The Characteristics Of A Godly Mother

Dr. Stanley details the many facets of a godly mother as well as describes the lasting impact she can have on her family. Learn how to live the kind of life you’d want for your children. For more messages from Charles Stanley, including this week’s broadcast

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Next on in touch, the characteristics of a Godly mother.
Well, there are lots of mothers in the Bible, some of them good, some of them not too good.
And when we think about mothers and how important they are to all of our society, each one of us has had one and whether you like it or not, you have a mother, you may have loved her or maybe you didn’t love her, but you have a mother and they’re precious in God’s eyes.
So with that in mind, I want you to turn to second Timothy and I want you to turn to the first chapter if you will.
And if you look at the first verse of this second to Timothy, and uh notice what he says to him here, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God according to the promise of life in Christ, Jesus to Timothy, my beloved son, grace, mercy and peace from God, the father and Jesus, our Lord, I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience, the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers, night and day longing to see you, even as I recall your tears so that I may be filled with joy for, I am mindful of the sincere faith within you which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice.
And I’m sure that it is in you as well.
For this reason because of this relationship, I remind you the kindle of fresh, the gift of God, which is in you through the laying out of my hands.
But God has not given you a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline and Paul writing to Timothy because he was probably a little discouraged with the work in the church there.
So in thinking about the scripture and thinking about what are the characteristics of a Godly mother?
Anyway, what does a Godly mother look like?
We could talk about a beautiful mother, rich mother, youthful mother, all kind of mothers.
But what about a Godly mother? Does that mean she’s perfect? No, it does not.
But that does mean she has a quality about her that separates her from most a Godly mother.
That is a Godly mother is a mother who prays and reads the word of God, not necessarily every day, but it’s the habit of her life.
It’s the habit of her life because she accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior.
She believes the word of God and she knows that the instructions in the word of God will help her to be a better wife and a better mother.
When the Children come along, not only that, it’s going to affect everything about her, it’s gonna affect the way she dresses the way she handles herself the way she works, the kind of wife she is and the kind of mother she’ll be.
So that’s God’s goal for every mother to be Godly, not perfect but righteous.
That is her conduct her character, her conversation and in keeping with the word of God doesn’t mean she’ll be like anybody else, look like anybody else or do anything, somebody else does.
But she’s a Godly woman and her life is rooted in the word of God and in prayer, that’s the reason she does such a good job of raising her Children because they’re reflections of her.
Secondly, uh I think about this kind of mother, she’s a mother who has learned to trust God for every need in her life.
Because reading and thinking and praying and meditating from the word of God, she’s recognized.
God’s made some promises. He’s made a lot of promises in the word of God for meeting needs, that isn’t just the physical needs and material needs, but emotional needs.
And a woman, a mother has emotional needs that we men don’t quite fully understand.
And we’d like to understand better. But God made a woman that way and that’s the way she is.
And so a woman who loves God who’s in the word.
She is trusting God and trusting God for every need. And she, she doesn’t talk about being poor.
She doesn’t talk about having less than she talks about God’s sufficiency for her life.
I never heard my mother talk about being poor. Now, we were poor but she never said it.
She never mentioned that she didn’t think about poverty. She thanked God for the $9.10 a week.
She made in a textual meal. Never spoke about being poor or less than never compared herself with somebody else.
That wasn’t her attitude. She trusted God a third quality I think of a Godly mother is that she’s generous toward others.
And that’s the way my mom was very generous. I can remember when we had almost nothing.
We always gave somebody something. When you left our house, she gave you something that was her heart.
A generous heart is not selfish.
A generous heart is thinking about others because sometimes the only thing you have to give the person who’s visiting you is a word of encouragement and think about how powerful that is.
Sometimes a word of encouragement is far more powerful than money or some position in life.
But there’s something about your character, something about who you are.
Something about your spirit, something about the way you carry yourself.
That is a godly mother is one who is generous toward others and knows what generosity is about and knows when they compliment somebody, they’re complimenting them in a way that does something for them.
She’s, she’s building them up. Everybody needs to be built up. Nobody wants to be torn down.
And not only that, if a mother can, she’s going, she’s going to be generous to her Children and told her husband and told other people, I can remember some time when uh young Children would come to the door, knock on the door back back during the depression days.
And they’d ask if we had an extra bread, we might not have had any extra.
But my mom was gonna give him a piece whether we had any or not. That’s just who she was.
