The title of my message today is what is a spiritual mother? What is a spiritual mother? Parents hold a very important place in our lives because they produced us and they gave us part of their DNA. And each of them carries a different role and results in producing in us a balanced and mature person, if those roles are carried out correctly. I've taught much on this before elsewhere, but I'm just going to review it very quickly so that I can get to the main principles I want to teach today.

The role of the mother is to firstly lay a foundation and to make a child feel accepted. It's to help the child know who they are. The role of the father is to build on that foundation laid by the mother and to recognize the child and to help the child get a focus and a direction in life.

Now these are the roles in natural parenting and each parent has a different ability and a different part to play. Women are better equipped and skilled to carry out their role. Men in turn are better equipped and skilled to carry out the role that has been given to them.

And each of these does it naturally because of their gender. It's in the nature of a woman to be a mother. It's in the nature of a man to be a father.

And a woman cannot fulfill the role of a father and neither can a man fulfill the role of a mother. It just doesn't work. Sometimes there's a role reversal and parents switch roles and that ends up bringing confusion in children.

This is a big subject and I've taught a lot on it elsewhere but this is all I'm going to cover about it today because we're going to get on to something a bit more important. You see because when it comes to spiritual parenting things are not quite the same. Spiritual parents do not operate as natural parents and it's important that we do not confuse the two.

Now I want to look at various aspects of parenting, mothering and fathering before we come to the crux of what I'm trying to teach today. And I want to look firstly at the difference between spiritual parenting and another kind of parenting known as surrogate parenting. Now the word surrogate is pretty much a modern term because it's really only come into full focus in recent years.

A surrogate mother we know as a woman who takes the egg that's been fertilized belonging to another woman, it's implanted in her womb and she then carries the child until birth. She's not the mother, she's just carrying the child temporarily to hand it back to the mother. That is a surrogate mother.

Now a man can also be a surrogate and this happens when he fulfils the role of a father to children that are not his own children. Now this can happen when a woman brings up a child, maybe the husband's died or they divorced and the woman has to bring up her children without the help of a husband and a father to the children. The child when they reach puberty need the role of a father and if such a person doesn't exist in the home the chances are that they're going to look to somebody else as a substitute father and that we could call a surrogate father.

Now they're also spiritual surrogates. It is possible to do spiritual parenting also as a surrogate. Now I've taught a lot on spiritual parenting elsewhere and I'm not going to repeat what I taught there.

So I assume that you know a little bit already about spiritual parenting and so I'm going to skim through some of the the principles that I taught elsewhere because I assume that you already know them. Spiritual surrogate parenting is when we reparent adults who were brought up by parents who failed in their roles. When their parents failed to fulfill the right role in the child's life you can step in now, you can't bring the child up from childhood as their own parent did, but you can temporarily replace some of the role of the parent and help reparent that child to make up for the lack that's in them because of the parental failure.

And so a surrogate mother, a woman, naturally replaces the natural mother and a man as the surrogate father naturally replaces the natural father. So you can be a surrogate parent, you can be a surrogate mother as a woman and you can be a surrogate father as a man. And this often has a semi-spiritual role but it's not entirely spiritual because you're actually molding some of the character of that person and and fixing some of the things that were messed up by bad parenting.

This is not actually spiritual parenting but it's often confused with spiritual parenting. Now with a surrogate parenting age is a very important factor. You can't have a younger person reparenting an older person.

It just doesn't work. So a surrogate parent is usually somebody older than you that you look to to replace some of your own parents' role in your life. Okay? Spiritual parenting is very different.

Many of these things no longer apply because spiritual parenting is birthing something spiritual into somebody. It's not birthing from scratch. It's not necessarily even the person who brought you to the Lord.

But it's when somebody births into you some of what's in their spirit and they birth it into you so that it becomes part of your spirit. It is an impartation of what I like to call spiritual DNA. And this isn't always immediately visible because what's in our spirits often doesn't show very clearly.

