What’s A Mother To Do?

We’re going to jump around this Mother’s Day, and we’re going to start in the third chapter of Second Timothy, verses 1-9.

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was. (NKJV)

That’s one heck of a list – and those qualities are all around us today. We may see some of them in our families, and even in our children.

There are those who crave wealth, but wealth and material gain mean nothing, if you don’t have Jesus as Lord over your life – and that means finances too.

Ecclesiastes 5:10 says:

He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; Nor he who loves abundance, with increase. This also is vanity.

Then there are the boasters and the proud. “Look at what I have” or “look at what I bought”.

What does Solomon write about these people?

A proud and haughty man—“Scoffer” is his name;
He acts with arrogant pride. (Proverbs 21:24)

Disobedient to parents, and a few unthankful kids – now this is one that virtually every parent can relate to in one form or another.

How many times have you put yourself out for your kid, only to have that child not even acknowledge the sacrifice you made to help them, let alone be thankful.

I can think of several instances, where one or both parents were at their wits end with their defiant little darling, or even an adult child, and discipline was in order.

Discipline is a tough thing to do with minor children because the government is at the ready to remove them from the home if corporal punishment is used, the Bible is clear. In Proverbs 23:13, Solomon writes, “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.” Similar scripture can be found in Proverbs 22:15 and 29:15.

In other words, if children were disciplined these days, even with a spanking – and I’m not talking abuse here, but a good whooping to establish authority, we wouldn’t have the disrespect of parental authority we see today.

I remember when the words “just you wait until your father gets home” would strike fear in us. There’s no such fear today, because the child merely tells a teacher the next day, and Children’s Services is on your doorstep ready and willing to remove the children from the home. Today’s parents have ceded raising the children to liberal public schools and the government

As for adult children, many feel that “they know better” than Mom and Dad. In many respects, they are the product of the start of what has blossomed into what we have today. Permissiveness begets disrespect.

In some cases, there isn’t a father figure around because of divorce or death of the parent. Mothers tend not to discipline in the way a father might. Of course, in my case, my mother had a saying, “He fears God and he fears his mother.” She took no crap from anyone, especially her kids.

My counsel to parents had to be tailored to the situation, of course. There were teenage and adult children where “tough love” was needed.

There are people in the church today who are in desperate need of “church discipline”. Couples cohabiting instead of making the marriage commitment, premarital sex, homosexuality are all areas in the church where people in the church think they can get away with the sin.

God don’t wink at sin, in fact in. Numbers 32:23, it’s written that “your sin will find you out.” Don’t think you’re getting anything over on God, He sees all – He knows all, and is grieved when we sin.

So, what’s a mother to do when their child is rebellious? She prays – a lot. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says to “ pray without ceasing.” Luke 18:1-8 is the parable of the persistent widow. In this parable, Jesus teaches about persistence – the widow bugged the judge repeatedly until she got justice. We should be praying for our kids with the same fervor and persistence.

We don’t take anything for granted when it comes to the salvation of our kids and grandkids. We pray daily that if they have work to do in this area, that they get saved. We can only take two things to heaven with us: the things we did here on earth to further the Kingdom of God, and our kids and grandkids – if they’re saved.

We also pray that if they need correcting, that God push those buttons, to put them in a place where the only direction they can look is up.

God disciplines those He loves