Happy Mother’s Day: Five Stories of Character
Posted May 11, 2009 – 10:44 am in: MessagesSolid character is difficult to find today. People seem to be more concerned with developing their career skill-set than personal moral qualities. While the gospel is emphatically not about making bad people morally good, morality is a significant consequence of new birth.
On this Mother’s Day, we looked at five different women in scripture, studying the qualities that made them examples for us. We had some technical difficulties with the recording equipment, so a written summary will have to suffice this week.
- Eve – Repentance. Repentance is the foundation of any believer’s character. It is the two-part act of stopping what you’re doing and doing something else. While Eve is not someone we typically associate with repentance, her words in Genesis 4:1 and 25 show that she stopped rebelling and returned to God’s original plan (Genesis 1:28) for her and Adam. She even gave God credit for the birth of her children.
- Hannah – Endurance. Read about her story in 1 Samuel 1. Hannah was childless and had to put up with adversity from all sides: she would have naturally assumed that her barrenness was a curse from God, her rival wife continually goaded her, her husband said stupid things (v. 8!), even her priest thought her anguished prayers were a symptom of drunkenness. She persevered through all the adversity to be answered by God.
- Deborah & Jael – Strength. Read this R-rated shocker in Judges 4. Here are two women of strength. Deborah had the empowerment of the Spirit of God to fulfill a role that was typically male-dominated. She was able to command 10,000 people and defeat armies while sassing their commander (v. 9!). Jael . . . well you can read about her strength for yourself (“Joan was quizzical . . .”).
- Rahab – Integrity. Integrity is not a quality you typically associate with a prostitute, but that’s precisely the sort of thing you would expect in scripture. In Joshua 2:1-6, we see her rescuing the spies of Israel from certain death. Her family was saved because of her actions. Integrity is the quality that exists when your faith and actions serve the same end. It’s significant that the author of Hebrews uses Rahab as an example of faith (11:31), while James uses her as an example of works (2:25).
- Mary Magdalene – Passion. We don’t know much about this Mary. We know that Jesus rescued her from seven demons. Beyond that, we have this scene at the tomb: John 20:1-2, 10-18. It’s obvious that Mary is a passionate woman. She was the first person at the tomb, she ran to Peter to grieve, she stayed at the tomb to cry when the others left, she offered to move a three-day old dead body back to its rightful spot, and she grabbed Jesus to and held on until he told her to let go.
These character-traits are desirable in both women and men. Let’s allow the same Spirit of God that rested on these women to continue to form our character.
Tags: character, endurance, Integrity, passion, repentance, strength, women