This is Mother’s Day. So first I’ll better be very official and say happy Mother’s Day. To all the amazing mothers. I got saved as a 23 year old mother. With all the insecurities and baggage a person could possibly carry.
I felt very inadequate for the task. So I thought I’d practice on Pastor Greg first. Because I got gloriously born again and he wasn’t. So he was my first target. And to be honest my heart couldn’t live.
With the fact that he was going to be an unsaved person and possibly go to hell. If I didn’t do a good job of preaching the gospel and try my best to get him over the line. Amen. Who knows what I’m talking about? You know we’re like that with our children. If one of our children is a walking with the Lord.
There is an saddestable desire inside of us. There is an ache that noone can explain. Amen. As we as mothers get before the throne to intercede. To see our children come through for the Lord.
Amen. So I want to encourage you. I thought today the first thing we do is get right to the bottom of mothering. So I Googled how many nappies does a mother change in the life of a child? Miller, you’re here today. Can you just stand up? Miller Maybe someone else here has more but Miller has nine children.
I mean, do the maths. Nine sevens. Eight boys, we might add. That is a lot of nappies. So, she has changed.
And in my day, when I first got saved and I had three under three, there was no disposable nappies, girls. We had to wash every one of them. But you know what? As an insecure mother, when I got saved, I started crying out to God. Cuz I understood something That I’m representing the kingdom. And that when Greg got saved, I thought mission accomplished.
I’ve got him over the line. I know he’s going to be in glory with me. Now I’ve got the responsibility of three young children. And it’s Mother’s Day so I’ve gotta have you know bragging rights somewhere surely. So my youngest son Ray and his beautiful wife Michelle stand up and just give everybody a wave.
I know. Please. Come on. And my grandchildren. They’re beautiful.
He’s come to hear mom preach. Such a blessing. It’s every mother’s heart that they see their children on Mother’s Day. Amen. So, I was speaking to my daughter a couple of days ago.
I’m going to preach myself horse. I said, Kelly, it’d be really special. I don’t know how you could pull it off but I’d really like you to be in church on Sunday. She said, mom, I’m preaching in our church. How can I do that? So, my daughter and her hubby have the ACC Church in Caloundra and she’s preaching there on Mother’s Day and I think, an amazing blessing to have my daughter preaching and I said, Kelly, do you know what? Wouldn’t it be incredible Ashley? If one Mother’s Day, Ashley, that both grandma, my daughter Kelly, and my granddaughter, Ashley, or Jenna or one of the girls or the boys for that matter or preaching on the same Mother’s Day.
How cool would that be? Do you know, I’m I’ve lived long enough now at 66 to see the answers to that young mother’s prayer. I’ve seen my grandchildren in the spirit with their hand raised on an altar before they were born. See, you can see in the spirit, as a mom, as a dad, this isn’t just for mothers today, I might add. Do you know, I believe in the heart of Jesus. When he looked over Jerusalem, let me read this to you.
I don’t even think I’m going to get to these notes but that doesn’t matter but in Matthew twenty-three, it’s Jesus carried the mother heart of God and you say, what are you talking about? There’s neither male nor female, Greek nor Jew. God is both male and female. I know that might blow some people away but there is this is what Jesus said. Stick to the words. I’m trying to stay focused.
Jesus said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you kill the prophets. What does that mean? Every person that’s come come to talk to you about Jesus. You want to that voice and it says, you stoned those I sent to you. I longed. This is Jesus speaking.
This is the mother heart of Jesus speaking. He says, I long to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you were not willing because you weren’t willing to to listen to Jesus because you weren’t willing to pull him into your home because you weren’t willing to teach his ways to your children. There’s a possibility they’ll go to hell and they’ll live without cry Amen. So, I’m here to encourage you, not just mothers, not just fathers, maybe you don’t have children and you wish you had. Do you know what? We can have spiritual offspring.
I’ve got spiritual offspring everywhere. This is for every person. It is not limited to any male, to any female. It’s it’s only limited by your will to say, God, I know in the early days that I got saved, I would have done anything to please the Lord. I can remember being in a a uniting church that was singing a song about, you know, standing up.
May I stand, oh Lord, in this holy place. May I worship you and adore your face and everybody was sat down and I was learning to walk with the spirit. I didn’t really know how to do that and the Holy Spirit said to me, stand on your feet and praise the Lord and I thought I’m going to feel like a turkey if I do that. Everybody else is sat down but it only takes one to be willing to stand up for God and I stood up with my hands raised in that little uniting church in Shellharbour All those years ago. The Lord said to me and I’ve told this story before.
Many years later, the Lord said to me, because you stood up and worshiped, I’m anointing your children to worship. My children are amazing worshippers. Any sacrifice you’ve made in the spirit. Any step of obedience you take as a person, as a mom, or as a dad. You know, every prayer that you’ve ever prayed for your children.
Every tear that you’ve ever shed. God’s got a special place in heaven for the tears of mothers and fathers and intercessors and he’s saving them all up and one day, we’ll go to glory You know, my own mom, she died on the 22nd of August or be 12 years ago, I think now. I was in Fiji at the time. My dad didn’t want me to go to this conference. He said, you know, your mother’s dying.
