Women Amazing In God Design
Women are such amazing creations. God outdid Himself when He designed the female out of the rib of the male. Women were uniquely shaped by God with many great purposes, attributes and characteristics that make us very special. Have the lines of womanhood been blurred in this generation by a clouding over of cultural say so? It depends on the yard stick that you measure the standard of truth from.
Genesis 2:20-24 And the man gave names to all the livestock, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for Adam there was not found a helper that was suitable a companion for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and while he slept, He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man He made, fashioned, formed into a woman, and He brought her and presented her to the man.
Women Hand Shaped By God
Women are very special in a unique God shaped way. We were hand designed by God for a specific purpose and role exclusive to just us. Have you noticed how different we are from men? Have you noticed that it is women who usually set the atmosphere in the places where we live, work and play? We are very social people. We are very hospitable and welcoming. We have very strong soul emotions and we will naturally work out our salvation through our soul in that emotional kind of way. We would rather take a long time to “grow through” then to just go through something to get to the other side of it. We are nurturing, helping and protecting women and our care is not shallow, but it goes deep as the help mate that God designed us to be.
“A woman’s heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.” Quote By Max Lucado
Women With Stolen Designs
The role of women has taken a big hit in this generation but the creation of woman by God has remained the same. Girls continue to be born exactly the way God designed us. There has never been a time like this culture, this season of time for women, where our identity is being stolen by the enemy. We are in identity crisis. The enemy can’t steal our design, but He is corrupting our identity and this has wounded the soul of womanhood. We need to embrace the truth of our God design once again.
“When we hold our thoughts up against God’s standards of what is true and what is real, we can recognize and, with His help, learn to release many of our negative emotions, damaging thoughts, and destructive attitudes.” Quote By Elizabeth George
Women With Confused Identity Factors
Women are hurting, confused and deeply soul-wounded by the dysfunction of the society as it continues on its cultural path of gender disavowing. The enemy is working to fade the line between male and female, making us the same gender, the same in role and purpose. This is impossible, because as much as the devil lies to adjust our finite characteristics, our Infinite design can’t be changed, women were shaped by our God and He has not changed His original design. To procreate you still need one man and one woman. You need a seed from man and an egg from woman. So truthfully nothing has changed in our God design, no one can alter the created God intention of womanhood, not even our enemy can’t change it. But our enemy can confuse the identifying factors of womanhood, causing dysfunction in our roles as women. We can’t let that happen, we need to stand on the side of God’s truth and be everything He designed and shaped us to be.
“Do you want to be safe from the influence, ways, and lusts of the world and the flesh (I John 2:16)? From the sins which so easily entangles us (Hebrews 12:1)? Then delight in yourself in the Lord, in His provision, in His Word. Faithfully feed on the things that possess true substance and real meaning. When you remember that “all Scripture is given by inspiration by God and is profitable” (2 Timothy 3:16) and partake of such divine substance, then you are fed, you are led and you are safe!” Quote By Elizabeth George
Women Of This Culture
This culture is making a mess out of the identity of women and because of the chaos and confusion associated with these role reversals, where women are trying to be men and men are trying to be women; womanhood over the last decade has closed up their souls to God and each other and have taken on a new dependency that is just on themselves. There used to be intimate and vulnerable conversations as women, but now there is a guarded soul and a quiet and closed off womanhood. In this generation when you ask a woman: How are you? She will answer: Fine. Feelings Inside Not Expressed. We were designed to live from the inside out and in this culture we are resigned to live from the outside in. A lot of our emotions stay buried inside which hampers the real fellowship we were shaped to be characterized for and lead out in. Our design has not been corrupted, but our role identity is being confused and stolen and we need to take it back. We need to fight the good fight of faith to be who God created us women to be.
