“And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me,
for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry.”
I Timothy 1:12
Paul was speaking here about his
ministry as an apostle of Jesus Christ, but I believe we can apply it to us as
mothers as well. As a mother my “ministry” is my
children. What an awesome responsibility
God has given to me by giving me my children to raise for Him.
God –
- Enabled me
“There hath no temptation taken you but such
as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted
above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape
that you may be able to bear it.” I
Corinthians 10:13
“Being confident of this very thing, that he
which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ;” Philippians 1:6
- Counted me
faithful
- Put me in the
ministry
“Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord:
and the fruit of the womb is his reward.”
Psalm 127:3
Being a mom is an honor and a
privilege that we shouldn’t take lightly.
Now that I have children, what do
I do, what is my (our) main responsibility?
Proverbs
22:6 We are commanded to train them, teach them.
“Train up a child in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
What are we to teach them, you may ask?
Deuteronomy
6:5-9 – We are commanded to teach them to love God.
Matthew
22:37-38 – Jesus Christ said it is the first commandment.
The first commandment is to love
God. You can’t teach your children to love God if you don’t love Him. When I first read these verses I wondered can my
children look at me and say, “My mom loves God”. Oh, how I hope so, but some days my actions don't represent my heart. Our children should be able to
see our love for God played out daily in our lives. We need to look for every opportunity to
share God’s love with them.
When I see a rainbow, I remind them of God's promises. When the birds are singing, I tell them even the birds are singing praises to God. When it rains, I remind them of God's provisions. When we are getting groceries, I remind them that God provided the money to be able to buy them. I want to encourage you today to do the same. Find every opportunity and share God's love with them. They deserve it.
I firmly believe that if we love
God that everything else will fall into place.
Because we love God we will want to serve Him and please Him. The same can be applied to our children.
Being a mom is a full time job,
and it’s not always rewarding, it’s not always glamorous, it’s not always fun,
it’s not always easy, but we must remember I Corinthians 15:58 – your labor is
not in vain in the Lord.
What a blessing – Proverbs 31:28
Today I want to encourage you to
be thankful that God has called you into your ministry, the ministry of having
children and raising them for His glory.
Honor God by teaching them to love Him.
Written by Jen Bauer, missionary mum in the Northern Territory of Australia. She also blogs at Be Thou Exalted and Baptist Missionary Women.
One of our favorite things is helping our kids learn that it is a blessing and joy to be able to spend time in the word. My husband is such a wonderful storyteller and loves to tell them Bible stories before bed and engage them in conversation about God's word (he reads the actual passage from scripture, explains it more on their level, and then they have a good conversation about it. It is so fun!) Though I am not as amazing of a story teller as my husband, I have been inspired to do the same at other times during the day. I also have enjoyed including my oldest daughter in my quiet time routine in the afternoon while the other two are sleeping. That time is always so special to me, and I love teaching her to enjoy it as well and to create a habit of being in the word each day. We've also enjoyed telling stories about believers smuggling Bibles into closed countries (I've told them a lot of stories from God's Smuggler, and some about missionaries in China, etc.) to help them see just how much God's word is a treasure. People risk their lives and endure so much suffering just to have access to the Bible! Those stories have been really interesting and inspiring to our kids, especially to our little boy who is more interested in stories that have danger and suspense! =)
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this! You are so right when you say that our children need to SEE that we love God. I am not even sure that I can say exactly how I teach that, but I do think that my children are getting it. One of my favorite things these days is my four-year-old's response when I tell her that I love her. She usually answers "And I love you and God, too!"
ReplyDeleteThat is so cute, Phyllis!
ReplyDelete