May 12, 2024

The Most Powerful Prayer Warriors - Mother’s Day, 2024

Introduction - Our goal this day is to properly honor the amazing women who bear our children, thus becoming mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers and great-great grandmothers as far as their tenure on the earth allows.  We also honor the older women who have become spiritual mothers to younger women, even though they never married and bore no children.  We don’t want to just applaud your presence with applause, but we want to encourage you and show you how important you are to The Lord and his kingdom.   

In my opinion, mothers are the most powerful prayer warriors in the Kingdom, at least concerning obtaining answers for prayers they pray for their children.  By contrast, husbands and fathers directly minister to wives and mothers in  a powerful way, but probably don’t have the “clout” women do, because men attach themselves to people in a more objective and less emotional way.  Wives and mothers directly attach themselves to their loved ones with a powerful emotional love. As a result, they minister to their children in a very, very powerful way.  Consider Mary, whom God entrusted to bear and raise His only son Jesus.  Mary was entrusted to teach him manners and responsibilities as well as earthly cautions. He had to learn to avoid touching hot cookstoves and petting strange dogs. The Bible says that Jesus learned obedience by the things He suffered, yet He was the son of God!  The role of Joseph, Mary’s husband, was different, by comparison, as was the role of men in other Biblical pictures of a family.  It is doubtful that Joseph ever did any breastfeeding!  As a mother, you have the ability to shape generations of people, with this power.  You can prevent them from stumbling around in darkness, and give them a clear path toward heaven.  There are a number of good examples of this in the Scripture.  Let’s look at an interesting example of a mother using her faith to bring about God’s will for her child, herself, her family, and her nation:

Exodus 2:1-10 About this time, a man and woman from the tribe of Levi got married. 2 The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was a special baby and kept him hidden for three months. 3 But when she could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and pitch. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. 4 The baby’s sister then stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to him. 5 Soon Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river, and her attendants walked along the riverbank. When the princess saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maid to get it for her. 6 When the princess opened it, she saw the baby. The little boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This must be one of the Hebrew children,” she said.7 Then the baby’s sister approached the princess. “Should I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” she asked. 8 “Yes, do!” the princess replied. So the girl went and called the baby’s mother. 9 “Take this baby and nurse him for me,” the princess told the baby’s mother. “I will pay you for your help.” So the woman took her baby home and nursed him. 10 Later, when the boy was older, his mother brought him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her own son. The princess named him Moses, for she explained, “I lifted him out of the water.” NLT

Moses mother, Jochebed (pronounced yo-KEH’-bed) is a great example of the power every mother has to affect the destiny of her children.  The story of Moses birth takes place in Egypt, where the Pharaoh had recently given a command for all people, including midwives, to throw any newborn Hebrew boy into the Nile.  This terrible command, repeated at times in other cultures throughout human history, was designed to reduce the Hebrew population, which had been outgrowing the native Egyptian population.  Jochebed loved her son and kept him alive against Pharaoh’s command for about three months.  Probably because the cries of a growing child were too hard to muffle, she decided to release little Moses to the care of God.  We are not told specifically in this story that she was told what to do by God, but the instruction had to come from Him, based on the wonderful outcome.  She coated a basket with sticky pitch and put Moses in it, and placed him near where the family of Pharaoh bathed in the river.  A short distance off, Moses older sister, Miriam, watched to see what would happen to the boy.  A daughter of Pharaoh came to bathe and found the child, opened his basket and found him crying.  She had pity on him, recognizing him as a Hebrew baby.  Moses sister came over and suggested that she could find a nurse amongst the Hebrews to take care of the child.  Amazingly, The Pharoah’s’ daughter consented.  Miriam went and got Jochebed, and God united mother and son, Moses being now officially protected from being killed by the highest official family of the land.  We are not told anything about the relationship which Pharoah’s daughter had with Moses, but Jochebed essentially got to raise Moses into manhood.  

You can imagine all the praying which had to take place in Jochebed’s heart concerning the welfare of her son  in those uncertain first three months!  If an Egyptian soldier came by and heard the child crying, it would have meant certain death for the boy.  Jochebed did not know it, but God had great plans for her child, as he does for every Christian child today.  In Moses’ case, God would use him to delver his entire nation of Hebrews from years of slavery. He would do amazing miracles through Moses, including the performing of miraculous signs in front of Pharaoh, the parting and crossing of the Red Sea, the annihilation of Pharaoh’s army,  and the miraculous survival of the Hebrews during 40 years of wandering in a waterless desert.  Here’s the Scripture which every mother could claim as the basis for her “clout” with God:

James 5:16 The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. NLT

The Amplified Bible expresses it this way:

James 5:16 The heartfelt and persistent prayer of a righteous man (believer) is able to accomplish much [when put into action and made effective by God--it is dynamic and can have tremendous power]. AMP

Conclusion:  This power is real! It is available for you and your children today.  Notice that these verses say “the prayer of a righteous person.”  God makes being righteous very easy so that as many people as possible can go to heaven and be with Him.  It probably happened to you very early in your life.  The first time you had even a glimmer of faith in God, He saved you (Romans 1:20).  God applies the value of Jesus’ atoning death to your life and removes your sin, whether you understand “the plan of salvation” or not.  Over the remainder of your life, you learn about Jesus by being around his people.  If you want to start living as a Christian, then just start hanging out with God’s people. 

As proof, I can tell you that Jesus went through my family like a gentle hand toppling a row of dominos.  He saved all four of us (me and my three sisters) in a very short time.  Same thing happened to my wife and her four siblings in a very short time.  We found out later that our mothers had been quietly praying for us! This power can be exerted at any time, whether your children are young or old.  The blessing can happen to your family simply due to your prayers, because as a mother you are one of the most powerful prayer warriors on the planet!