Enabled, Empowered and Equipped

The other day, I was assigned as the compressor for an incoming patient in the emergency department. I walked into the trauma room and was instructed to apply gloves and stand on a stool right next to the hospital bed. As the patient was brought in by EMS, I began CPR. With one leg on the hospital bed, I furthered my reach as the patient was transferred from the stretcher to the hospital bed. I started counting each push into the patient's chest.

one. two. three. four. five. six. seven.

I did my absolute best to give quality compressions. The fast-pace emergency started to play out slower in my mind; I thought about the time between each compression, the depth I pushed into the patient's chest, the respiratory therapist to my right. Would this patient come out alive?

If my patient had refused care and told us, "Nope, I'm not experiencing cardiac arrest; keep your hands off me," then we would have been unable to rescue the patient. (Obviously if the patient was conscious and talking then we would not be doing compressions anyway).

In a similar way, every human being to ever walk the earth has a terminal disease: sin (Romans 3:23). If we refuse to come to grips with the truth that our sin separates us from God and that we cannot save ourselves, then we will die in our sin and spend all eternity separated from our worthy God. The Great Physician longs to rescue the broken, fallen, and sinful.

The notably religious people of Jesus' time were the Pharisees; they followed extensive ritualistic laws, taught in synagogues, and were admired by many. They looked spiritual, but their hearts were full of pride.

Jesus said to them: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness" (Matthew 23:27-28).

"Those who are well have no need of a Physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17b).

Those who are self-righteous aren't needy for God (truly they are, but they refuse to admit it); Jesus did not come for those who believe that they have it all together, but for broken sinners who acknowledge their need for a Mighty Savior to lift them from the miry clay. My redemption could never be accomplished through human whims and performance. If I don't acknowledge my need for Him, I resemble the Pharisees. Do you know how Jesus felt about the Pharisees' hearts? He was "...grieved over the hardness of their heart" (Mark 3:5). Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has said,

"If I lose my my neediness, I lose my usefulness."

It's in our desperation for our Savior that we may be used in the way He intended. He is the only One who can give us new life and cause us to walk in His fullness. "God isn't looking for sponsors; He's looking for servants. He isn't looking for people who have sufficiency" (Leonard Ravenhill).

My only wholeness is in Jesus.

"And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power" (Colossians 2:10).

He is Lord, and I am not. I need Him to lead, teach, help and sustain me. Despite what this world loudly proclaims, no, I am not enough in and of myself. If all there is is me and that has to be sufficient for this entire lifetime, my am I in trouble.

In my own pockets, I do not find the strength, hope, grace, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, love, or self-control I need to triumph in the journey ahead. I am so empty of all good and full of what is wrong apart from Christ.

But in Jesus, because He laid His perfect life down for me, I have what I need.

"His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge [epiginosko] of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires" (2 Peter 1:3-4).

As we abide in Christ, by His transforming grace, we are changed more and more into His likeness.

"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers" (Romans 8:26-29).

My patient had to come into the hospital acknowledging their need for resuscitation. (In regard to medical situations, passing out is a definite acknowledgment of needing help). Even so, we fall at the feet of Jesus, desperately lacking, but willing to give our everything up in full surrender to the only One who can revive us out of our spiritual disease and deadness. We must come to Him with humbled hearts; we do not have it in the bag. We are not everything we're meant to be. Oh how we need our Savior to work in us; as believers, it's only by abiding in Him that we can bring forth any fruit that will glorify Him.

This abiding is restful, enabling, and empowering. By running to Him for strength, we are equipped to "...live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God" (Colossians 1:10).

Lean. Depend. Abide. Be desperate for Jesus. He will empower us as we look to Him for grace to continue onward and inward.

The well of Living Water never runs dry; He cares about our needs even more than we do, and provides for us. Jehovah Jireh dwells in us and goes before us; He is gladly willing to meet the needs of His desperate people, if we will acknowledge our need for Him.

Feminism and the Gospel: Continuing the Conversation

I definitely do not consider myself an expert on feminism in the least, and I do not wish to be. And I am certain that my other article - Feminism: Friend or Foe -  reflected that. Many of my examples and stories came from personal observations and conversations with my feminist friends. The example of Kyle was intended to be a depiction of many different facets of feminism. There are most definitely feminists that do believe that women are more evolved than men (like this example: http://people.com/movies/ryan-gosling-says-women-are-better-than-men-wants-female-president/) [of course, I believe that God is the creator, and therefore do not agree with evolution at all, but this is an important point to many feminists, so I included it]. And according to the modern view of feminism, holding doors for anyone breaks the sense of equality they seek to develop (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/11063234/Why-I-no-longer-hold-doors-open-for-women.html). So technically, if you think it’s a good idea for men to hold doors open for women (I definitely think it’s a good idea!) then you cannot also fully agree with feminism - the idea that seeks equality in absolutely everything, even in door holding (which should apparently, according to the feministic viewpoint, would always and only be for yourself).