For Though we walk in the world, we do not fight according to this world’s rules of warfare. The weapons of the war we’re fighting are not of this world but are powered by God and effective at tearing down the strongholds erected against His truth. We are demolishing arguments and ideas, every high-and-mighty philosophy that pits itself against the knowledge of the one true God. We are taking prisoners of every thought, every emotion, and subduing them into obedience to the Anointed One. 2 Corinthians 10:1-5 The Voice
Women Shaking Of Cultural Say-So
This weekend I attended a women’s conference at Trinity of Fairview in North Carolina and the guest speaker was Carol Davis. I believe she has the perfect message for women in this generation. Carol shared with us that we are all carrying around a “yard stick” based on a standard of measurement. What is the standard of measurement? The world has set our standard of measurement and we have let it happen. It is time for us, as women of God to shake off the “cultural say so” and stop measuring our lives by what the world says we should be, we should do, and we should look like. We have lost the place where we need to stand and that is on the Word of God.
2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. The Voice
Women Fully Facing God
Women, we are listening to so many of the voices and opinions of our culture that we, women of God, have stopped turning to God for correction, shaping and discipleship. Carol pointed this out to us and it really resonated with me. Yes, women have stopped sharing with God as much as we used too, but we still have plenty of thoughts and God in His all-knowing way, knows these thoughts, that we think we are hiding deep inside of us. God hears the cry of the inner soul of women in this generation. Carol Davis shared with us women at the Women’s Conference Saturday, at Trinity of Fairview, that God is still pouring over His created woman and highlighting the things in our soul we need to deal with. We are not listening. We must turn back to God and fully face Him. Our yard stick of measurement must be the Word of God.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. NLT
Women Diffusing Lies With Truth
I love how Carol diffused one of the biggest lies we have bought into in this cultural say so that keeps being pushed down our throats, and she did it with this truth: “God is not about making us happy. God is about making us holy. We need to align ourselves with God’s Word and take the place of our destiny in this generation.”
“When the enemy shall come in, like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall raise up a standard against him. Isaiah 59:19
Women In Role Reversal
Role reversal is a tricky deception in this culture we live in. Because our identity has been confused by all this gender mixing, and cultural say-so, we have stepped out of our God created roles of submission to God first, of respect of God and one another. Respect for God is a lost art and reverence is following very closely behind, it to a point of extinction. As women, our job is not done. We must take the place God designed for us to be in and shatter the darkness of lies that have stolen our identity.
“The lines of womanhood have been blurred because we are not fully facing our Creator God and wholly-holy aligning our lives with His Word, His Spirit and His Way.” Quote By Carol Davis
Women Controlling Instead Of Consecrated
This past Sunday, John Maxwell spoke a Mother’s Day message at Christ Fellowship Church in Palm Beach Gardens Florida and he shared that we are not consecrating ourselves fully to God. How do we know that? Because we are trying to control everything, our hands are on everything. John Maxwell said this:
“Before we can do a great work for God, we have to let God do a great work in us. When our life is in our hands we feel like we have to do something about it. When we are totally consecrated to God, nothing is in our hands anymore, it is all in God’s hands. Whose hands is your life placed in? Every time we focus on the wrong things, it is because it is in our hands and not God’s.” Quote By Dr. John Maxwell
Women Where Is Your Focus?
Carol Davis and John Maxwell were tracking on the same way of truth this past weekend, different places, different days, different audiences, same Holy Spirit speaking clearly about our focus and how it is blurred. Carol Davis spoke it very plainly when she said to all of us women: “We need to change our focus to be 100 percent on God and His standards.” Carol challenged us with these questions: “What is your focus? What are you feeding your focus? Has something other than Jesus become your focus?” Carol followed these questions up with a very sobering thought that what we feed our focus is what is growing in us.
“If we are feeding our focus something other than Jesus, than our vision will be blurred.” Quote By Carol Davis
Women And Their Yardstick
As women, God is very interested in our hearts in this generation and He is wanting our focus so He can do the hard work of heart work. When Carol shared this with us, you could hear a pin drop in the room, because we knew that God was calling us out of our shallow and comfortable lives, to a life consecrated to Him. Carol then asked us to look deeper in our soul as she put these questions out on the table of our hearts: “What has blurred your vision for what God has intended you to be? Are you going to look to your “worldly yardstick” to define your life standards, or are you going to let go of it and let God define your life?
