Sunday was
MOTHER’S DAY that is one of the most revered holidays of the year. Mothers are important. I have been told that. I have also learned that as well. Thus, much of this is from yesterday’s
sermon.
Her children rise up and bless
her; Her husband also, and he
praises her, saying:
She was the first to teach me about
God and to take me to church. She was
the glue that held our family together.
I remember watching her kind ways, experiencing her compassion and seeing
her love. We had our family struggles,
yet I very well remember the strength of my parents even in the storms of
life. I am grateful.
Most of you know that my mom has
been struggling the last few months after she broke her ankle. It has been a very tough time that is not
getting much better. In fact today she
is to move in to a long-term care facility because her ankle is not healing the
way her caregivers had hoped. Please
continue to pray for her. It is hard to
be so far away. But she is my mom.
Another excellent picture of God
comes from my wife and even my mother in law.
You have to realize that we would not be here without our moms. Wait, not only is that true, but we would not
be who we are without our mothers.
That is why I have turned in the Old
Testament to a passage that reminds me of the place in our homes that God
holds. Through these verses, the ones we
are about to read, I can vividly remember my mother responding to God, leading
our family and teaching my brothers and I to do the same.
4 “Listen, O
Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart,
all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And
you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving
you today. 7 Repeat them
again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when
you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 8 Tie them to your hands and wear
them on your forehead as reminders. 9 Write
them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Rooted in the law of the Old
Testament we find God turning our attention to the first institution that He
created, the family. Anchored in that
family would be a mom who loves God and loves her family.
Notice the commitment it takes to
raise a family, then and now. Godly
mothers are so needed. And today I
challenge you ladies to rise to the occasion, to love and guide your children
but to also love God more than you love anyone or anything else.
I also challenge husbands and
children to bless those special ladies in your life. They make us stronger. They often present challenges, but God can
and will use those challenges to make us stronger. Life is fuller, richer and better with these
special ladies.
What did my mom teach me? Here are just a few of the things that stick
out to me:
She taught me to learn real love. That is first in loving God and then in
loving others. My mom did this very
well. In fact these verse said that
loving is a command from God. We are
most like Him when we love others!
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the
law.
God’s love portrayed in my mom, and
other moms, is the unconditional love is like God. Love takes us further than we can go on our
own. Literally our LIMITLESS God teaches
us of love. That love is like this:
(LOVE) bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Another way my mom taught me is in
her commitment to right living. That means a commitment to live by and share
the truth. Trust is best known by our
connection to God. Also realize that there
are consequences for not following truth, consequences both inside and outside
of our homes.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
Truth is a person. Jesus is truth. When we follow with all your heart, this
truth and Jesus are best seen. My mom
did this for me as well. Great people,
like my mom, guide us to truth and a better life. The best example of our LIMITLESS God was and
is following Jesus.
Another thing my mom did was to
teach us. A great mom is committed to teaching in our homes. These verses implore us to repeat these
things to your children when you are at home, when you are on the go as well as
when we are on the way to bed or when we get up in the morning.
Often the most influential things
are those we think about as we go to sleep or the things that we wake up
sleeping about. That is why our moms are
a vital part of what children go to bed with.
Maybe that is with prayer or sweet words.
We are destroying
speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,
Moms fight battles for their
kids. This could be the battle of monsters
under the bed or in the closet or fears out in the world or hard relationships
that our children go through. Through my
mom our LIMITLESS God was and is always teaching us. That is one of the reasons we need to put the
truth of Scripture all around our lives.
Put them on sticky notes, memorize them, read the Bible and other
creative way.
Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You.
That verse has a negative side as
well as a positive. The word will not
only keep us from wrong but points us in the direction and paves the path of
what is right. We follow what we
treasure. Treasure the right stuff. What you see you become like.
I am so glad and honored and blessed
to have been given the gift of my incredible mom, Judy Harrison. My life is on the track it is on because
people from several places, including my mom, poured in to my life.
May God bless us and use us to bless
and guide others as our mothers did for us.
This might be a bit belated, but … Happy Mother’s Day to each of you AND
to my mom! I love you!
No comments:
Post a Comment