Sometimes not for a long time and sometimes it even remains hidden unless we manifest what's in our spirit. The most important thing about this is that it is not based on gender. You see gender is based on our bodies and what's in our bodies actually also tends to affect our soul.

So the soul and some of the psychological aspects of a person are affected very much by their body. And so you can very early in a child's life see in them characteristics which match their physical gender. Little boys have masculinity begin to manifest.

They want to play with cars and guy things. Little girls they manifest femininity. They want to play with dolls and do feminine things.

A famous psychiatrist or psychologist named these two qualities and he called them animus and anima. The masculine and feminine natures which lie in the realm of the soul. Okay however when it comes to the human spirit there is no gender.

You don't get a female spirit and a male spirit. Okay the Bible says God is a spirit and although we know him as masculine I'll explain shortly that masculine also embraces the feminine. You cannot look at a person's spirit and discern whether they are male or female because there is no gender to the spirit.

So the moment we come to spiritual parenting gender falls away. We are not imparting into the person that we are parenting. We're not imparting of our psychology.

As a surrogate yes we are. As a spiritual parent no. We are giving something far deeper.

We're giving a spiritual DNA which comes from the deeper part of us and that has no gender at all. Spiritual parenting is also not based on age. A spiritual parent doesn't have to be somebody older than you.

Now a surrogate parent surrogate parent has to be because you have to see that person as a replacement of your natural father or mother but spiritual parenting has nothing to do with your natural father or mother. So a young person who is more spiritually mature can birth their DNA into somebody who may be physically older than them but is quite clearly spiritually younger than them. Can you see that? So a person who has not matured that much spiritually been on the way a long time they're actually still a spiritual infant whereas a young person who served the Lord for a long time and has grown spiritually can be considered as a spiritual adult.

The deciding factor is spiritual maturity not physical age. Now spiritual parenting falls largely in the realm of the function and role of the Apostle. You'll see that Paul himself as an Apostle speaks of being a father to believers.

An Apostle can birth their spiritual DNA into somebody else and thus create spiritual children. Now apostolic parenting goes to a higher level and that's just by the by. An apostolic parent can birth more than DNA they can actually birth a ministry into somebody who doesn't have that ministry.

Often we tend to wait to see what a person's calling is and then try to train them according to what their calling is and so we say this person is called to be a prophet so we will train them to be a prophet. Well I've been trying to emphasize in recent times that being a prophet is actually not a calling because your calling is unique and all prophets function the same there's nothing unique about that. Now the prophet is a ministry and a way of fulfilling your calling but in itself it's not a calling.

Okay and so we made the mistake of often waiting to see does a person have this calling from God before we can train them. As an apostolic father you don't need to do that you can take a person and if they have a desire to receive you can birth into them a ministry they did not have. You could birth a teaching ministry into them, you could birth a prophetic ministry, an evangelistic ministry, a pastoral ministry, the apostolic father can birth ministries.

Okay and again it's not connected with gender it's an apostolic parent but we tend to use the word father which I will explain shortly. You see I looked earnestly in the Word of God and I searched diligently to see if I could find anywhere any reference to spiritual motherhood and I couldn't find one. There's plenty about spiritual fatherhood Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4 verse 15 for you might have 10,000 mentors in Christ but you do not have many fathers for in Christ Jesus I fathered you by means of the gospel.

Now the ultimate spiritual father is God isn't it? God is always seen as a father. Our father who is in heaven hallowed be your name or can God be a mother? Absolutely. You see fatherhood embraces motherhood even as masculinity embraces femininity.

When God made Adam he made Adam in his own image and he made him masculine and when God made the feminine he took a part of Adam out and made the woman. The woman was part of the man and femininity comes from masculinity and even though it's distinct and separate masculinity embraces all of it and so God is all embracing. So God can be a mother to us as well as a father.

