Hi moms, it's Jessica, I'm back with you in the Moms for Christ Podcast. I'm so glad to share with you a word that the Lord has put on my heart from the Gospel of Mark chapter 12 verses 30 and 31. And here the Lord is able to summarize all ten of the commandments in just two simple commands. He says in 30, “‘Love the Lord your God with all of your heart with all of your soul and with all of your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” If we are able to fulfill these two commands that Jesus gives us, we are able to be able to please God and live as His children. You know, as moms who are trying to raise our families up in Christ and build up a Christian household, this verse gives us a blueprint of really how things should be run in our household. God must be put first and we have to be able to allow Him to be elevated over every single other thing that tries to compete in our hearts with the Lord, our God.

"Christ has enabled us to be able to meet the standard of loving God..."

To me, Jesus's words are really refreshing and soothing to my heart because it's not some kind of religious rituals that Christ is requiring from us that we would never be able to meet the standard. Christ has enabled us to be able to meet the standard of loving God because when He died on the cross He sacrificed His very own body so that his Holy Spirit will be able to rise up and live inside of those who receive and put their trust in Him. And when that Holy Spirit of Jesus lives inside each and every one of us, you know, it's the spirit of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ loves God the Father and obeyed Him even to the point of death. And so when we allow the Spirit of our Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, to come inside, we are able to love God, we are able to pray to Him and we're able to bring a song and please God the Father in our actions and as we go about in our household even if it's just doing dishes or, you know, reading to our children or spending time, you know, doing any sort of activity we are able to love God through those things because the Spirit of His son lives inside of us. We are able truly to nurture the relationship instead of going on through ritualistic practices.

"...making sure that we walk around with the mind of Christ"

And so the Lord is really looking to see us commit to our relationship even if that means slowing down on the extracurriculars that our family does. Even if we're not gonna look like ‘super mom’ to the rest of the world, being able to juggle a lot of different after school activities and if we're not going to be able to be ‘Betty Crocker’ in the kitchen and make more simplistic meals; God is looking for us to be able to nurture our prayer life and our relationship with Him by spending the time with Him, by reading the Bible to our children, by meditating on the Word daily, and being able to journal all the things that we have to be thankful for, and making sure that we walk around with the mind of Christ, having a mind that is centered on our God who has done so much for us. And so when the Lord asks us, first and foremost, to love God the Father and that every single requirement of the Bible is really summed up in that simplistic requirement, we know that the challenge really is about relationships and fostering a deeper relationship with God.

"Jesus is the benefit, He is the blessing, He is the son of God and He is the one who gives us life."

If you really think about it, loving someone is being able to have the confidence to be able to say that you did all that you could to bring them into a knowledge of Jesus Christ and that you did all that you could to help them to foster a relationship with Jesus in getting to know Him and to be an example to them. Because Jesus is the benefit, He is the blessing, He is the son of God and He is the one who gives us life and joy and hope in a place and in a world where we are surrounded with violence and there is catastrophes and there's so much that people worry about around the world, but the way that we can love our neighbors, the way that we can love our husband, the way we can love our children best of all is to give them that which brought hope to our own lives and that is the love of Jesus Christ.

"Share the love of Jesus with those around you"

And so today I encourage every single listener out there today to share the love of Jesus with those around you and that is how we love our neighbor by giving them the truth that Jesus has come to rescue us from our situation. That He has come to rescue us from our sinful nature. That He has come so that we would have new life and have it in abundance through His power and Spirit that can live inside of us.

So moms today, let me just bless you and pray for you. Father, I thank you for each and every one of the listeners today. I pray that you would be able to enter into each home and enter into each heart this day so that each mom would be an example in their households. So God, let us learn to love you with all of our heart, with all of our mind, with all of our soul and with all of our strength, and let us love our neighbor as ourselves, building them up to come to know you and giving them and sharing the love of Christ. We thank you, and in Jesus’ name we pray, amen. Thanks for listening today. I can't wait to meet with you again, bye bye.