Monday, 10 August 2020
And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” – Genesis 2:23.
Yesterday’s message was compact, it was timely and fitting. Beautiful in its simplicity and intricate in spiritual implication. It was a charge, it was instructive and commanding and there was so much to harvest from it. I want to touch on one aspect of the teaching which came from the Martha and Mary encounter in Luke chapter 10. I dare say that this is the stencil for the two types of women who exist today in the body of Christ, you are either a Martha or you are a Mary.
I love how in the amplified version the Bible says Martha was “busy and distracted with all of her serving responsibilities“, so it’s not that Martha wasn’t doing what she was supposed to be doing as one who had welcomed Jesus into her home, but she did not rightly interpret the presence of Jesus in her home. She thought that as a woman she had to be hopping around doing this and that at this time, and Mary her sister (a woman) was supposed to be helping her, they had a brother, Lazarus who could have also helped, but it fell on Mary as a woman to help Martha. Then Jesus says to Martha “you are bothered about many things” this tells us Christ’s (the One we are living to please) expectation is not man’s expectation, because even in this age Martha would have gotten all the applause and adulation for doing what a woman should be doing but Mary, Jesus said, ‘chose the good part [that which is to her advantage]’. Who knows, the siblings knew each other well, Mary probably knew Martha would lose it but she had to make a choice, Jesus was in the house, it was either she was going to drink from this life spring or miss out on the moment in hopes that maybe the anointing would still rub off on her somehow, but she placed honor and high esteem on giving her full attention to Jesus first, and He said sitting at His feet was most advantageous for her.
We dim our light by getting lost in our womanhood and femininity instead of getting lost in Christ. Today it’s all about identity, and this ‘search for self’ never seems to end, it’s one thing in one era, and it’s another in the next era. Remember God is the Father of spirits (Hebrews 12:9) and that in Him there is neither male nor female (so this tells me that at the judgement we will not be measured by gender, but by assignment). The key thing is to remain at the feet of Christ where our light is powered to shine it’s brightest. Without Christ as the anchor of our identity we are weakened, weakened by what people say and what man does to us. The account in Luke 10 tells us that the world’s view of gender and identity will always be skewed and that the closer we draw to Christ we will be shunned by man and misunderstood by believers, but accepted by Christ. Woman, you dim your light when you follow the world telling you you have to speak out, be loud and proud, fight, resist, revolt, rebel because you are oppressed, I have never met an oppressed Christ-woman, only women who draw close to Jesus, staying at His feet by accepting and playing their role of praying, knitting the household together through their good works, love, humility, and submission, for the sake of Christ, preaching the Gospel without fear or favour, and bringing many to Christ, thus oiling their lamps and shinning their light ever brighter as they are filled with His Spirit. Our proximity to Christ is the truest measure of effectiveness in our calling. The calling is to be woman, the calling is to please God through your faculties and attributes (1 Peter 3:3-4), by holding yourself up to Christ, to seek His validation, His approval and that His will be done in your life, not yours, not somebody else’s, His Will, and His alone!
We dim our light by getting lost in our womanhood and femininity instead of getting lost in Christ
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