Okay how about Jesus? What can Jesus be to us? Jesus can be actually more than a spiritual parent it can be both a surrogate parent and a spiritual parent. How does that work? It's the role of the mother to accept the child to make them feel accepted and welcomed and the scripture says in Ephesians 1 verse 6 leading to the praise of the glory of his grace in which he has made us accepted and highly favored in the beloved one which is Jesus. Jesus recognizes us in the way that a father is meant to recognize his child and in Psalm 1 verse 6 it says this for the Lord Yahweh recognizes the way of the righteous but the way of the ungodly will perish.

Jesus can replace all the failures of a father and a mother and Jesus can be both a father to us and a mother to us depending on what we are needing at the moment. If you are all alone in the world forsaken by your parents Jesus can meet that need whether it's the need for a father or a need for a mother he can do both. Now the Apostle all believers really but especially the Apostle in this aspect is Christ's representative on the earth.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 20 now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God was encouraging you through us we beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. The Apostle is designed to take the role of a spiritual parent. Now here's a question can a woman be an Apostle? Well absolutely and I've explained that in other places I'm not going to go into detail today.

Why can't a woman be an Apostle as well as a man? Because being an Apostle is a spiritual position and there is no gender in the spirit. I cannot emphasize this to you enough there is no gender in the spirit. Well let's look at the role of spiritual parenting.

What should a spiritual parent be able to do? We know that in the natural the mother has a role and the father has a role but what happens now when we come to spiritual parenting? A spiritual parent an Apostle who is being a parent to somebody else can nurture that person like a mother. If you don't believe me let's see what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2 and verse 7 writing to the Thessalonians he says this speaking about the Apostles he says but we were gentle among you just as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her children. Paul says we mothered you wow so it's possible now for a man to be a spiritual mother.

It's the role of the Apostolic spiritual parent to mold a spiritual child like a father. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2 11 just further down from the verse that he mentioned earlier as you know how we encouraged and motivated and affirmed every one of you as a father does his children. You can father somebody as a spiritual parent.

Can a woman father somebody if she's a spiritual parent? Absolutely because there's no gender involved. So whether you are a woman or a man if you are a spiritual parent you should be able to fulfill the role of both spiritual father and spiritual mother. I want you to let that sink in as you think of your answer to this next question.

Who are your spiritual parents? Now I know it's first thing is going to come to your mind. What woman do I know that I could consider to be my spiritual mother? What man do I know who could be my spiritual father? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Do not look for gender.

I hope you've got that by now. Your spiritual mother does not have to be a woman and your spiritual father does not have to be a man. I know this blows your mind because we can't think in terms except our natural terms but you must think in spiritual terms.

See now the Catholic Church they could never understand the difference and they exalted womanhood by lifting Mary up and making him making her equal to God because men find it easier to go to mom than they do to dad so they chose a mom god and they prayed to Mary in the hope that she'd go and nag the father and he'll listen to her when he won't listen to you. How foolish. You look up spiritual mothers you'll find plenty of teaching on in the Catholic Church.

They teach women to become little Marys. It's wrong, it's unscriptural. Now you when you start looking at this one of the biggest mistakes that can be made is to see a woman here as your spiritual mother and a man there as your spiritual father and you've actually separated them.

Now I made this mistake very early in my experience in ministry and before the Lord gave me a full revelation of this truth which I'm sharing with you today and he's been progressively showing this to me but I've never actually laid it out systematically and I think it's time that the body of Christ gets the truth. But in the beginning while we were still in Mexico my eldest daughter rose up next to me as my right hand in ministry in full apostolic office and she was actively involved in training people who came to be trained for ministry and I made the mistake of thinking that as the spiritual father I should have somebody else to work with the kids before they come to me. The same way that in the natural a father leaves the children to the mother to fulfill the primary role and only later as the child comes into puberty the child then transitions over to the father and the father takes up his role.

I made the same mistake that so many people make when it came to spiritual parenting. And I thought that I needed to hand my spiritual children over to somebody who could be a spiritual mother to them before they could come over to me. And so my daughter stood as a spiritual mother while I stood as a spiritual father and it produced nothing but confusion because you see what happened.

