(5/5-7/16)
MOTHER'S DAY (4 posts)
#1 MEANINGFUL MOTHERS DAY
A meaningful Mother's Day is not sentiment and gifts one day a year surrounded by weeks or months of selfish, arrogant, callous, thoughtless words and actions. A meaningful Mother's Day is a life lived in love, unity and gratitude for the one who spent her life in sacrificial love for her children.
#2 BEST MOTHER'S DAY GIFT
The best Mother's Day gift a person can give his/her mom is a life surrendered to the Lordship of Christ. Trusting and serving Christ honors our mothers. Honoring our parent is not a secret, personal feeling, it is observable attitude and behavior. Remember, we cannot have a right relationship with the Father in heaven if we don't honor our parents.
#3 ANOTHER MOTHER'S DAY?
Mother's Day (and other special occasion times) can be a time of great stress, sorrow, emptiness for the person who has suffered the death of a loved one. But there is more than one kind of death.
There is the obvious physical death of the loved one. Even in physical death there are the two states of being, either saved or lost. The death of the unsaved is irreversible, but still, the death of a saved loved one leaves an empty place at the table, until the final family reunion.
There is the death of a relationship. The loved one is still present in this world, but they are absent from the community of love because of their own ego, resentments, values, anger. They may either be absent geographically or absent in loving interaction, but they are not part of a loving family picture.
Nothing can be done about the ones who have finished their earthly sojourn. Their eternal destiny is settled. We can't bring them back. We can prepare ourselves to be with God forever, by trusting and following Jesus.
Now is the time to make right choices and live a life that is pleasing to God.
Now is the time to build loving and lasting relationships.
Now is the time to mend broken relationships.
Too much time has already been wasted.
Don't lose another day, because that lost day leads to losing an eternity.
#4 For a Mother's Day message, the obvious approach is 1) to encourage the mother to live in the Spirit and follow Christian principles of being a wife and mother, and 2) to challenge the husband and the children to honor the mother in a way that is pleasing to God.
Sometimes I focus more heavily on one facet than they other, but I usually put a greater emphasis these days on trying to direct and shape the children in being the loving, obedient sons and daughters they should be. I drive home the need to obey mom the first time, every time and to render to her the honor and dignity due to her. This not only helps the children learn submission, trust, humility and sensitivity, it prepares them in becoming the adult, spouse and parent they should become as they get older.
I believe in the miracle power of God to reach and to transform an adult from a self centered, self serving sinner into an humble, loving servant minded believer. However, it is easier and more likely to form the twig as it grows than it is to untwist and to perfect a crooked, gnarled old branch. Sadly today, most people are resistant to the guidance of a preacher and the authority of the Bible. Though God can, and will, give a new beginning to the truly repentant believer, there are fewer obedient and humble followers of Christ.
