Titus 2: 3-5

3 Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

 

When I first saw this verse in the bible as a young wife I thought it was ridiculous that older women were being told to urge the younger women to love their husbands and children. It was silly to me that anyone would ever have to urge me to love my family, after all, I married the man because I loved him, and I gave birth to these children because I loved them! Why would I ever need to be urged to love them?! Little did I know that love ran a whole lot deeper than what I experienced in the start of my family unit, and I see now that what I thought was love in the beginning doesn’t hold a candle to what I now have with my family 15  years later. Love, the kind that God wants us to experience in Him and with each other, is more than a feeling, it is a daily decision and commitment to one another and for each other’s good- and there are definitely times, when some urging needs to take place and a call for love has to go out, let’s face it- love isn’t always the easy choice. It seems like it goes without saying that mothers love their children, but in today’s society we have a knack for making up our own definitions of what love is and what love looks like. So, today I want to take you through some bible study on the meaning of the word love, specifically, concerning our love for our children.

Love will cause you to lay down your ambitions for the benefit of another. Love will cause you to sacrifice popularity for character just because little eyes are watching. Love will commit to doing the hard things for the greater good and greater still, love will get back up each time after being hurt for the thousandth time and say, “I’m still with you and I forgive you” Love, real love, will not fail. We learn that in our marriages and in raising our children if we are following God’s ways, love, it never fails. It keeps going, keeps believing, keeps on keeping on- but easy? Not a chance, if you are made of flesh and blood like anyone else on earth, then you know that your love will be put to the test… and sometimes, disappointingly so, you see how short your love is compared to the standard seen in scripture. Just reading 1 Corinthians 13, the famous love chapter, can make me hang my head even on my best days! Yet there it is, calling us to a level of love that, if we just think about it for a moment, would be awesome to attain- and our Lord Jesus did- and then gave us the scripture to let us know that we could too!

 1 Corinthians 13

  1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

So there it is- the bible’s standard for love.  When I began to realize that this was how I was supposed to love and experience love, it occurred to me why I might need to be urged once in a while to really love my family. I mean, it is easy to love the little one who holds his hands up to you begging for one more kiss and hug before bedtime. It is not so easy to love the same child who screams his head off in the supermarket because you won’t buy him the balloon he wants, even though he has popped every single one you have ever bought him before you even made it through checkout. It is easy to love the child who does his chores and schoolwork when you request it– not so easy to love the child who, for what seems like the millionth time, conveniently forgets that you have asked him to once again clean up his room. It is easy to love a child whom you trust, but what about the child who has broken trust? It is easy to love the child when they are a good, Christian example like you raised them to be, but what about when they are the bad example and your whole world is reeling as a parent? Yet there it is, plain as day, words on a page screaming at you: Love Never Fails.

 

“Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children”

Learning to really love our children is going to take a whole lot more than emotions and mental assent. If we want to see real fruit as mothers, we must make a commitment to loving our families with the love described in scripture.

 

In this particular verse, to love our children according to the Strong’s concordance means:

 

G5388

 

φιλότεκνος

philoteknos

fil-ot’-ek-nos

From G5384 and G5043; fond of one’s children, that is, maternal: – love their children

 

To get a more specific definition, we need to look at the first root meaning of the word “philoteknos”, which is :

 

 G5384

φίλος

philos

fee’-los

Properly dear, that is, a friend; actively fond, that is, friendly (still as a noun, an associate, neighbor, etc.): – friend

 

So we see, that in this definition, the love that we are to have for our children is characterized by us (mothers) being actively fond of them, by being a friend to them. Interestingly, being a friend is more than just being fond of someone according to Webster:

 

 

1. One who is attached to another by affection; one who entertains for another sentiments of esteem, respect and affection, which lead him to desire his company, and to seek to promote his happiness and prosperity; opposed to foe or enemy.

 

A friend loveth at all times. Prov 17.

 

When we begin to look up definitions in the bible of keywords, we begin to see what God meant when He said those words and had them written for our benefit. i encourage you to stop every now and then when you are reading your bible and do a word study on the verses your are reading, I have often been surprised at the depth of meaning that has been revealed to me just by looking up a few words in my concordance, like with this word: love. The love that we have toward our families should lead them to desire our company because we have thought upon and nourished for them sentiments of esteem, respect and affection, because we have sought to promote their happiness and prosperity. It is a very ‘wordy’ definition, but I believe that there is quite a bit of treasure in those words.

 Do you have someone like that in your life? Someone who always thinks the best of you, who looks for the best in you? Someone who respects you and holds dear affection for you? If you do, then you call them “friend”. If you don’t, doesn’t it sound nice?  Mothers, this is what we can be for our husbands and children!

Too often we fall into the mechanical role of caring for our children and we end up neglecting the relationship with them without even knowing it. We all need a friend and mothers are perfectly equipped to be one, if we will just slow down long enough to take the opportunity. I have witnessed mothers who have ‘friended’ their children, and I can tell you it is a beautiful thing. Rarely do the children go far from their families in whom they have friends. And if they do because of where they are placed in life, mom is only a phone call away and is usually the first one informed of anything of importance happening in the child’s life. The love between them is genuinely shared. What a reward for love!

Today, I want to encourage you to study love in your bible and ask yourself how you can improve in the way you show love to those in your family. How you show love to your husband is a powerful example to your children just as much as how you show love to them. Measure yourself against 1 Corinthians 13 and against the definitions we looked at here. Are you being a friend to your family? What can you change to encourage thoughts of esteem, respect and affection among you and your family members?

If you notice any shortcomings, go to the Lord in prayer, repent and ask Him to help you be the mother He wants you to be.

*This series is all about finding your inner “Mother Roar”- the mother voice that is calling all of us to raise our families for the Lord and to recognize that we are a vital and valuable role in that process. For too long we have simply guessed at what a good mother should be, when what we should be doing is seeking to be godly mothers. By looking into the Word of God, not only will we be seeing exactly what our Lord expects of us, but we will obey and reap a harvest of fruit in our families that we long for.

This week, give your Mother Roar and love those families like never before, you won’t be sorry that you did!

*Next week, we will be discussing what it really means to be a Keeper of the Home!

***Did you miss the Introduction and Part One of the Mother Roar Series? 

Introduction- I am Mother, Hear Me Roar!

Part One- What Does “Mother” Mean?

Ready to move on to Part Three?

Mother Roar Series Part Three: Keeper of the Home, Are You On Guard?