She might not even be here when you get back. I took it to prayer and I thought, oh gosh, you know, what a pressure. I’m supposed to be going to Fiji to preach in a conference on mothering and I’ve got my mother dying. What do I do? I prayed and the Lord said, let the dead bury their own dead and I’m thinking, oh, good grief. The Lord really wants me to go, oh my God, my dad said, we’re going to have the funeral without you if she passes away before you come back.
And I thought, oh my goodness. Anyway, I prayed and I really felt, no, I still had to go. I had the chief of education department in Fiji. I had the the chief’s wife. I had the Prime Minister’s wife.
I had the Prime Minister’s wife of the opposition. All these key leaders from across Fiji and I was sharing on mothering. The conference finished on the Thursday and we were all sat under the water having breakfast as a team. Just thanking God for the miracles and the anointing and the healings and the things that had taken place. And I got a phone call from my younger sister.
She said Janet I think mum’s hanging on waiting for you. She said the least you can do is talk to her on the phone. And I thought oh my gosh. I said look who else is there? She said well Dad’s here. David that was my brother who’s also now in glory.
And a lot of the you know the cousins. I said, okay. I said, put the phone on speaker and I spoke directly to my mom and I said, mom, this is such a privilege. I know mom will be up there listening to me and cheering me on this morning but I said, mom, Jesus is going to come and get you and he’s going to take you to glory. His angels are coming right now into the room.
You’ve got nothing to fear. You don’t have to wait for me to come home. I said, there’s no distance in the spirit. Jesus is going to pick you up. And my dad said the presence in this room he has never experienced before as the angels come and gathered my mother and she took a last breath and went to glory.
That was the last thing I said to my mum. Amen. It was just so beautiful. It’s one of those little memories I’ll never forget. The other is a time my mom and dad bought this house and the house was sky blue pink with yellow dots.
It was horrible. Some rooms were some were blue. It was it was so awful. And my dad said don’t worry it’s going to be okay. I’m going to paint it all cream and it’ll look amazing.
And my my mum was just crying. I said mum come down the back and we’ll just have a little talk. I thought what am I going to do? Oh I don’t want to live here. You know sell it straight to someone else. She was chucking what I call a tizzy fit.
Anyway I sat and talked to Mum. I said Mum. I said, you gotta just relax and trust Dad. I said, I really believe you’re going to love the house when it’s all done and she said, she just looked me right in the eyes. Now, I was a twenty-five, 26 year old at the time.
I can never ever remember my mother telling me that she loved me. I can never remember her saying one positive thing to me to be honest. I I adore my mother. Once she got saved, we got very close. But she looked at me and she said, I am so proud of you.
You know, every child wants to hear that? They want to hear it from mom. They want to hear it from dad. Pastor Greg was talking, chatting to somebody and I won’t tell you who because they’re here with us today but they said to Pastor Greg, my dad never once told me he loved me. Now, this is an older gentleman and you think, what is wrong with us that we can’t say that? Jesus tells us from Genesis to Revelations that he loves us. I believe the care factor that the Holy Spirit wants to impart today is incredible.
It changes lives. When I was a young mom, I was on every altar call. I answered every altar call. I went to every conference. I went to as many meetings as I could because I knew what I lacked.
I knew the it is the anointing that the Holy Spirit brings that has broken every yoke of bondage off my life. I was so insecure, so depressed, so incapable of the love that I knew that children were going to need that I had to keep crying out to God. I did every course. I read every book that I could get my hands on. Mums and dads and spiritual parents.
There is more that we can impart to each other. That we can encourage each other with. Everybody wants to feel more loved. Everybody wants to feel more accepted. We have got the most I’ve got to sing some praise for this really great campus.
Amen. That we have the most amazing team. I have never felt so loved and accepted. I feel like I can totally be myself. And I feel like I’m getting more dangerous all the time.
And the anointing from last weekend was just something else. I mean we were in the upper room for that Sunday night meeting and noone wanted to go home. There was incredible things taking place in the hearts of people as they were set free. Yeah. And the anointing was getting a hold of our life.
Because see we’re ambassadors for Christ. You know what an ambassador is? I’m glad you asked. I’ll tell you. I’m so full of it. I feel like I’m dangerous truly.
If I make it to the end of this meeting, it’ll be incredible It’s a 12 two Corinthians 520. Stop it, Ashley. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God was pleading through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf. Number one, be reconciled to God.
So, if you’ve never said yes to Jesus, you’re missing out because he’ll put every broken, damaged part of life back together. Amen. And give you strength to face your future. He says be reconciled to God. He who made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.
That we might become the righteousness of God. And then I looked it up in the dictionary. What is an ambassador? An ambassador is a diplomatic official of the highest rank. Sent by one sovereign or state to another. As its resident representative.
So God’s representative today. You are God’s representative to your family. We represent a kingdom. So, I want to take all the pressure off your parenting. You don’t have to be a perfect parent.
