Faith is growing in godliness. Now, godliness means to be like God -- godly, holy, to live a holy life. 

Titus 2:3-5 says: “the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.”

Now the older women must be reverent in behavior, that means dignified, honorable, decent, and worthy of respect. This is how women need to exercise that quality. Women need to learn not to be slanderers. It’s so easy to be a gossiper. Slander means the utterance of false charges or misrepresentation which defames and damages another’s reputation; a false accuser, just malicious gossip.

We need to work on that and I’m going to tell you how to do it. We want to stop the gossiping and running somebody down because this is not godliness. The scriptures tell us that we should not be given to too much wine. Keep in mind that in the biblical days water wasn’t that good and they drank wine as a substitute. However, that’s not an excuse for us to be drinking wine now because we know that a lot of people start out drinking wine and they become alcoholics. So my family and I just made up our minds, we would not drink any alcoholic beverages. The only way somebody might turn into a drunkard is to take that first alcoholic drink and we don’t want it to be one of us. Our desire is to always be an example to the Body of Christ.

Further, we older women are to be teachers of good things. We need to be an example to the younger people—someone they can look up to. We are to be good teachers of good things, so that’s easy because there’s always something to find to do that is good. If you see a need, that’s a good thing. We are also to teach the children and you can do that mainly by your lifestyle.

We are to admonish the young women to love their husbands. This lets us know that as young wives, we don’t know automatically how to love our husbands. Young people think that it’s all about feelings and having a good time. They think that it’s going to be all fun and games. Then they get married and find out they have responsibilities. To love your husband means to take care of your husband, do the things that he needs, let him know that you care about him, wash his clothes, cook his food, whatever he needs for you to do, you should be there doing that as a wife.

Today, too many have to learn this principle because the wives just tell the husband to go get their own food. But the Bible has not changed and the Bible is just as modern as ever. If we would follow these rules we would have better results in our marriages.

We are to love our children and love is not a feeling; love is doing, love is caring, love is training, love is making our children do when they don’t feel like doing. At times, you will have to stay there and sit on them to make them. I know there will be times that you would rather just give up and let them have their way, especially, when they go through the teenage years. It’s very hard because they think they’re grown when we know they’re not. I used to have this saying, “let’s freeze them when they reach 12 years up to 19 years. Then bring them out of the tribulation period later.” But we can’t do that so we have to stay there, train them and make them do things when it seems like they’re not learning. The good news is that they are taking it in, so when they grow up they will put it into practice. This is our responsibility whether you get thanks for training them or not. However, at the end you will see that your efforts were worth it. When we do this we love our children.

We are the ones responsible for making and training our children how to take care of things around the house, like cleaning their room. A lot of times, we don’t teach our children these things. Now, some of us are at the place where we have someone helping us with house chores. However, we still have the responsibility for teaching our children.

I remember when Frederick, Jr. was small and we had gotten to the place where I needed a housekeeper. I didn’t get a housekeeper until I needed one, but I got to the point where I had a lot to do, so I got a housekeeper to help me three days a week. During this time I was trying to teach Freddie to make his bed, to be responsible, and so the days that she would come he wouldn’t make his bed up. To train him I’d say, “Why didn’t you make up your bed today?” His response would be, “Well, isn’t Anna coming today?” I said, “Yes, Anna is coming today but she’s not coming to make up your bed. When you get grown, you may not have a maid to come and help you. Keep in mind that I was 45 years old before I got a maid, so you’ve got a few more years to go. So, you need to make your bed.”

Mothers, it is our duty to train the children and keep the rules before them otherwise they’ll just go their own way and they won’t know how to do a thing. I am the first to tell you that it’s not always easy, but in the end it will be a blessing to you, the child and society in general.