The problem is my mom still does not believe in God and she has a hard time accepting my faith. When I first found God she thought it was a phase I would grow out of but over time my faith, and my devotion to worshipping and praising the Lord, just grows stronger and she still doesn't accept it. She banned me from going to church when I was 13 hoping I would ''get over it'' but then when I was 14 I went back, now I'm 16 she still tries to ban me again but i just do it anyway and sometimes she grounds me to stop me from going. I know i shouldn't disobey my mom but surely she has no right to keep trying to separate me from the Lord? And getting grounded just for going to church is ridiculous and unfair?
Your Mom cannot separate you from your Lord. He is within you in the Person of the Holy Spirit, if you are one of His. (
Romans 8:9-11; Titus 3:5; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 1 John 4:13) Your Mom can do nothing about this. You have become a "temple of the Holy Spirit," a walking, breathing vessel, in whom God has come to reside. Being banned from going to church services has no effect on this reality.
God has commanded you to "honor your father and your mother." This is one of the Ten Commandments, in fact. What's more, you are God's ambassador to your Mom, His hands and heart to her; God intends that your Mom should meet Himself through you. Defying your Mom gets in the way of this, don't you think?
Does God need you to attend a Sunday service? Does He need you to prostrate yourself on the floor in worship? No. Not at all. He's perfect; He needs nothing from you. Worshiping at a church service, then, is ultimately for
your sake,
your benefit, not His. But you can worship God at any time and place. In fact, this is how God intends His children to live: their entire lives a constant act of worship of Him.
1 Corinthians 10:31
31 Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
In light of God's command to honor your parents, how do you suppose defying your Mom glorifies God? How is your defiance of her likely to bring your Mom closer to the Lord? Especially in light of the fact that you can worship God even when you're brushing your teeth, what harm to your fellowship with God can there be by obeying her wishes?
She thinks i'm being brainwashed at the church and that i don't think for myself only what they tell me, but its not true. I found faith by myself while reading the bible and went to church later. Church just helps strengthen my faith and keep me focused on the Lord as it helps to have fellowship with other believers. She also thinks its unhealthy for a 16 year old to be ''obsessed with God'' but surely being in love with the Lord and worshipping him is the healthiest place to be and what we should all be doing? I can't understand why she thinks my relationship with God hurts me when it does the opposite. I believe God created us so we would worship him and glorify him.
I'm glad to see that you understand the place of worship of God with other believers, that it "strengthens your faith and keeps you focused on the Lord." What, though, do you think would happen if your Mom saw that your faith does not reside in contact with a group of like-minded people, but in your own personal, direct communion with God; that your faith isn't the effect of religious "group-think" but of something real between you and your holy Maker? Your church attendance isn't the means of your walk with God, right? It's just the by-product, the effect, of walking with Him; which is to say, your walk does not begin and end with regular, in-person, connection with the Body of Believers. You could fellowship with God even if you were, say, shut up in prison and never saw another person for years.
I'm not suggesting a believer should purposely neglect involvement with a local community of Christians but that, if it cannot be avoided that one is physically separated from the Body of Believers, one need not fear that one has somehow been separated from God, too.