I wasn’t. I certainly wasn’t. I learned how to be a better parent as every year went past. I learned something new. I’m still learning how to take my hands off adult children.
How to mind my own business? And who knows as a grandma, that’s not easy. Amen and if I do write another book, it’s going to be called I wish You Could Smack Adult Children. Amen? Cuz I want to control them but I’m not allowed to do that. So, it’s a whole new season for me of taking my hands off. But as I look back over the years to where my children were younger.
And I’d sit with them. And I’d read the word. And I’d pray and I’d tuck them in every night. And we’d have family devotions. And my children know how important this Bible is.
One of my grandchildren asking. She have it when I die. But this Bible is really important to me. And the most important thing that is I got it and I got it inside my kids. Cuz I knew if I got this word in there I knew if I put a hunger in them to pray that God would do the rest.
I could leave them. When they started having their own devotional life in fact Ray I can still remember the first time that you got the first revelation you ever got from God. He was 9 years old. I sent him off. I said no.
No breakfast. So you’ve gone and had a quiet time. I want you to read a cha read your Bible. I was always buying them devotion books. And I might add that most people spend more on toilet paper than they do on resource.
Amen. I just want to encourage you today. Spend some money on resourcing your children and your family with what they need. Amen? I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything. Back to this story.
And I said to Ray go to to your room read a chapter or you’re reading for the day. And come back and tell mom you know what the Lord is saying. Off he went. You know we’re in Bible College at the time. Addie come what wouldn’t have even been 5 minutes? I thought God that’s not long enough you know.
Anyway I said well what did Jesus say? He said mom I was reading about the three wise men and the stars. And how they the star to Jesus. He said, no, I feel like the Lord is saying to me, he wants me to be one of those stars so that I can lead people to Jesus. Amen? And I think, thank you, Lord. Out of the mouth of babes, praises perfected.
I knew he’d heard from heaven. And I’ve had the joy, you know, of working with some of my grandchildren, teaching them how to have quiet times. You know, we have to teach these things to our children. They’re not going to learn it all by the self, they’re getting enough education from iPad and TV and stupid movies, amen. You know, take those iPads and those phones off them and get the word of God in there.
Have some family devotion. They’re not just going to miraculously be saved. Amen. Thank you. That was a really good spot to do that.
Oh my goodness. Where am I? Deuteronomy six five to 9. This is in the Bible. Amen. Love God.
Love your God. With your whole heart. Not part of it. Your whole heart. Love him with all that’s in you.
Love him with all that you’ve got. Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them. This is in the message Bible which I love. Get them inside of you.
Then them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are. Sitting at home, walking in the streets, talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and your foreheads as a reminder. Inscribe them on the doorpost of your home and on your city gates.
Now I want to slay some sacred cards today. My children never played competition sport they never joined the pony club. They didn’t join the swimming team. Why? Because I wanted them home having a devotional life. On you know, I figured they had enough sport during the week.
At school, they didn’t need to be doing it on weekends as well. Through the week, you know, they’d have to have quick quiet times because it wasn’t a lot of time. You know, we were all pushed to get somewhere. But on Saturday mornings, that was home morning. Where we could spend longer with the Lord.
My daughter wanted to go to pony club on a Sunday because we’d bought her a horse for a 13th birthday. I said sorry Kelly. You know we don’t do birthday parties on Sunday mornings. We don’t go visit Aunt Betty because it’s her eightieth birthday on Sunday mornings. Everybody knew.
Everybody knew if it’s Sunday we’re in church. Amen. The only one Sunday we ever missed church was a Sunday morning we had a heap of assignments that both of us had to get. We thought we won’t go to the morning service. We’ll go to the night us Kelly and and Ray, our youngest, were on a horse up in the backyard and Ray was going up to the dam fishing and he had a fishing rod and the fishing rod flicked into the eye of the horse and the horse bolted.
He went over and over under the horse’s feet and he laid dead on the ground and I can remember Kelly coming screaming back to the house and said, mom, mom, raise dead. Greg raised up there. I was, you know, I was useless to be honest. Him being the man of God that he is. He looked at and he said, you will live in Jesus name.
You’ve gotta call a God on your life and nothing is going to silence it or stop it and as soon as he said that, he breathed again. It’s like, praise God. So, we don’t take Sundays off church, amen? Don’t take a Sunday off church Right now, I want to open the altar for anybody that’s hungry because one thing I know, hunger and a humble attitude to admit that you don’t have all the answers as a mother or a father or a spiritual parent. If you don’t have all the answers, key pastoral team, our care team, our elders, are going to come and they’re going to pray with you and anoint you. I believe in the laying on of hands.
I’ve had hands laid on me. I think year since I first got saved because I want more. An impartation takes place. And the Holy Spirit is here today to impart to you. Maybe you don’t have children.
But you’ve got friends around you. You’ve got people that you work with. People that you go to school with. God says you know the there’s enough people that are instructors in the word. But there’s very few fathers.
There’s very few mothers. There’s very few parents that are willing to stand in the gap and intercede or friends that are going to intercede for your salvation.
