Advice for the Bride to Be...

What a wonderful day we have had here in Manta!  Over 150 people attended services this morning.  One lady accepted Christ after the service!!  We had over 30 in the Ladies Sunday School Class.  There was a great turn out for Mercedes Shower this afternoon.  What a blessing to see the ladies coming together to be a blessing and encouragement to one another.

Here is the devotion I shared with the Ladies this afternoon.  It is not completely original with me. :-) There are 3 thoughts that I believe will help us to be the wives and mothers that God wants us to be.

1.  Be a woman of the Word.  Make time in the Word of God a priority in your life.  How easy it is to get distracted from that all important time.  The cares of the day come in upon us, and we think, I'll do this in a little while, but the fact is if we don't make it a priority it will get pushed aside and soon forgotten.  We would never expect our family to go through the week and only have 1 meal to sustain them.  Yet how often do Christians think that they can make it through the week, with just a meal or two in the Word of God?

2.  Don't be a constant drip! (Proverbs 27:15)  You know it's easy to let the cares of the day settle over us like a little black cloud, but your husband doesn't need a "drippy rain cloud" for a wife! Instead of being a contentious or quarrelsome wife, we should be like the wise woman of Proverbs 14:1, that builds up our home and family.  The crown of our husband, as Proverbs 12:4 says.   We should use our words to build up and encourage our husbands to be everything that God has created them to be.   We can either be the Proverbs 31 woman, whose husband safely trusts in, or we can be the wife, whose husband runs away to the roof top to escape her, as in Proverbs 21:9.

3.  Glory in Service.   The life of a wife and mother are wrapped up in the mundane tasks of the everyday!  Doing the safe things over and over and over again...There are always dirty clothes to wash, always bathrooms to clean, beds to make, floors to sweep, dishes to wash and meals to cook.  1 Cor. 13:13, says that now abide, faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.  The Biblically based home will consist of all three of these, but the greatest is love.  Love is not to be understood just as a sentiment or emotion, but rather self-sacrificing obedience to the Word of God, with the whole heart.   One of the most important things we can learn to do as a wife and mother, is to learn to serve with our whole hearts in love.  To realize that when we are washing dishes, or doing laundry or cleaning our house, we are serving the Lord, and bringing honor and glory to Him.   Learn to work and serve in love.  Not for your self, but for the love of God and family.   That's what the Christian life is all about...serving in love.   Col. 3:17, reminds us to do everything with our whole heart, serving the Lord!