazy" they do not have the
constraining and the convicting of the Holy Ghost (John
16:8) to control them. I can honestly understand why a lost
person could abuse, neglect, forsake their children; it is
because they know not the Lord.
2.
Submission - It takes submission to be saved (Romans 10:3),
and God requires submission throughout a Christian's life.
He requires submission to our husbands. Ephesians 5:18-22
says, "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but
be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in
your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things
unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of
God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as
unto the Lord."
Verse 18 through 21 is all one
sentence. That means that all the things after the command
"be filled with the spirit" in verse 18 is evidence of being
filled with the Spirit; singing to the Lord, giving thanks,
submitting on to another. Then starting in verse 22 and
going all the way into chapter 6, the Lord breaks the
submission part down into detail. And who does He start
with? Wives; He gets us right off the bat, probably because
He knows that we have the hardest time with it. Two other
times besides here in Ephesians, we are commanded to submit
to our husbands. Look at Col. 3:18 and I Pet. 3:1. Now the
Lord doesn't just put something in the Bible more than once
to take up space; He does it to make sure that you get it.
Have you got it? Titus 2:3-5 commands the aged women to
teach the young women some things. It says, "The
aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh
holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine,
teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women
to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to
their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed."
The last thing on the list is to be obedient to their
husbands. Why? That the Word of God be not blasphemed. If
you do not submit to your husband you are blaspheming the
Word of God and you are warping your children. Your girls
are going to grow up to blaspheme the Word of God just like
you, and your boys are going to grow up thinking that is the
way that marriage is supposed to be and be henpecked all of
their life. Don't you want the best for children? Then
Submit! If we would get off our high horse and realize that
we are nothing it wouldn't be so hard. Phil. 2:3-5 says,
"Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory;
but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than
themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every
man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you,
which was also in Christ Jesus:"
It is the mind of Christ
to make ourselves lowly and exalt others even our husbands.
Another verse to go with that is Romans 12:10 which says,
"Be kindly affectioned one to another with
brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;"
3. Service -
Being a good mother takes being a servant. It takes personal
sacrifice to be a wife and a mother if you do it right. But
it is such a joy because that is our purpose for being here;
it is what the Lord created us to do(Gen. 2:20). Matthew 20:
26-28 says,
"But it shall not be so
among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be
your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let
him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a
ransom for many."
This is also
mentioned in Mark 9:35 and Luke 22:26-27. If we want to be
exalted we must learn to serve. The virtuous woman in
Proverbs 31 didn't mind serving, she didn't care to be in
the background while her husband sat at the gate with the
elders of the land. She was at home doing her job
faithfully, being a minister to him and her children.
However, verse 28 says,
"Her
children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also,
and he praiseth her."
If we want our
family to appreciate and love us, we must be a mother God's
way.
God bless you,
I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day. :)
Sis. Tanya |
in the
