Can You Help A Broken Heart On Mother’s Day?

One of the saddest statements in all the Bible was spoken to Mary by Simeon when he said in Luke 2:35, “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also.”

Mother’s Day ought to be a happy day. Clearly it is a happy day for florists, greeting card companies, telephone providers, and restaurants. But, Mother’s Day can be a particularly sad and painful day for many. Some people no longer have their mothers. Some people just lost their mom. Some widowers for the first time are trying to figure out how to celebrate this day for the first time in decades without his wife being there. There are mothers today, trying to smile when their heart is just broke because their child is deathly ill, or they just lost a child. I think of the mother of Ambrose Manye, a 28-year-old medical student in Chicago who just disappeared on the 22nd of April. Or, what about the mother of Donnell Phelps, who was just murdered at Fort Valley State University because he was standing up for some older teenage girls who were being harassed and groped outside a restaurant. Or what about the poor mother of the 11-year-old Navajo girl named Ashlynne Mike, who had a stranger lure her into a van before he beat her to death with a crowbar.

Jesus taught in Matthew 5:45 that the sun shines on both the good and evil, and the rain falls on the just and the unjust. And while some events are planned by an Almighty God, Jer. 1:5; Gal. 1:15. There’s a certain randomness within the human experience that authenticates faith. And how is that? Well, if going to worship, and living a Christian life was an automatic exemption from suffering, everyone would be a believer. But, we know that convenient faith for selfish reasons is profitless and a waste of time.  The point is bad things happen to good people, and because of that, Mother’s Day to some is not always a time of joy.

We know all things work together for good to them that love the Lord, Romans 8:28. And Paul is not teaching that everything that happens in life will be good. Nor, is Paul teaching that everything that happens in life is God’s will. But, Paul does teach that there is nothing that happens that is beyond God’s ability to turn it into a spiritual triumph of some kind.

Simon told Mary that bad things would happen to her son, so bad, her heart would be pierced. And indeed at the end of the Gospel, she is standing at her son’s cross, weeping, trying to make sense of what was happening to Him.

I hope today; you have a great Mother’s Day. I hope your day is filled with joy, laughter, fellowship and true worship to God. But, I also, would ask, that you take time out today and weep with those who are weeping, Romans 12:15. Pray for those who are suffering. And if you know someone today who is hurting, and you know good and well Mother’s Day 2016 is tearing them up, please, why not take a few minutes and reach out to them and tell them, “I love you.”

Jesus’ Faith or Mine?

There are plenty of erroneous doctrines in this world today. Satan is doing a great job twisting the minds of humanity with his seducing doctrines, 1 Timothy 4:1.  Another one of those false doctrines is the doctrine that teaches that salvation is based upon the faith of Jesus and not our own.

Now this false doctrine may seem a bit bizarre, or is it that I am simply ignorant of the position. Did or does Jesus have faith? And am I saved based on His faith or mine?

If humanity is saved today because of what Jesus believed, then salvation is universal today, because through the grace of God Jesus tasted death for every man, Hebrews 2:9. However, the Bible makes it clear that saving faith is mine, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” The previous statement shows that saving faith begins with me, it is, “faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ,” Acts 20:21. Faith which Paul declared in Romans 1:12 was “both of you and me.”

When Paul wrote Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:5, he praised the faith that was in Timothy, not the faith that Jesus had, “The unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt fir

st in thy grandmother, Lois, and thy mother Eunice: and I am persuaded that in thee also.” This was not Jesus’ faith that entered Timothy, but “your faith in Christ Jesus,” Colossians 1:4.

This concept can be further explained by looking at the love of Christ. Did Christ love? Did He not love His creation enough to die for us? But, does His love and offering of His love mean everyone is saved? No, it is as Jesus taught in John 14:15, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” It is in keeping the commandments of Christ that we evidence our love toward Him.

To conclude, this “Jesus’ faith, not ours” is false doctrine and very comparable to “grace only, no obedience.” “For by grace are ye saved through faith,” Ephesians 2:8.