I made the excuse well she was only mentoring them but no she became a spiritual parent to them and eventually I realized that she was actually fulfilling the same function and role that I was as a spiritual father even though she was a woman. And when the time came for those spiritual children which were supposed to be mine to transition over to me they made the same mistake that a lot of kids make they felt comfortable with mom. In the natural this is a problem and mothers have to learn to come to the place where they fulfill their role to hand their children over to the father to take over from there.

But when it comes to spiritual parenting the same thing doesn't apply because if you're a spiritual parent you don't have to hand them over to anybody you are the one who's actually fulfilled that role. But because we saw it as a lower role and a higher role I confused mentorship with spiritual parenting and it should have been mentorship but it went beyond. And what happened is when it came time for them to transition there was conflict and they hung on for dear life and as in the natural the child didn't want to leave the mother and the mother didn't want to let go of the child.

That's what happens when you train somebody in that way you don't realize it but you're giving them more than knowledge you're being more than a mentor as I taught on the seven functions of apostolic leadership you then become a master trainer teacher and you can't help it you will automatically transition over to pouring your dna into them and you will become a spiritual parent even though you haven't officially said so. Now you might say well you know that person was younger so they wouldn't see her as a spiritual mother I'm older so they would naturally see me as a spiritual father. Age as I told you has nothing to do with it it's about spiritual maturity.

The biggest mistake we can make is to separate spiritual parents into two people the one a woman and the other a man particularly if they're not married causes nothing but confusion. So what happens then what happens then if somebody has started to be burst into by somebody but they need to transition over to you as a spiritual parent. I'd like to look briefly at the concept of spiritual grandparents.

Is there such a thing as a spiritual grandparent? Technically no but here's how it works a single woman according to the scriptures needs the covering for protection of a man if she is married that covering becomes her husband if she's unmarried that covering has to come from her spiritual father. Now she can become a spiritual parent in her own rights even though she's not married even though she is under a spiritual father she can become a spiritual parent in her own right just as your kids can grow up and have their own children okay but sometimes sometimes a transition can take place from the spiritual child who's become a parent with their spiritual children transition upwards to your spiritual parent or if you like your spiritual grandparent. Now just in case you think that this is a bit far-fetched I want to show you that is actually actually quite scriptural.

We read in the old testament that Jacob had 12 sons and they were going to be the nation of Israel from Jacob he changed his name to Israel they became the 12 tribes of Israel one of those sons was Joseph you know the guy with the coat of many colors the guy went into Egypt that Joseph. Joseph birthed two sons Ephraim and Manasseh and Jacob as his life was coming to an end he made a choice and he said to Joseph I'm taking your sons as mine they're going to become my children did you know that amongst the 12 tribes of Israel Ephraim is a tribe and Manasseh is a tribe they were never the sons of Jacob they were his son's sons they were his grandsons but they became his sons and became part of the 12 tribes. Well so now we got 14 well Jacob said Joseph stepped aside and later God removed Levi and that still left 12.

So it is scriptural the concept of taking your children's children to be your children. I know that sometimes happens in the natural for financial and other reasons things like that but spiritually it's entirely possible and I remember this happened with me a long time ago way back when I had a team of spiritual children who came under me and and became almost like like Jesus of these 12 disciples I had 12 of them initially and one of my spiritual sons had himself started to become a spiritual parent he'd built his own ministry and and it started to reproduce and there was a couple in his church who really began to rise up to the point where they were working as assistants to him and when I met them I felt in my spirit that they should become my spiritual children and to become part of my family and so I shared that with my spiritual son and I said I'm going to do a Jacob on you I'm going to take your spiritual kids as mine and that's exactly what happened and so they stepped out from being his spiritual children to become my spiritual children and actually stood then as equals with him. So it is possible but it's not automatic and it's not assumed okay I always kind of made it assumed because I never saw my daughter as being a spiritual parent I saw as purely being a trainer or a mentor but she became a spiritual parent and you know every single one of my people my children that she trained they wouldn't let go of her it was a fight and God had to sometimes use circumstances to bring a division to where they finally let go of her and she let go of them and they would finally transition over to me I continued to make that mistake afterwards and once again started to push everybody over to be trained by my spiritual child.

