{"id":10529,"date":"2022-05-07T09:48:13","date_gmt":"2022-05-07T13:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/?p=10529"},"modified":"2023-05-14T07:35:27","modified_gmt":"2023-05-14T11:35:27","slug":"the-sincere-faith-of-my-mothers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2022\/05\/the-sincere-faith-of-my-mothers-2.html","title":{"rendered":"THE SINCERE FAITH OF MY MOTHERS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cI have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also\u201d<\/em> (2 Timothy 1:5 NIV).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The church of my youth had annual revival services. We would often have an evangelist come and share how God had miraculously saved him from a life of sin. He would preach with fiery enthusiasm and through tears about how God had taken a former drunkard, (or addict, thief, murderer, etc.) and saved him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These \u201cDamascus Road\u201d testimonies were amazing to me. I was envious of their certainty and passion. As a boy, I often doubted my salvation because I hadn\u2019t had such an awesome conversion. I had no flash of light, no voice of God. At age eight, I had just decided to give my life to Jesus the way my mother and grandmother had taught me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I grew in my faith, I no longer doubted my salvation, but I still sometimes wished that my testimony was more exciting. Why couldn\u2019t I have a testimony more like the apostle Paul\u2019s?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe that\u2019s what Timothy was feeling when Paul wrote him that second letter. Paul was so fearless and certain when he testified of his faith, but Timothy was a little timid. When he compared himself to his mentor he just didn\u2019t feel like he measured up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul would have none of that. He reminded Timothy of the spiritual legacy that his mother and grandmother had given him. Timothy had been spared the suffering and sorrow of Paul\u2019s many mistakes before coming to Christ. Paul reminded Timothy that the \u201csincere faith\u201d which had \u201clived\u201d in his mother and grandmother, now \u201clived\u201d in him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a grown man, I\u2019m glad that I have a \u201cTimothy testimony.\u201d The two most influential people in my spiritual development were women. They were my grandmother Ettie and my mother Wilda. They didn\u2019t have the same names as\u00a0\u201cEunice and Lois,” but they did have the same \u201csincere faith\u201d living in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sincere faith. The kind that is more than religion, more than rules and ritual. These women loved and lived for their Lord in such a sincere way that what they passed on to me was more caught than taught.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother and her mother are with Jesus now, but their sincere faith still lives here in me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happy Mother\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is a reprint of my original post on May 7, 2010.<\/sub><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also\u201d (2 Timothy 1:5 NIV). The church of my youth had annual revival services. We would often have an evangelist come and share how God had miraculously saved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2669,2061,2062],"tags":[2032,2052,2285,2030],"location":[],"class_list":["post-10529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenting","category-religion","category-weblogs","tag-faith","tag-jesus","tag-mothers-day","tag-parenting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/garycombsorg.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Wilda-Ettie.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10529"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11396,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10529\/revisions\/11396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10529"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=10529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}