The Greatest of These.....

image taken from oneyearbibleblog.com

The small group of 8 women I lead has just started our 3rd book together:  Parenting with Purpose and Grace.  It's a more in-depth look, scripturally, of our most important role we will ever play in this life on earth:  Parent.

Our small group is specifically for moms who have tweens (ages 9-12) and teens (13-19).  We are also including the college aged young adult (emerging adult).

The reason I am posting this on my blog is for the moms who miss a meeting......any other blogging buddies are welcome to linger here and add comments!

This post is a summary of what we learned/discussed last Thursday during our meeting.  There were 6 of us and we discussed chapter 1 which centered around the topic of "Loving Our Children".

The foundation for our study, for the next 10 weeks, is found in Mark 12: 28-34.  We read this portion of scripture and discussed #1.  Basically, we know when we are loved when our "love language" (all the women are familiar with this) is met.  It is important to meet our teenager's love language each day.

The Scriptures that Jesus was quoting in this section of Mark is first found in Deuteronomy 6: 4 & 5.

The greatest commandments, given to us by God are:

• Love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
• Love our neighbor as ourselves.

We discussed the importance of these 2 commands and how if we all could see this as our whole purpose for being here on earth, how much more smoothly our lives would run.....and our parenting role would be so much easier as well.  We need to see our children as our neighbors...and we are to teach these 2 greatest commandments to our children.  

We talked a bit about HOW to do this after we discussed the various distinctions between heart, soul, mind and strength:

• heart = our emotions, will, and deepest feelings
• soul = our very essence...our being....US!
• mind = how we think and perceive
• strength = power...(all that is within us!)

We then discussed some findings I read in Parenting magazine (the article was written by a Christian mom) on I Corinthians 13 where we are told that LOVE is the greatest of 3 qualities:  faith, hope, love.

I shared with the group that we, as Christian moms, are to model each of these characteristics to our children so they can learn them too: (and how to do this/we discussed various things we do in our own families to model these).  I shared what the author had written regarding what each characteristic gives us:

faith:

• it gives our children a strong sense of security (in God, through prayer)
• it gives a strong sense of ethics (morals/beliefs)
• a sense of tradition and community(weddings, funerals, baptism, communion, etc.)
• an increased self-worth....that they are uniquely loved

hope:

• we need to model trust and goodness....just like Jesus is Trust and Good
• we need to be available! (to talk, listen, etc) so our children have that sense of hope in God....pray together, etc.
• recognize God in nature (so important for those of us with children in public schools)...and we need to discuss it!
• we need to TEACH PRAYER....by showing, doing
• attend church/read the Bible together
• show compassion to others which will in turn give our children hope and they can then model the hope of God to others

love:

• discussed how it is first a commitment....then a commandment!
• God LOVED US FIRST...we respond to His love!
• our children don't have to be commanded to love us...they just do...it's a natural consequence for them (in most cases).
• we give away what we've been given...through our testimony as parents/children and through our spiritual testimony
• We pass on love...our children are most likely to pass it on....and....

The greatest thing we can do for our children is to model our entire purpose here on earth:  to LOVE THE LORD OUR GOD WITH ALL OUR HEART, SOUL, MIND, AND STRENGTH...and TO LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS AS OURSELVES.

We discussed question 8 (how does your love for God affect your relationships with others, especially your kids?) by summarizing that it's easier to love someone, even when wrongs/hurts prevail, when we have a deep-rooted love for the Lord and the knowledge/assurance that He loves us....we can see other people, our children included, through the eyes of God.....

This was followed by #9 where we all agreed that love is the absolute most important ingredient in our relationships...more than our spiritual giftings..and that it doesn't fail!

Our purpose as moms?? 




 To live out the 2 greatest commandments.......