The same thing happened when the time came that they were meant to transition from there up to me they'd become attached to their spiritual parent and didn't want to let go and it caused conflict before the transition could take place. Now all of this has come about because of the confusion on spiritual parenting and on spiritual mothers and spiritual fathers. Now for a married woman she comes under her husband's covering she doesn't have to be under the covering of a spiritual father but actually both of them eventually will as an additional protection should be under a spiritual father so it's possible for both a man and a woman whether they're single or married to still look to somebody as their spiritual father for additional feedback for counsel for advice etc okay and also for an additional protection of spiritual covering now a woman who is married to the man who's her covering she's not his spiritual child in fact they're equal and her spiritual children and his spiritual children now come under both of them now it makes it so much easier doesn't it we got a man and a woman together jointly spiritual parents and also married in the natural it is so easy to see him as the spiritual father and hers the spiritual mother but actually both of them can fulfill still both of those roles depending on what was needed at the time but it kind of stops that confusion in our minds and so it's so much easier when a husband and wife flow together in ministry they can stand as an apostolic couple and as apostolic spiritual parents and then there's no confusion and there's no separation and there's no division if you've been parented by a person male or female and now somebody else male or female has also had a strong influence in your life don't ever let yourself be caught between the two you can only have one spiritual parent spiritual parenting is a necessary part of our spiritual growth and your your spiritual parent imparts to you spiritually so gender does not come into it it's got nothing to do with it now you can only have one set of spiritual parents at a time but it is possible to move from the one to the other you cannot hold on to both you got to give up one of them and let go that's the way it is you have no choice you can't have one as a spiritual mother and another as a spiritual father doesn't fit god's economy when your spiritual parent is single they are both a spiritual father and a spiritual mother to you when they get married there's an extra person that you may find easier to call spiritual father or spiritual mother and actually you don't even have to call them mom and dad because they may be younger than you see surrogate parents are usually called mom and dad I find that as I begin to work with people who are much younger it's very easy for them to call me dad calling me dad doesn't make me a spiritual parent and doesn't make them a spiritual son or daughter in fact a lot amongst a lot of cultures it's a sign of respect to refer to an older person as mom or dad and actually in Paul's time it was the same you look at the scripture that I read right at the beginning there Paul said don't discipline an older man but appeal to him as a father and to the older women as mothers you see you can look at an older more mature person as a father and mostly most of the time they're actually becoming a surrogate parent to you if they're a spiritual parent so much easier for you to refer to them to mom and dad but you must realize it's more than the natural and it's more than the natural gender it's a spiritual thing okay so when your spiritual parents married you can see both as father and mother but ultimately ultimately the Lord is our true spiritual parent and so when God chooses on this earth to pour himself through people and somebody stands in the place of a spiritual parent to you they are actually ministering to you the parenthood of God himself he is the source of all of it so you don't look at the person you look at what's in their spirit and what is in their spirit came from the spirit the spirit of God himself so ultimately your spiritual mother and your spiritual father actually are the Lord but God is manifesting that parentage through a person in this earth and yes it's easier to see a woman as a spiritual mother and a man is a spiritual father and it helps if you've got a husband and wife who are standing together as an apostolic couple and as apostolic spiritual parents but if you don't have that opportunity and you only have one that person has to fulfill the role of both they are both presenting God to you as a spiritual parent and he is no such thing as a spiritual mother I hope that is clear I'm sure your mind is whirling and you have much to think about go and watch this message again we will transcribe it so you can read it again it will now be added to all the teachings that I've already published in the past it will add it to our teaching on spiritual parentage and bring everything finally into balance so we can go forward as the body of Christ and fulfill the call that he's placed on our lives amen

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