parents

A Mother’s Love

“If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us”

1 John 4:12

First we must remember what kind of love “His love” is. John has told us: “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). It is unconditional and sacrificial love. This kind of love neither asks nor expects anything in return. “God is love” (1 John 4:16) and the outworking of this is that He loves in this way as will those who love Him.

A child may be asked why they love their mother. The answer that this question provokes is usually along the lines of benefits to the child. She is kind, a good cook, picks up after me and so on. However, this is not a good question to ask. If love is based on performance then it isn’t God’s kind of love. It treats love as a reward for behaviour. If that was true concerning God’s love for mankind Jesus would never have come down and stayed on the cross to redeem us. Paul writes in Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates His own [kind of] love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Apart from the enactment of God’s kind of love perhaps the nearest we have in this fallen world is a mother’s love for her child. Rarely will a mother cease to love her child no matter what they do. She may not approve all the actions or words of her child but she will still love her child.

Our society has for a few decades moved in the direction of moving children from the care of their mother to the care of hirelings. They care for the child for pay and not for love in the way a mother loves her child. Jesus said, “But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees” (John 10:12). While most child carers probably love children and their work, they can never love the child like their own mother. Unfortunately not all mothers have the choice whether to work or not. Society pressure dictates that many need to work to some degree to pay the bills. Parents need to wait on the Lord and allow Him to lead them in the best direction for their children. Our society does not know Christ so we should not allow it to be the decision maker for us. There is something special about a mother’s love for her child. It knows deep love and deep grief like no other just as our Heavenly Father knows.

For Such a Time as This

“If you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish”

Esther 4:14

None of us had any say as to when and where we were born, or who our parents or ancestors would be, or any other factors that have shaped our lives. They were solely the sovereign will of God. The Lord has placed us here and now with innate, gifted, earned and learned resources for His purpose.

The words of Mordecai to Esther have application to us in relation to our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. It makes no difference our age, parentage, skills or talents. We have all been placed here for just such a time as this and, like Esther, we must decide to fill or refuse the role Jesus has given us.

We may not be happy with all our circumstances; but we are here, at this time and place at the will of God. The Bible is insistent that we are not here as spectators but as Christ’s ministers. There is no age where we begin or cease to be Christ’s ministers. If we are born of God, we are His ministers. Our role may change through our lives, but it only ends on relocation to Christ’s presence.

God will achieve His plan but, like Esther, we have a choice as to whether we take our part. There may be sad consequences to our families if we refuse to take our role. When a parent refuses to respond to the Lord’s call on their life they teach their child that it is okay to ignore the Lord’s will. We must seriously consider what we are teaching our children by our actions or lack thereof.

As Mordecai went on to say, “Who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14b). We are where we are, at the time we are, with the resources we have, at the will of God. It would be foolish to cling to that which we must leave behind and forsake Him.

Let us ask the Lord to heal the deafness that prevents us hearing His call, and the blindness that prevents us seeing the open door He has placed before us. Just as He chose where and when we were born He has a path of ministry for everyone who is born of God. “Every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:8). Let us ask Him, seek His will and knock on His door for His response. Let us fulfil His will for our lives today – for this is the day He has given us.

Serving Christ Together

“Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it” Mark 10:15

The faith of a child is a simple faith yet it is the very essence of what is required for a person to be saved. Their faith in parents is based on the relationship. The actions of parents will reveal whether that faith is well placed or not. One of my granddaughters, when very young, liked to jump into the pool for me to catch her. This was repeated many times until I was distracted by her younger cousin and missed her jump. Her faith in me vanished and no amount of encouragement could get her to jump to me again that day. Her child-like faith endured until the object of her faith proved unreliable. Jesus will never be unreliable though there may be times that we think He has. That is our error not His unfaithfulness.

In the verse previous to the one quoted above Jesus tells his disciples to bring children to Him while they are young and are still capable of that simple faith. Once the world has filled their minds with false ideas and questioned God’s reliability and love (Genesis 3:1-7) faith in Jesus will be more difficult.

It is not difficult to see why parents are, when possible, opting to remove their children from public education. Political lobby groups of the spirit of Antichrist know the value of the mind of a child and are doing all they can to fill children’s minds with worldly concepts and values before they hear the truth in the Gospel of Christ.

The role of parents is being diminished year by year by a world system that makes it difficult for a mother to stay at home. Mothers who choose to actually mother their children are not valued as they should be. There seems to be a move toward professional child carers who are under some degree of government control, through licensing, training, and often, through funding arrangements.

