February 9

"The child Jesus did not receive instruction in the synagogue schools. His mother was His first human teacher. From her lips and from the scrolls of the prophets, He learned of heavenly things. The very words which He Himself had spoken to Moses for Israel He was now taught at His mother's knee. As He advanced from childhood to youth, He did not seek the schools of the rabbis. He needed not the education to be obtained from such sources; for God was His instructor"

                   Desire of Ages, page 70 from the chapter, 'As a child'

     How important are Mothers! The photograph of the lady to the left was one taken of my Mum many years before I was born.

     I have long since realised that a church without women’s ministry is lacking a vital tool in it’s ‘armoury’. No, I’m not about to advocate women’s lib, but I rather suggest that if we want strongly spiritually supported mothers for our ministers in the making (our children) we need our mothers to be supported by other women.

      At some stage our children will need more than their mothers as their mentors. They need instructors who themselves have God as their instructor that the children may learn at the feet of people who have walked with God.

      What happens next? The next step for Jesus was that he learned directly from God as His instructor and went on to teach us.

      Could I suggest that we should have more in mind than simply creating children who we pray will choose, at an appropriate time to be baptised. Rather, we might begin to think how we can create an environment for our children to choose Godly service as their prime motivation.

      That, of course, brings us back to the ministry of mothers. How can we nurture our mothers?

 

     Housekeeping details for you

     The point of this short blog will become clear if you decide to use this reading in the way we intend it. Netherfield Seventh-day Adventist Church believes in healthy churches. You can see what that means if you head to the relevant Healthy Churches page of the website. We also want other churches to be healthy. That means you can join in our campaign to create healthy churches, with healthy people serving the people in those churches.

     A healthy church is one where Jesus comes first. A healthy church is one where the people work together to put Jesus first. One thing we are doing is to join people together to spread that news. I would like you to look at our prayer partners page. This will explain how we want you to use this short devotional. Very basically we want you to find a like-minded Christian friend who you will join with to : choose to pray together every day, decide together on a way to serve other people together, to help them grow as Christians - and to invite the Holy Spirit into your life every day. This blog that you will receive every day simply gives a common spiritual purpose. If you are a newcomer and want to join the blog with this object in mind click here