Chrysostom
Beloved of All
Your prayer concerning your mother and your own desire to walk faithfully before the Lord has been received, and I bring it before Yeshua HaMashiach with you.
You speak of the digital realm and other places where deception is common, and you ask how our own language can turn against us. Scripture warns plainly about this. The tongue, though small, can set the course of our life in a wrong direction, and we can be ensnared by our own words. What we say carelessly, in anger, in boasting, or in falsehood, can bring judgment upon ourselves and wound others. This is why discernment is needed. Discernment does not come from trusting our own impressions alone, but from bringing every thought and word under the light of the Word of God, asking the Holy Spirit to guide us, and remaining in fellowship with faithful believers who can counsel us. In a time when many voices compete for attention, we must test all things by Scripture and hold fast to what is good.
You also ask whether it is possible to rightly perceive what happens in our actions, words and surroundings when we are alone. When no one else is watching, God still sees. He searches the heart and knows our thoughts from afar. We often deceive ourselves and do not see our own faults clearly. Yet God has not left us without help. He has given His Word as a lamp, His Spirit to convict and teach, and the practice of honest prayer and self examination. As the disciples continued with one accord in prayer, waiting upon the Lord, so we are called to watchfulness. To be alone before God is not to be without a witness. He is present, and if we ask Him to search us and show us what is true, He will answer according to His mercy and lead us into truth.
You ask what it means to entrust oneself to God as your mother did. To entrust oneself to God is to place your whole life, past, present and future, into His hands through faith in Jesus Christ. It is to believe that salvation is through Him alone, to confess your need of Him, to turn from sin, and to rest upon His promise rather than upon your own strength, wisdom or family tradition. Your mother’s faith is a testimony of God’s grace, but each person must come to that same personal trust. It is not nature or ancestry that makes us children of God, but the Word of God and the work of His Spirit. As water and the Word form new life in baptism, so God forms new life in the heart that believes. To entrust yourself to Him is to say daily, not my will but Yours be done, and to walk in obedience, honoring Him above all.
You ask how you can experience what your mother experienced in Jesus, within your own time, place and family history, without adding to or subtracting from what God has said and done. The way is to hold fast to Scripture as it is given. We are commanded not to add to His words and not to take away from them. That means we do not follow human traditions that set aside God’s commandments, and we do not reshape His teaching to fit the ideas of our age or culture. We receive what is written, we believe it, and we obey it. Your experience of Christ will not be identical in outward form to your mother’s, because God deals with each person and each generation in its own circumstances, yet the substance is the same: repentance toward God, faith in the Lord Jesus, forgiveness of sins, new life by the Spirit, and continuing in prayer and in the fellowship of His people. The same Lord who was faithful to her is faithful to you. Remain in His Word, remain in prayer, remain in the church where the Word is faithfully taught, and He will make His ways known to you.
You ask what God can do to help your mother and your lineage. God can do what no one else can do. He can save, forgive, heal, restore and keep. He can honor the faith of a mother and extend mercy to her children and grandchildren, calling each one to Himself. He hears the prayers of a righteous person for her family. He can break patterns of sin that have passed down through generations, and establish a new pattern of holiness and love. He can guard your mother, give her peace and strength, and complete the good work He began in her. For your whole family line, His desire is that all would come to know Jesus and walk in His truth. He does this not through ancestral merit, but through each heart turning to Christ and being made new.
Let us pray together. Father, in the name of Yeshua HaMashiach, I lift up this dear one and his mother and their whole family before You. You know their time and place, their history and their struggles. Grant them discernment to recognize deception and to speak words that are true and life giving. When they are alone, let them know Your presence and see themselves as You see them, with clarity and mercy. Teach them what it means to entrust themselves wholly to You, to rest upon Christ alone for salvation, and to walk without adding to or taking away from Your Word. Bless the mother who has believed, keep her in Your care, and draw each member of this lineage to Yourself, that they may be regenerated by Your Word and Spirit and continue faithfully in prayer. Lead them in the way everlasting. Amen.
