Motherhood and the Gospel

 By: Rebekah Hargraves

Photo Courtesy Of: Zach Lucero

"All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind." ~Isaiah 4:6

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." ~1 John 1:9

As we continue chatting together this week about the mommy wars, the second thing I discovered when I began to put the pieces together between the mommy wars and the adverse effect they were having on The Church was the realization of just how much the mommy wars cause us to ignore and sometimes even blaspheme the gospel. 

At first glance, this may seem a little over the top, but I have found it to be true. As we saw yesterday, when we get all caught up in the mommy wars, we get busy comparing other women to our own man-made standards of what godly motherhood or “correct” mothering is. We say someone is a "good" mother because she vaccinates. Or because she does not vaccinate. But, what does God’s Word say?

The gospel, as set forth in the Bible, unequivocally states that we are all, by nature, equally fallen sinners (Is. 64:6, Rom. 3:10-18), but that when we place our faith in Jesus to save us, we are instantly cleansed from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). We are made perfect in God’s eyes (Hebrews 10:14) and have God’s righteousness forevermore fully imputed to our account (Rom. 4:5, Gal. 3, 2 Cor. 5:21). As believers, there is nothing that we can do that would ever cause God to love or accept us more or less. Nothing can make us more or less perfect in His sight or cause Him to remove His righteousness from us. 

Granted, we should follow true biblical teachings on the topic of motherhood and seek to live in godly ways. But being faithful to do so does not make us better than the mother who doesn't. If this is biblically true when we are talking about actual Scriptural commands, then it is for sure true when we’re talking about non-Scriptural, secondary issues. For example, whether or not we co-sleep has nothing to do with how God views us as moms! We do not get a thumbs up from Him if we do co-sleep and a thumbs down if we do not.

Therefore, we should not allow these secondary, non-gospel issues to affect how we view ourselves or our fellow mamas. The best thing we can do for ourselves, as well as for other moms, is keep our eyes on Christ and on the good news of the gospel’s implications for our everyday lives.