Mother's Day: A Day To Honor

Today is Mother’s Day. It is the one day each year that we men put aside to honor our mothers and the mothers of our children. And they happen to be the one person we will generally buy a gift for, and we will still anguish over what to buy. If you have not yet purchased a gift for your mother or your wife, let me give you a couple of quick hints on what not to buy.

Do not buy her anything that plugs in. If something needs to be plugged in, she will only see it as a tool. Also, do not get her any exercise equipment or videos, as this will lead to six months of her asking you why you think she needs to exercise in the first place. And I guarantee you that you will never have the right answer.

My suggestion is for you to buy her something that is only for her, and that shows that you are thinking about her happiness. If you follow that rule, then whatever you get her will be appreciated and loved.

Of course, becoming a mother changes things for you, doesn’t it? And, becoming a mother more than once changes things also. When a woman becomes pregnant for the first time, she will start wearing maternity clothes the day the doctor says she is pregnant.

On her second pregnancy, she will wear her normal clothes for as long as she can, and by her third or fourth pregnancy, she will wear anything because she doesn’t have any more money to go out and start buying new maternity clothes.

Mothers are many things to their children, aren’t they? Mothers teach us most of what we know in our early years.

We have all heard the expression that it takes a village to raise a child. Today, more than ever before, babysitters and nurseries are raising our children. The tragedy in that is more and more children are being taught outside the home, and what they are taught is most-often worldly rather than Godly.

Here are some of the things our small children are learning today.

They learn the world’s morality -

‘If it feels right, it is right.’

They learn Humanism -

‘God doesn’t exist and we are fully capable of everything ourselves’

They learn that man descended from apes -

‘My question is; if man descended from apes, why are there still apes?

We live in the society Jeremiah spoke of – a society that “does not know how to blush.” So, with these things in mind, I think it is better for a mother to raise her kids than a village to raise them.

We need Godly mothers and fathers who will stand and say, “I will teach my children to walk in the way of the Lord.” We cannot let the most important thing in our children’s lives be left up to chance, or up to somebody else’s false teachings. We must stand up and be accountable as parents for our children’s spiritual safety.

In PROVERBS 22:6, we are given some clear advice.

‘Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.’We know that being a good mother is helpful to our children as far as their physical well-being goes, but is it really that important to a child to be brought up spiritually sound in Jesus Christ?

In 2 TIMOTHY 1:5, Paul reminds us of Timothy’s parental influence.

‘I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois, and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded, now lives in you also.’

Timothy had sincere faith, and he had that faith because of his grandmother and mother. Surely a mother helps form our spirit, and if she is a Godly mother, she will be the first introduction we have to our Lord.

Mothers are also protectors of their children, no matter how old her children may get. Mrs. Zebedee was the mother of James and John, and like any mother, she wanted only the very best for her sons.

Jesus gave us an illustration in MATTHEW about a landowner, who hired some helpers, and no matter how long they worked for him, they all got paid the same wages. This may have caused Mrs. Zebedee to worry about what kind of reward her sons were going to get in Heaven, so she found a time to ask Jesus about it.

In MATTHEW 20:20-23 we read,

‘Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of Him. “What is it you want?” He asked. She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at Your right and the other at Your left in Your kingdom.”