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A MOTHER”S HEART
Exodus 20:12
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. (ESV)
Mothers play an irreplaceable role in the process of raising a child. Today, we not only want to recognize that, but we want to reveal where the heart of a mother comes from!
Home is where we feel loved. Home is where we feel accepted. Home is where we feel safe. Home is where we can find rest. Home is where we are clothed, fed, and nurtured. Home is not a location, it’s an environment that’s created by the heart of a mother!
The soul of a mother’s heart is inexplicably compassionate, irrationally generous, remarkably dependable, endlessly patient, unbelievably wise, and eternally loving!
Our Mothers:
– Heal our wounds
– Carry our burdens
– Challenge our insecurities
– Invest in our dreams
– Shape our character
– Defend our freedoms
– Fight for our opportunities
– Solve our problems
– Weep over our defeats
– Celebrate our victories
– Pray for our protection
(When the world is fast asleep)
A mother’s heart? Greeting cards still can’t describe it and Hollywood still can’t depict it!
Someone said – “A mother’s heart is a special place where her children are always at home.”
Someone else said – A child may outgrow a mother’s lap, but they will never outgrow a mother’s heart.”
Abraham Lincoln – “All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”
Unknown – “Life doesn’t come with a manual, but it does come with a mother.”
Mothers have birthed, nurtured, and raised our world, and they should be honored for it!
One of the greatest tragedies in our modern society is the diminished role that mothers are having in the development of our children. Whether it’s the undue weight of single parenting or the stigma from the feminist movement, the role of mothers is being reduced in our country. The greatest right a woman can ever have is the right to be a mother!
The highest calling in the world is a parent training their children to serve the Lord!
*A mother can replace someone else, but no one else can ever replace a mother!*
> God celebrates mothers so much he dedicated an entire chapter of the Bible to them!
> God used a mother named Jochebed to protect her son Moses who delivered Israel!
> God used the faith of Hannah who dedicated her son Samuel for the Lord’s service!
> God used a mom named Deborah to lead an entire nation to faith, valor, and honor!
> God selected Elizabeth to nurture John the Baptist who paved the road for Jesus!
> God chose Eunice to develop Timothy into leading the largest church in the N.T.
> God called a mother named Mary to birth and nurture the Savior of the world!
There’s not a person in history, who hasn’t been touched in some way by a mother!
Story: The medieval German king, and later Roman emperor, Fredrick II, attempted a sadistic scientific experiment in the 13th century, that lead to one of the greatest social discoveries in history. Fredrick wanted to discover what language children would naturally grow up to speak if never spoken to, so he took babies from their mothers and placed them in the care of nurses, with two strict rules. They were to be fed, changed, and bathed, but they were never allowed to be spoken to or touched with any affection. Fredrick’s expedient was cut short tragically. Even though the babies were well fed and physically healthy, they never spoke any language at all, because they all died. In 1248, an Italian historian recorded, “They could not live without petting.” The babies died for want of touch. Astounding! Modern science calls this phenomenon “Failure to thrive”. Although evolutionary scientists still can’t understand why, they have determined that humans flourish under the influence of love, and we gradually die without it!
Why do we need to love so much?
The Bible answers this question in two biblical truths:
1. God is Love! (1 John 4:16)
2. God made mankind in His own image! (Genesis 1:27)
1 John 4:16
16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (ESV)
Human beings were literally created by God to be co-dependent upon his love!
The million-dollar question today is, where does the love of a mother come from?
Genesis 1:26-27
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (ESV)
-The first thing we must see is that mankind is not male, but both male and female!
-The Bible goes on to tell us that both males and females are created from His image.
-The word Image in Hebrew means A model, shape, replica, pattern; a shadow.
-Though males and females aren’t God, we were created to be a reflection of God.
The reason Satan attacks the wombs of women is that their birth image bearers!
The reason this matters so much on Mother’s Day is that we need to understand that men aren’t the only ones who got their traits from God. If both men and women were created in the image of God, then women did too! The love of a mother comes from the heart of our heavenly father. There is a mother’s heart in Father God!!!
The image, character, and heart of God exist equally in both males and females!
God is not biological, He is spirit! He, therefore, transcends the limits of human sexuality.
Although God clearly created two distinct genders, he divided his character into both!
In our search for God’s character, we cannot overlook his handiwork in fashioning a mother’s heart, and how often he ascribes maternal instincts to Himself in Scripture:
Isaiah 49:14-16
14 But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” 15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. 16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. (ESV)
Isaiah 66:13
13 As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. (ESV)
We need to see the image of God, not only in our fathers but also in our mothers!
You don’t believe God is maternal? He gave birth to the universe. He gave birth to our planet. He gave birth to us, and when we fell, he sent his son to re-birth us again!
The most potent attribute of His mother’s heart is God’s lavish forgiveness of our sins. Black sins, washed in red blood, producing robes of white righteousness. Like the mother that deliberately forgets her child’s shortcomings, He casts our sins directionally as far as the east is from the west, until sinking to the floor of the Sea of Forgetfulness.
In the garden, God covered all of Adam & Eve’s nakedness – That’s a Mother’s Heart!
There are 4 different Greek words used for love!
Agape love is an unconditional love that comes from God himself.
Philia love is a lasting love that exists between friends.
Eros love is romantic love between a husband and a wife.
And then there is Storge love, which is a nurturing love from family affection. Storge love, which primarily comes from our mothers, is the kind of love that builds the foundation of our lives. We learn how to love in response to being nurtured and tenderly cared for, from the womb on up!
Paul tells us that this nurturing love is foundational:
Ephesians 3:17-19
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (ESV)
Unfortunately, we don’t all experience perfect Storge love from our mothers or our fathers. Adam and Eve were made in the image of God, but after the fall, when they left the garden, pure love became broken and distorted. This distorted expression of love passed down from generation to generation ever since. And when our roots do not go deeply into pure love, there are negative results in our lives. I truly believe the reason there is so much anger, insecurity, depression, and sexual identity issues in our culture today, is because countless people are missing the foundation of nurturing love!
If we are not rooted and established in pure Storge love, we will search endlessly for it!
When a child is sick, who do they want most? Their mother! Why? Because she wipes their tears, holds them close, and watches over them until they are healthy again!
Until we see God has a mother’s heart, we’ll run to all the wrong places when we’re sick.
Moses once asked God his name and he said – I AM!
(God lacks nothing that we need!)
If you have never had a good mother or father, you can find both from the image they were created in!
Don’t be bitter over what you never had. Come get it from God!
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Email: Prayer@realchurchohio.com