“In our churches today we have blurred vision and God is calling us back to a focus on Him.” Quote By Carol Davis
Women Regaining Their Identity
We are suffering from a huge identity crisis in our country in this season of time. Carol shared with us that our enemy has successfully pulled of the greatest identity theft ever. We have forgotten our standard of righteousness and we have let things take our focus off of our God. We have lost our God identity and our identity is in this world, not the Word of God or His Kingdom. We need to regain our identity in Christ Jesus.
“Who are you? You are not what you do. We are basing our identity on cultural status quo lies. We need to once again get a hold of who we are, our identity in Christ Jesus.” Quote By Carol Davis
Women With Necessity Faith
Carol shared with us that we in this country have bought into the lie about living with “accessory faith”. Living nice and easy with Jesus as our accessory to our comfy lives. It is time for us to make the switch to a “necessity faith” where we are totally dependent on Jesus and we have stepped outside of our comfort zones on the narrow path to His Kingdom.
“When we consecrate ourselves to the Lord, we become a living sacrifice. We give up our own claims on ourselves and put ourselves completely in His hands. Previously our life was for our use and our satisfaction; now it is for His.” Quote By Dr. John Maxwell
Women Living In The Power Of God
The point that Carol made that was so powerful was this challenge: ” We are either going to live in the power of God or deny the power of God. We will be in identity crisis or we will be identified as Gods. If we get our “identity strong” in Jesus Christ, then all other problems will take care of themselves.” When our identity is in Christ, there is great inner peace in our lives. We may have outer turmoil going on, but we are “growing through’ with inner peace because we have a steadfast, committed focus on God, His way, truth and life.
Isaiah 26:3 “You will keep in perfect and constant peace the one whose mind is steadfast, that is, committed and focused on You—in both inclination and character, because he trusts and takes refuge in You with hope and confident expectation. Amplified Bible
Women With Beautiful Grammar
Carol talked about our sin by giving us a beautiful grammar picture of how The Father God does not even see our sin, because Jesus on the cross was the period to our sin and three days later, He became the exclamation point as He rose again. It was Jesus’ way to say to us that we are precious and honored in His sight and that He loved us unconditionally. God does not want us walking with inner shame and condemnation, He wants us to accept the unconditional forgiveness that the Mercy of God, through Jesus Christ abundantly lavishes us in.
Isaiah 60:2 See truly; look carefully—darkness blankets the earth; people all over are cloaked in darkness. But God will rise and shine on you; the Eternal’s bright glory will shine on you, a light for all to see. The Voice
Women Who Are Broken Vessels Of Light
The sad part is that we don’t put our identity in Christ even after all He did for us, we are still choosing to please this world, to fit into our culture. Carol shared with us how so many times we hand people our identity and our heart saying: “Make me a somebody” and they hand us back our heart in shattered pieces. But all is not lost because God honors us and as we honor Him and He puts our heart back together. I like to see myself as a broken vessel of God’s Light that shines so uniquely out of my broken places. I am a patched up mess, where the Light shines through my plastered cracked vessel in ways that no one else can glow God’s glory. I am a mess that God made a miraculous message out of.
“The heart wrenching cry of this world we live in is this: “Someone please tell me I am precious”! Quote by Carol Davis
Women With Word Standards
Think on these questions Carol asked us: “Does your pain identify you? Are you carrying the “yard stick” measuring your life by a standard that you can’t live up too? Do you feel less than? Chasing after things that don’t satisfy?” Listen up:
1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted. Message Bible
Women Fully Facing God
Fully Face God! Stand up with your feet planted, squarely positioned so you can focus on God and His Word. If you are struggling with this life season you are in, then you have put your identity in what you were doing, instead of Jesus, Whom you should be doing it for. Carol was adamant that the enemy is having a heyday with our identity and we need to get our identity rooted in the cross of Jesus.
