CONFIDENCE BRINGS THE INSPIRATION

2019-01-29
Influence
The secularists are shouting their mantra, their hateful words; they hurt women, men and children.   I see them on Facebook, in the news, on videos and find it hard to listen to.  They are shouting, screaming, loud, secular, godless verbiage.

Truth is more powerful than lies.  I challenge you; let us step up:  "speaking the truth in love . . ." (Ephesians 4:15).  We are Christians, believers in Jesus and his power to save us and change and sanctify us, to set us apart for His Holy service

Why do we, privileged, smart, gifted Christian women suffer from self-doubt and wonder how to proceed?  It is because the powerful, equal yet opposite importance of who we are has not been lifted from Scripture and spotlighted.  I think of it as:  "The Doctrine of Women in the Bible."  This understanding does not bring arrogance, or rebellion.  It brings confidence, inspiration.  It has been waiting in the Bible for us to discover.  The Holy Spirit has written about us, "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.  And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." (Genesis 1:31)  "Everything" means, well, EVERYTHING.  It includes men and women.  It is the beginning of your significance and your story and mine.

After reading through the Bible (I mean through and through it, for seventy-six years)  I have come to believe in the absolute authority of it.   Everything turns out the way our Creator, Jehovah God, says it would.  We can and should depend upon its promises and warnings for our best life.  And there is no demeaning or control imposed upon any person, any woman, any wife, in the Bible.

How does a twenty-first century woman accept this verse:  "Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord:  whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement." (I Peter 3:6).  Too often the attitude of obedience is taken as an inferior position.  But Sara was not inferior; she gave Abraham respect because she wanted to give him respect.  If your husband is a good man the LORD, JEHOVAH allows him to step into the role of your protector.  We fear literally anything to do with obedience or submission to our husbands because the Scripture has been misinterpreted and abused.  But sometimes husbands are not good men.  Selfish men made women subservient to men . . . God never did!  In the beginning God made them male AND female and both together were the image of God. (Genesis 1:27).

Here is the powerful point:  we should not be "afraid with any amazement" (emphasis mine) because God shows up when we have faith in His words to us.  God works in the heart of a man when a woman . . . a strong, cerebral, sanctified woman . . . immediately approaches her LORD in her head and heart.  Right at this juncture is her confidence and inspiration:  "If God be for us, who can be against us." (Romans 8:31)

It is vital, important to compare spiritual things with spiritual . . . one verse, passage, chapter with another.  God will not be "understood" with casual glancing at His Holy Word.
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