Feed Your Soul: Mothers Suffering Well {Sanctification, The Responsibility of the Believer, & Suffering}

 

Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes this about the connection:

 

[Being delivered in the sense that our sins are forgiven] is only the beginning, but one aspect of [Christianity]. Essentially salvation means union with Christ, being one with Christ. We have been crucified with Christ – ‘I am crucified with Christ’, says Paul.’ All that has happened to Him has happened to me. I am one with Him.’ Read the fifth and sixth chapters of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. The teaching is that we have died with Christ, have been buried with Christ, have risen with Christ, are seated in the heavenly places in Christ and with Christ. That is the teaching of the Scriptures. ‘Ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God’ (Colossians 3. 3). The old man [former self] has been crucified and all that belonged to Christ, you are risen with Christ. ‘Reckon ye yourselves then to be dead unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Romans 6. 11).[1]

 

Types of Sanctification

We already have positional sanctification: “POSITIONAL sanctification [means] that a person now stands before God as holy and is already complete because our perfect representative Jesus Christ took all our unholiness away through His sacrifice.”[2]

 

We have the great promise of ultimate sanctification: “the child of God will ULTIMATELY be fully sanctified in Christ when he shall see his Lord and shall be ‘like Him’ in His resurrected, glorified body.”[2]

 

Because of the positional sanctification we have in Christ and the ultimate sanctification we will experience through Christ in heaven, we consider ourselves alive to God here on earth. We are alive to His ways, His teachings, and His commandments. Through His grace, we are enabled to live a holy life. Charles Spurgeon wrote: “If He gives you the grace to make you believe, He will give you the grace to live a holy life afterward.”[1]

 

This is our progressive sanctification, and contributing to it is our responsibility in this life:

 

“The believer…is no more perfect than his experience in daily life. There is therefore, a PROGRESSIVE sanctification wherein the Christian is to ‘grow in grace,’ and to ‘be changed’ into the likeness of Christ by the unhindered power of the Spirit.”[2]

 

This sanctification is a joint process between the believer, through his striving, and God, through His power and grace.

…

Read now from the Hope Mommies doctrinal statement:

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE BELIEVER: We believe that all believers should walk by the Spirit in such a manner as not to bring reproach upon their Lord and to be separated from worldly attitudes and conduct. We believe it is the obligation of every believer to witness by life and by word to the truths of Holy Scriptures and to seek to proclaim the Gospel to all the world; that it is the responsibility of all believers to remember the work of the Lord in prayer and to support that work through the local church according to the means by which God has prospered him. We believe every believer has the privilege of being used by the Holy Spirit in order for the Body of Christ to grow in love and be edified. (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8; Romans12:1-2, 14:13; I Cor. 12:4-7, 16:2; II Cor. 5:18-20, 8:1-9, 15; Eph. 4:11-16, 6:18-19; Heb. 10:25)

…

This goal of increasingly becoming more holy and righteous directly correlates to the various forms of suffering in our lives.

 

 

Though much of grief feels uncontrollable, we are blessed to know we can control at least one aspect of our grief. We can control our perspective and take the one that suffering is a stewardship through which we can follow and trust the Lord. We have this holy holy charge from the Lord to suffer in a way that makes Him well pleased. May we all have the joy of continuing to learn to be mothers who suffer well.

 

Mothers Suffering Loss Well

Part of suffering well as Hope Moms is remembering what God has given to our children and letting those truths minister to us.

 

As mothers, we remember that our children have been taken to new eternal life in Christ without any act of their own to save themselves. May they teach us to remember that we too are children before God in our faith and dependence. No act of our own brought our salvation; we bring as many good works to our justification as our children brought – none.

 

Jonathan Edwards said of this disposition of dependence and faith: “The soul of a true Christian, as I then wrote my meditations, appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive the pleasant beams of the sun’s glory; rejoicing as it were in a calm rapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrancy; standing peacefully and lovingly, in the midst of other flowers round about; all in like manner opening their bosoms to drink in the light of the sun. There was no part of creature holiness, that I had so great a sense of its loveliness, as humility, brokenness of heart and poverty of spirit; and there was nothing that I so earnestly longed for. My heart panted after this…that God might be all, that I might become as a little child.”[1]

 

Before God, we are like little children. Needing sun and sustenance from Him daily, we humbly acknowledging our the need for Him in our spirit. We are humble, fragile, and prone to go our own way. But in our poverty, may God be all.

 

Also as mothers, we remember that our children are in heaven, fully and completely satisfied in God. May they teach us to remember that God is also our full and complete satisfaction.

 

John Piper wrote of the Christian’s heart of satisfaction in God: “The inner essence of worship is cherishing Christ as gain – indeed as more gain than all that life can offer – family, career, retirement, fame, food, friends. The essence of worship is experiencing Christ as gain…it is savoring Christ, treasuring Christ, being satisfied with Christ.”[1]

 

He is our satisfaction, over career, fame, friends and yes – even family.

 

When we share as mothers suffering loss the joy and life that our children have right now, and the joy and life that we have in Christ, we proclaim the greatness of our God even in pain. And in this testimony to the gospel through suffering, we can rest assured that He is, indeed, well pleased (Matthew 25:23).

…

[1] Read more quotes on sanctification here: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/100-quotes-from-you-on-sanctification

[2] From the Hope Mommies doctrinal statement:

SANCTIFICATION: The Bible refers to Christians as “saints,” as those who have been set apart unto God. We believe that sanctification is threefold: (1) POSITIONAL sanctification, which means that a person now stands before God as holy and is already complete because our perfect representative Jesus Christ took all our unholiness away through His sacrifice. (3) We believe, also that the child of God will ULTIMATELY be fully sanctified in Christ when he shall see his Lord and shall be “like Him” in his resurrected, glorified body. (John 17:17; Romans 12:2; II Cor. 3:18, 7:1; Eph. 4:24, 5:25-27; Col. 1:22; I Thess. 5:23-24; Heb. 10:10, 14, 12:10)

…

The “Feed Your Soul” blog series takes the bereaved mother through Scriptural doctrines, which are beautiful truths preserved through the ages by God’s sovereignty to be food for her soul as she grieves.