She was a generous woman. And generosity is a godly quality.
Not what can I do for me, myself and I and my family.
But what can I do for others? That’s a Christ like spirit. Generosity is good for everybody.
Think about it. It’s good for you to give of yourself.
It’s good for the other person who has needs, but we don’t think about being generous.
That’s a very important quality of a Godly woman. Then of course, a Godly woman is going to obey God.
She’s going to obey God for several reasons.
One of which she knows that obeying God is profitable for her.
It is not only profitable for her, it is very profitable for her Children and it’s profitable for her husband.
And so when we think about obeying God, you’ve heard me say it over and over and over again.
Obey God. Leave all the consequences to him. That’s the bottom line of life.
That’s the bottom line. What, what do you, what do you say beyond that?
Obey God who is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent has all power, love, trust. He can provide everything. Obey God.
Leave all the consequences to Him. Watch that if you leave the consequences to Him, you don’t worry about it.
A Godly woman is gonna have a spirit of obedience to God, which she will not worry about a lot of things, but she will be a Godly person reflecting the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And then I think you could say that one of the qualities of a Godly mother is that she’s forgiving.
Forgiving is absolutely essential.
Not only does the Bible teach us to be forgiving, but think about this people who are on watch this people who are unforgiving are living in stress, living in tension no matter what else they do.
That looks right, feels right. Whatever it is, an unforgiving spirit is a spirit of tension and stress.
Now somebody will say, well, you don’t know who I’m living with.
Well, I don’t know who you’re living with, but I know also that God who lives within you, if you’re a follower of Jesus.
He has given you the capacity to forgive anybody.
But the whole issue of forgiveness is a vital part of a family spirit being able to forgive because all of us have thought their parents were not forgiving or thought they mistreated us in some way.
Well, I didn’t deserve that. I didn’t deserve this. The truth is we probably all deserved more than we got.
But forgiveness is that forgiveness is the spirit of a follower of Jesus.
Look what he forgave us from so be you kind one to another, tenderhearted forgiving one another, which is the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ or what he’ll do.
So in your household is the spirit of forgiveness there because there’s listen, there’s always going to be tensions about certain things in life.
And so you won’t let your son drive this car or that one or your wife didn’t get this or that and so forth.
And so tension builds up. If you can’t forgive, you’re living in stress, it doesn’t make any difference who you are, what you have and how much if you are not forgiving, you’re living with stress, stress goes to the mind, it gets to the heart, you don’t need it.
God doesn’t want you to have it. So forgiveness is the key to eliminating that in your life.
And then I think about the whole attitude of persistence, persistence means I know what I should do and I do it I don’t wait for somebody else to do it.
I get it done. And I think that’s the key that often times people forget in life.
The people who accomplish things in life are persistent.
That is if this is the goal, this is what I’m gonna do and I’m gonna do it till I get it done.
I don’t walk away. I don’t stop talking. I don’t stop loving. I don’t stop embracing it.
I don’t, I don’t stop because things are not going my way.
Persistent means God has given us a life shown us what to do. Going through a tough time.
I don’t quit and I don’t give up.
And I think that was one thing that was very difficult to me to have somebody give up when you, when you have given your best.
And for some reason, they either don’t appreciate it or whatever it might be.
And I think about at times when I’d have to get on my knees and ask God Lord, don’t let me be discouraged no matter what I say, no matter what I feel, don’t let me be discouraged.
Let me keep moving, keep doing it.
And you’d have to be in my position going through those difficult times and that to stand up in front of everybody every Sunday and preach the gospel.
And I remember how I had to be very, very sure my heart was clean, pure and forgiving without any doubt.
And so got to work through all that. But you, but you have to, you have to keep going.
For example, a mother with a young child.
How many times do you get up in the middle of the night to take care of that child?
God has planted within a mother, this awesome sense of deliberate and willingness to do whatever needs to be done for her Children.
And I think husbands, fathers certainly need to appreciate that in any Godly mother persistent you, she can be counted on no matter what happens.
And then of course, Jesus was a servant.
He teaches through his word that you are not to be servants.
That is we are to have a servant spirit that is we’re not living for ourselves, but for others.
And I think of all the people who need a servant spirit in order to be happy is a mother because what does she do?
She serves everybody every day, all of her life she’s giving of herself.
Well, the next time you get tired and say I’m just fed up with this.
Remember that Jesus was a servant. He served those he worked with.
