3 Day Bible Reading Plan - “Mother’s Day”
Day 1
Featured Verse: 1 Thessalonians 2:7–8
How does Paul’s picture of being “like a nursing mother” among the Thessalonians challenge or encourage the way you care for the people God has placed in your life?
Who in your life right now feels “very dear” to you in the same way the Thessalonians were dear to Paul, and how does that affection shape how you relate to them?
When have you found it costly or inconvenient to share your time, energy, or heart with others, and how does this passage speak into those moments?
Pause and Reflect: Lord, thank You for the example of Paul’s tender, motherly love and selfless care for the Thessalonians. Help me to love the people around me with this same gentle affection, willingly sharing not only Your gospel but my own life as well. Amen.
“A mother in nursing her children manifests a certain rare and wonderful affection, inasmuch as she spares no labor and trouble, shuns no anxiety, is wearied out by no assiduity, and even with cheerfulness of spirit gives her own blood to be sucked. In the same way, Paul declares that he was so disposed towards the Thessalonians, that he was prepared to lay out his life for their benefit.” - John Calvin
Day 2
Featured Verse: Galatians 4:19
What does it mean for you personally to have “Christ formed in you,” and in what areas of your life do you sense this process is still happening?
How does Paul’s intense “birth pains” for the Galatians challenge the way you pray for, invest in, or care for the spiritual growth of others?
How does this verse shape the way you view discipleship, not just leading people to Christ, but laboring until they look like Him?
Pause and Reflect: Lord, I thank You for the costly, mother-like labor Paul endured for the Galatians, travailing in prayer and love until Christ was formed in them. Give me that same holy burden and persevering grace: birth Christ in me until every part of my life reflects His likeness, and stir me to labor faithfully in prayer and care for those You have placed in my life until they too are transformed into His image. Amen.
“Of whom I travail in birth again — For whose welfare I am deeply anxious: and for whom I endure deep anguish; compare 1 Corinthians 4:15. His anxiety for them he compares to the deepest sufferings which human nature endures; and his language here is a striking illustration of what ministers of the gospel should feel, and do sometimes feel, in regard to their people.” - Albert Barnes
Day 3
Featured Verse: Luke 8:20–21
In what ways are you currently functioning as a spiritual mother to others, laboring in prayer and care until Christ is formed in them, even when it costs you deeply?
Who in your life right now is hearing God’s Word through you, and how are you travailing in anguish like Paul so that they not only hear it but also put it into practice?
If Jesus were to point to the people around you today and say, “Here are my mother and my brothers,” would He include those you are investing in, and what does that reveal about the depth of your spiritual motherhood?
Pause and Reflect: Lord, thank You for calling me to spiritual motherhood. Give me a tender, nurturing heart like Paul’s, one that willingly labors in prayer and pours out my life until Christ is formed in those I care for. Birth Your likeness in me and in them, and help me cherish them as my true family in You. Amen.
“I learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians in England.” - John Wesley
“To our mother, my brother and myself, under God, owe absolutely everything. To us she devoted her life. For us she prayed, labored, and suffered.” - Charles Hodge
“Never could it be possible for any man to estimate what he owes to a godly mother. Certainly I have not the powers of speech with which to set forth my valuation of the choice blessing which the Lord bestowed on me in making me the son of one who prayed for me, and prayed with me…her smiles have never faded from my recollection,—the beaming of her countenance when she rejoiced to see some good thing in me towards the Lord God of Israel. - Charles Spurgeon