“Quit worrying about what people are doing, saying or where they are going. Focus on Jesus, follow Jesus.” Carol Davis
Women Living Abundantly
God has given us such a valuable gift in His Son, Jesus Christ. God has lavished us with an abundant providential love. Carol shared with us that in the culture of this generation we have traded for other things of this world, the abundant life God sacrificially gifted us with. Carol opened our eyes to three things we as women have definitely exchanged for our abundant living. The first one being one that we all could really relate to, the fact that we have exchanged our abundant living with a life of constant anxiety. We worry instead of pray and our worry has taken the worship right out of our soul.
Psalm 25:1-5 Always I will lift up my soul to You, Eternal One, because You are my God and I put my trust in You. Do not let me be humiliated. Do not let my enemies celebrate at my expense. Certainly none of the people who rely on You will be shamed, but those who are unfaithful, who intentionally deceive, they are the ones who will be disgraced. Demonstrate Your ways, O Eternal One. Teach me to understand so I can follow. Ease me down the path of Your truth. Feed me Your word because You are the True God who has saved me. I wait all day long, hoping, trusting in You. The Voice
Women Living A Wholly-Holy Life
Carol stepped on our toes, or should I say, the Holy Spirit through Carol did some toe stepping and soul meddling with the second thing we have exchanged for God’s abundant living. We have traded our way for God’s way. We have exchanged a happy life for a holy life because holy is hard. Carol lovingly encouraged us that our story is not over, we are still growing through and we need to make God Lord of all or not Lord at all. We need to live wholly-holy lives unto our Savior, Jesus.
“We wrongly think God needs our input and we go to God not for His wisdom but for Him to put a stamp of approval on the way we want to go. God is bossy and I have not talked Hi out of anything He wanted to do, no not one. He know what is best and we can’t see the entire picture like He can.” Quote By Carol Davis
Women Trading UP In Value
The third thing Carol told us that we had traded way down in value for in God’s abundant living, is we have exchanged God’s amazing Grace for shame. We have forgotten the basic truth that God is bigger than our mistakes. Shame shatters our embarrassed emotions when things don’t turn out like we expected them too. Carol asked us to if we were tired of the weight of shame, that we needed to trade it back for God’s grace and live freely in His abundant life. She then prayed that God would forgive all of us for living outside of His grace.
“We wrongly think if things are hard that God is not in them. No. He is! The pain we go through in life is what qualifies us for service in God.” Quote By Carol Davis
Women Growing Through Life
We can “grow through” anything when we are living in the abundant Grace of Jesus Christ, we can freely live the abundant life He bought for us. He died our death, so we could live His life, He took our shame, so we would not be burdened down, but would live with hope and constant expectancy in the grace and wisdom of God that flows so freely into our lives. Carol closed by asking us this: What have you traded the abundant life Jesus gifted you with for? What have you made the exchange of the value of Jesus’ abundant life for? Has it been worth it?
Romans 4:20-25 Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous. And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. New Living Translation
John 10:9-15 I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be liberated, will go in and go out, and will find pastures. The thief approaches with malicious intent, looking to steal, slaughter, and destroy; I came to give life with joy and abundance. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep in His care. The hired hand is not like the shepherd caring for His own sheep. When a wolf attacks, snatching and scattering the sheep, he runs for his life, leaving them defenseless. The hired hand runs because he works only for wages and does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know My sheep, and My sheep know Me. As the Father knows Me, I know the Father; I will give My life for the sheep. The Voice
“When God is in sharp focus, then life is also undistorted.” ― Elizabeth George
Thank you for stopping in The Author Table today in The Bridegroom’s Cafe. The Blurred Vision piece was inspired by a Women’s Conference at Trinity of Fairview Church in North Carolina and the Speaker Carol Davis and by The Mother’s Day message by Dr. John Maxwell At Palm Beach Gardens Florida. I hope you pass it on to as many women as you know, let’s encourage one another to focus on Jesus and find our identity in Him.
God bless you Much, KimberlyMac