We have heard about the “stolen generation” in Australia’s past but now we are experiencing an attempt to steal a whole generation of children from their parents and destroy the intimacy of the parent-child relationship. Included in this is an attempt to prevent children hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We live in the world but we are not of the world. It is critical that we resist ungodly worldliness as much as possible and ensure that our children hear the true Gospel of Christ as early as possible. This role is for parents, grandparents and church family serving Jesus Christ together.

A Hearty Amen

“Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men” (Colossians 3:23)

There are some verses in the Bible that we can admire because we take them rather lightly but when we look more closely at them we might wish they were not in the Bible at all. It is the other ‘bookend’ of another such verse: “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (v 17).

We may have no problem giving a hearty “Amen” to these two verses but the heartiness may diminish when we look at what is between the ‘bookends.’

The context of these verses are our relationships with other people with special highlighting on the more intimate and built on love – the same kind of love that God has for us (vv 14-16). They presuppose that the love of God flows out of us through Christ in us (1:27c).

As he does in Ephesians Paul first mentions the marital relationship. Our thoughts, words and deeds within the marital relationship are our service to Christ and a witness of Christ’s gracious working power.  For both husband and wife that means living together as God planned.

Apart from having “Christ in you” there is also another prerequisite for this to be possible: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom” (v 16). It is up to us to discover what the Bible teaches about how we live in a marriage. Paul goes on to say how we can know what the Bible teaches on this and any subject, “teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

It is all very well to leave it up to the preacher but that is not what Paul or Jesus had in mind.

The other relationships are children to parents, fathers to children and, dare we acknowledge it, our work place. Can you believe that Paul says that all our thoughts, words and deeds at work at school or in the home are our service and witness to the Lord Jesus Christ? No wonder some don’t want to acknowledge to work mates (or school mates) that they are Christians!

Paul writes that our work is our service, our parenting is our service and our marital relationship is our service for Jesus.

The more we meditate on this passage and those like it the more we realise that it is infinitely beyond us to conform to it in practice. When we realise that fact we finally know the truth: We cannot live it, only Jesus Christ in us can live it. Let us stop getting in the way and let Him do so.

Constrained by Christ

“I also withheld you from sinning against Me” Genesis 20:6

As a youngster growing up and in my teens there were many temptations to sin, not that I recognised them as such at the time. There were things that others were doing that I wanted to do as well but there often seemed to be a limit as to how far I could go. It was more than just conscience. There were physical barriers such as opportunity, interruptions or distractions at key moments. There was also the risk of being caught doing what I knew to be wrong and in other cases the matter was simply not as enjoyable as I thought it would be. That is not to say that I did not indulge in sin. There is not one of the Ten Commandments that I did not disregard at some time if we use Jesus’ application of the commandments that He gives in the Sermon on the Mount.

Even so, as I look back on my life I am well aware that there was a hand limiting my indulgence in sin. At the time it caused me frustration and even anger but now as I read this verse I am so very grateful to God for the merciful and gracious resistance He gave to my lustful self-seeking passions. No doubt His resistance also flowed from praying parents but in this passage we find that it appears that no earthly person was praying for Abimelech. God took the initiative by making Abimelech, his wife and all his servants impotent. Then he spoke to Abimelech in a dream explaining the reason and the solution.

Perhaps as you are reading this article the Holy Spirit is bringing to mind occasions when He put something in the way so that you did not venture down a particular path of sin. As I look back I now wish that He had done so much more. Perhaps part of the answer as to why God has not always kept us from sin can be found in this account of Abimelech.

He was told to restore Sarah to Abraham but he was not forced to do so. However, the way he chose to respond would have a consequence. If he did not restore Sarah to Abraham he and his entire house would die. God had a plan for Sarah and Abraham and He would not be thwarted. If Abimelech did restore Sarah, Abraham would pray for him and he and his entire house would be healed.

We suffer consequences when we disregard God’s word or do not obey Him. God will perform His will with or without our cooperation – but it will be far better for us to join with Him and do as He asks. When we do, there will be a better outcome for our children, grandchildren and others we love.

Let us give a little time each day to thank God for the times He kept us from unwitting and witting sin.
Let us praise Him for His kindness and great grace toward us even before we believed.
Let us humble ourselves before Him and magnify the name of Jesus – because it is only by His shed blood that He is able to forgive and cleanse us, and still remain just.