Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Lunch with Laura

God has recently brought a new, dear friend into my life. Her name is Laura, and she is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet. She is clearly spirit-filled, and the life of Christ beams from her.

We were having lunch and I was sharing with her some of the details of my life. I was discussing some of the things the Lord has rescued me from. See, I have been in some really awful pits. Some were my fault, and some were the fault of others. But God has rescued me and truly has replaced the old with the new. He has faithfully worked to bind the wounds from my past, and let me walk in newness and freedom. As I was rambling through the details of my story, I mentioned a few girls I had done some form of ministry with in the past. I spoke of how they are godly women from sweet families with parents that protected them and set them on the right path. They are women that a godly man would be lucky to have as his wife. They understand what it means to love, and have many people people in their life that cover them with it. (Mention of them was only a minor detail in my story, so I continued on to get to my point) But before I could get many more words out,  Laura stopped me, and she said, "You know that you are no less of a woman than they are, right?" I smiled, gave a small shrug, a half nod, and began to continue on with my story. She must have seen right through that because she stopped me again. Her eyes began to fill with tears, and she said, "We were all naked in the grave. We all fell short. They needed His rescuing just as much as you did. You are no less of a woman than they are." She spoke with conviction of how that was a lie straight from the enemy and was to be rejected.

I didn't realize how much credibility I had given to that lie. It wasn't something I had really even considered before.  But as I thought and prayed in the days to come, I saw that this had taken a root in my heart. I had been deceived.

The Enemy wants us to be convinced that we are not quite as adequate, lovable, desirable, worthy, valued , and possibly godly as others. We need to reset how we define godliness. Godliness has a definition composed by the state of one's heart. Godliness is one's desire, pursuit and commitment to the Lord. It is walking in His light and living a continual life of repentance in order to counterpart in His glorification. It is not measured by appearance, one' past, the number of people who love or accept them, or one's actions alone. It is something that can only be truly measured by the Lord, because He sees the heart. Some of us may be starting the race at a different place because of our past, but the heart is what He cares about.  His love calls you worthy. He calls you His precious treasure whom He delights knowing. He sees your heart and He alone gets to make that judgement call. He is your defender, and He is a god of Truth.

Your turn. Are there women in your life (Christian or not), that you deep down believe are more of a woman than you are? Her breasts are bigger, she is able to bear children, her husband didn't leave her, why wasn't she broken, abused and rejected like I was, she is desired by all, her in laws want her in their family... you fill in the blank.

The Lord reminds me of these words:
I don't care where you have fallen, or where you have been. I'll never forsake you, My love never ends. It never ends.

1 Samuel 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, Look not on his appearance or at the height of his stature, for I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

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