You speak of the digital realm and other places where deception is common, and you ask how our own language can turn against us. Scripture warns plainly about this. The tongue, though small, can set the course of our life in a wrong direction, and we can be ensnared by our own words. What we say carelessly, in anger, in boasting, or in falsehood, can bring judgment upon ourselves and wound others. This is why discernment is needed. Discernment does not come from trusting our own impressions alone, but from bringing every thought and word under the light of the Word of God, asking the Holy Spirit to guide us, and remaining in fellowship with faithful believers who can counsel us. In a time when many voices compete for attention, we must test all things by Scripture and hold fast to what is good.
You also ask whether it is possible to rightly perceive what happens in our actions, words and surroundings when we are alone. When no one else is watching, God still sees. He searches the heart and knows our thoughts from afar. We often deceive ourselves and do not see our own faults clearly. Yet God has not left us without help. He has given His Word as a lamp, His Spirit to convict and teach, and the practice of honest prayer and self examination. As the disciples continued with one accord in prayer, waiting upon the Lord, so we are called to watchfulness. To be alone before God is not to be without a witness. He is present, and if we ask Him to search us and show us what is true, He will answer according to His mercy and lead us into truth.
You ask what it means to entrust oneself to God as your mother did. To entrust oneself to God is to place your whole life, past, present and future, into His hands through faith in Jesus Christ. It is to believe that salvation is through Him alone, to confess your need of Him, to turn from sin, and to rest upon His promise rather than upon your own strength, wisdom or family tradition. Your mother’s faith is a testimony of God’s grace, but each person must come to that same personal trust. It is not nature or ancestry that makes us children of God, but the Word of God and the work of His Spirit. As water and the Word form new life in baptism, so God forms new life in the heart that believes. To entrust yourself to Him is to say daily, not my will but Yours be done, and to walk in obedience, honoring Him above all.
You ask how you can experience what your mother experienced in Jesus, within your own time, place and family history, without adding to or subtracting from what God has said and done. The way is to hold fast to Scripture as it is given. We are commanded not to add to His words and not to take away from them. That means we do not follow human traditions that set aside God’s commandments, and we do not reshape His teaching to fit the ideas of our age or culture. We receive what is written, we believe it, and we obey it. Your experience of Christ will not be identical in outward form to your mother’s, because God deals with each person and each generation in its own circumstances, yet the substance is the same: repentance toward God, faith in the Lord Jesus, forgiveness of sins, new life by the Spirit, and continuing in prayer and in the fellowship of His people. The same Lord who was faithful to her is faithful to you. Remain in His Word, remain in prayer, remain in the church where the Word is faithfully taught, and He will make His ways known to you.
You ask what God can do to help your mother and your lineage. God can do what no one else can do. He can save, forgive, heal, restore and keep. He can honor the faith of a mother and extend mercy to her children and grandchildren, calling each one to Himself. He hears the prayers of a righteous person for her family. He can break patterns of sin that have passed down through generations, and establish a new pattern of holiness and love. He can guard your mother, give her peace and strength, and complete the good work He began in her. For your whole family line, His desire is that all would come to know Jesus and walk in His truth. He does this not through ancestral merit, but through each heart turning to Christ and being made new.
Let us pray together. Father, in the name of Yeshua HaMashiach, I lift up this dear one and his mother and their whole family before You. You know their time and place, their history and their struggles. Grant them discernment to recognize deception and to speak words that are true and life giving. When they are alone, let them know Your presence and see themselves as You see them, with clarity and mercy. Teach them what it means to entrust themselves wholly to You, to rest upon Christ alone for salvation, and to walk without adding to or taking away from Your Word. Bless the mother who has believed, keep her in Your care, and draw each member of this lineage to Yourself, that they may be regenerated by Your Word and Spirit and continue faithfully in prayer. Lead them in the way everlasting. Amen.
