A Message For Mothers… And Others!
They gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will.
2 Corinthians 8:5 NIV
Living creatively for Christ in the home is the acid test for any Christian man or woman. It is far easier to live an excellent life among our friends when we are putting our best foot forward and are conscious of public opinion, than it is to live for Christ in our home. Our own family circle knows whether Christ lives in and through us.
If I am a true Christian, I will not give way at home to bad temper, impatience, faultfinding, sarcasm, unkindness, suspicion, selfishness, or laziness. Instead, I will reveal through my daily life the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, long suffering, and all the other Christian virtues which round out a Christ-like personality.
Only God Himself fully appreciates the influence of a Christian mother in the molding of character in her children. The Bible relates the stories of some women who had an evil influence on their children. Some of the greatest criminals of history have had bad mothers.
On the other hand, most of the noble characters and fine leaders of history have had good, God-fearing mothers.
We are told that George Washington’s mother was pious, and that Sir Walter Scott’s mother was a lover of poetry and music. But Nero’s mother was a murderess, and the dissolute Lord Byron’s mother was a proud and violent woman.
Lord Shaftesbury was correct in his famous utterance, “Give me a generation of Christian mothers, and I will undertake to change the whole face of society in twelve months.”
If we had more Christian mothers, we would have less delinquency, less immorality, less ungodliness, and fewer broken homes. Every mother owes it to her children to accept Christ as her personal Savior, so that she may be the influence for good in the lives of those whom Christ has graciously given to her.
Our Father and our God, thank You for my own mother. I pray Your richest blessings on her. I pray that You will find her holy and righteous on the day Christ returns to take us home. Help me to be gentle and kind to her. And help me to be the kind of person she can respect and point to with pride. In Christ. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).