And the truth is service is an outpouring of yourself when you’re giving yourself away to someone else for some need in their life.
That’s what you’re doing, you’re giving of yourself. And a servant spirit is a godly spirit.
And not only that a servant spirit gets a long ways further in life than a person who’s selfish, whether it’s on your job among your friends or whatever, it might be a servant.
Spirit doesn’t ask the question. Well, how does that suit my schedule? How do I feel? What’s coming to me?
What am I gonna get for all this? No, a servant spirit is. What can I do for you?
How can I help him? How can I help her?
You serve the living God by serving your family and a servant. Spirit is a Godly spirit.
So we think about Godliness, that’s what we’re talking about.
Then I would say to live an orderly life, an orderly life is an organized life that is things fall in the sequence.
And you think about little Children who have to get up and go to school and they’re just six years old or seven years old, you have a schedule you have to live by.
If you’re not orderly, listen, where there is no orderliness, there is confusion, frustration, anxiety, tension, stress, and arguments because that’s what it boils down to an ordinary life is an organized life.
She knows what she’s gonna do, how she’s gonna get it done, how long it’s gonna take.
And she goes about getting it done.
And if you don’t think about this, whoever you are and what kind of parents you are, your Children are going to exhibit some, if not many, many, many of your attitudes and your habits.
That’s just the way life is.
And so the parent cannot neglect their Children and say, well, you know, you’ll, you’ll be ok.
No, there are restrictions and there are attitudes and there are habits that need to be built into every single one of us then to be an encourager when I think of all the qualities that need to be true of a parent of a mother and an encourager.
And if you think about this when the child is born and that mother huddles that child up to her breast, you know what she’s doing.
She’s starting out encouraging that child because that child senses something from that mother from the time he or she was born.
And then as that child grows that encouraging word. Yes, you can. I know you can. I love you.
You’re the sweetest one. You, you on and on. She goes encouraging that child do your best.
Be your best no matter what. Don’t quit, don’t give up and, but encourage you.
And I can think about the times when I was a kid and I’d come home and my grades weren’t the best in the world.
I just wasn’t that smart. And um my mother would always ask me this.
She wouldn’t get on my case and say, why didn’t you do better?
And this, that and the other she’d say, did you do your best? I said, yes, ma’am.
That’s all that matters. If I got a bad grade, she will know one thing if I did my best.
She was happy. Always a word of encouragement. Never a word to discourage me.
And there is something about being an encourager and I think of times when I would get discouraged for different reasons, but she always had a good word and every single mother needs to be an encourager.
You say, well, you don’t know my kids. I know this.
I know the power of encouragement or my husband doesn’t appreciate me under the power of encouragement.
There’s something about encouraging what it does. It sends a message. Yes, you can. Yes, you will.
I’m trusting you. I’m believing in you. I’m helping you. You can count on me.
There’s something about that that absolutely changed the whole atmosphere you’re in.
Then I mention one last thing and that is probably one of the most difficult things is to love unconditionally.
That unconditional part puts it in a whole different category.
I had a stepfather for a number of years.
There wasn’t anything about him that I loved or liked.
I wanted to have him around, but he was there and I had to learn what it meant to love somebody that I didn’t like.
And my mother taught me that by her own actions, she taught me to love and forgive when I didn’t even want to be forgiving.
I didn’t even want to be loving. I wanted to have nothing to do with it.
But that wasn’t the way life was. And finally, I think Lord, how do I deal with this?
Well, one thing I, my mother always did when I left home or when she, if she had to leave before I left, she, she would do the same thing.
She always hugged me and told me she says my mom loves you. She always like me.
I can still feel it. She’s been gone a long time, but I can still feel that hug and her telling me, right, my mom loves you.
There’s something about a hug when somebody says, well, well, um I love you. See you.
If your husband, if you guys, if you tell your wife in the morning, well, I’ll see.
See you and never hug her, never touch her, never express love to her shame on you.
Every woman needs a touch, the right kind of touch, a godly touch, a touch that says I’m thinking about you.
I love you. I appreciate you. I’m gonna be looking forward to see you when I get back.
That isn’t anything that a man can’t give if he loves the mother of his Children and loves the wire.
And I believe those 10 qualities will make any woman a fantastic wife and a fantastic mother.
Well, thank you moms. But being the mom, you are the wife, you are the mother you are and that you’re kind to increase.
There’s something awesomely powerful about a godly woman, a godly mother.
Amen to