I'm My own Mother???

SCRIPTURE: 2 JOHN 1:1-4 

 “To the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the truth—and not I only, but also all who know the truth - because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:  Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, will be with us in truth and love.  It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us.”  

OBSERVATION:

One of the beautiful metaphors of the Bible is the Church as a family.  John is writing the “chosen lady” (the church) and her children (the individual believers).  What stands out is that the community, the unified believers, together are deemed the mother while those same people on an individual level are her children.

When we are looking at the task of making disciples we see that each person is part of the nurturing, caring, and teaching mother who brings discipleship to her children, and at the same time those same people are the individual children who receives nurture, care, and teaching from her.  This really spotlights our interdependence.  It amplifies how we truly need each other in our journey with God.  We are at the same time dependent and depended upon - caring and being cared for, nurturing and being nurtured, teaching and being taught.

APPLICATION:

What I see here is that while we may mature in relationship with Christ, we never outgrow our place as child and our need for our mother.  We may become more engaged in our role in the church as one who nurtures, cares, and teaches.  We may become more stable in our personal relationship with Christ, but we never outgrow our relationship with Jesus.  I need to make myself available for service and open to be cared for by others.  The second for some reason is harder than the first.  The “for some reason” being pride.  So much so that I had to say “for some reason” than to readily admit my pride.  So the focus God wants me to take today is to lay down pride, walk humbly before him, and call on the church for help when I need it.

PRAYER:

Father, thank you for providing so much in my life through your church.  Your people have provided teaching, care, nurture, provision, direction, correction, among many other wonderful things to my life.  I also thank you for the honor and the privilige of being able to walk with others in that role of teacher/caregiver.  I pray for the community of Crosspointe, that you would help us to collectively make up a healthy mother, who produces healthy children.  In Jesus’ strong name, AMEN!