I honestly didn’t know that it’s full equality that feminists seek until I received a message from a reader. And I don’t believe that Christian men (or women for that matter) seeking to follow Jesus can be feminists because, if a man is living out the pattern of masculinity that God has set for him (to be the protector and leader [see Gen. 3:16 - notice that God says “And he {Adam} shall rule over you {Eve}”, and see Eph. 5:24-25] ; and the first one to lay their life down [check out: Eph. 5:25-29]), then it’s not equality - someone else is being put before yourself.

If the church ultimately accepted the notion of feminism, it would be like throwing a grenade at ourselves - it would be like saying “Hey Enemy! Come over here and tell us what you think gender should look like!” Ultimately, after a fair bit of research this weekend, I have come to understand feminism as the view “I’ll treat you as well as you treat me!” (That is equality). Would you say that Jesus was a promoter of equality? Jesus was the servant of all - maybe one way to put it could be “the ultimate door holder” - He, more than anyone else, deserved special treatment. If I may steal a quote from an anonymous author: “Wouldst thou be a chief? Then lowly serve. Wouldst thou go up? Then go down. But go as low as you will and the Highest [Jesus] has been lower still” (emphasis added). We, as believers, are meant to be Jesus to those around us (Him living in us, and emptying us more and more of ourselves, and filling us more and more with Himself).

He didn’t get treated with equality. And I have no doubt in my mind that if our Jesus had wanted equality (in the sense of “I’ll treat you as well as you treat me”) then the entire human race would have been abruptly eliminated from the face of the earth the very day Adam and Eve sinned. God deserved our total worship, admiration, and praise, and yet when Eve sought equality with God and disregarded Him completely, it eventually ended in the reverse effect - God coming down to earth, the beautiful servant of all, who washed His disciples’ feet (His students, whom He knew would forsake Him later), healed lepers, forgave the prostitute, healed blind beggars, and let the little children come unto Him - and ultimately took our sin and bore it on the Cross. That’s some major inequality.

If our lives are going to be aligned with His, then equality gets thrown out the window, and we each must view one another as better than ourselves and seek to serve one another - no matter if the other person will serve us in return or not. If we’re totally obsessed with Jesus Christ, then our view of feminism will be radically different from the culture’s. Feminism should seem a far off notion to the Christian because, feminism is built upon the foundation of “my rights, my way, my interpretation.” This idea, as Kristen Clark has said, is woven with the same sin Satan committed in the beginning. A person whose life is built upon Jesus Christ has lost sight of oneself - one’s rights,one’s way, their interpretation - are all swallowed up in passionate pursuit of Jesus. If my life is all about Him, then I have no theme of my own - whatever He’s proclaiming is what I’m proclaiming too!

Do you believe that Jesus Christ proclaimed feminism (AKA equality)? Let’s see what His Word says:  

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11 ESV, emphasis added).

I’m no theologian, but I say that it was zero percent fair for Him to die for us. Jesus taking the blow for our sin = equality??? Jesus taking on the punishment I fully deserve, and making me a co-heir with Himself = totally fair? I don’t know about you, but if I took someone else’s punishment, and then shared my inheritance with them, I probably wouldn’t have felt like we had both gotten what we deserved. Jesus deserved adoration, we gave Him scorn. We absolutely and fully deserved hell because we broke His law, but He took our punishment so that we could have a chance to know Him. There’s something massively unfair and unequal about that. He gets the worse end of the deal, we get to be His children, if we will accept Him as our Lord.

What should make us uncomfortable about the “Kyle” example in my other post, is that, on almost every point, he’s nothing like Jesus!

One reader of my other feminism article said: “If feminism really did believe that men were dumb and nuisances, while women were to be exalted above others, I agree that such a philosophy would stand in opposition to the Bible. If we go with the definition that a feminist believes in the social, political, and economical equality of the sexes, then I actually believe that the Bible supports feminism and gender equality.”

The problem I have with gender equality is the simple fact that God did not create equal sexes. The definition of “equal” reveals some important thoughts:

Equal - Uniform in application or effect; without discrimination on any grounds.

I believe wholeheartedly that God values men and women the same amount - I do not believe for a moment that God has a “favorite gender.” A favorite Scripture of Christian feminists is Galatians 3:28. It says:

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (emph. added).

If we dissect this a bit, we find that when His Word tells us that we “are all one in Christ Jesus”, the idea is not that we have no distinction between each other, but that there is unity. The Greek word there for “one” is, “εἷς, μία, ἕν” or transliterated: heis. It is also commonly translated  as -  alike, agreement, common, individual, individuality, unity -  we are the church, His bride. And oh what a day it will be when the men and women of our generation choose to stop chasing the agendas of this world - be that feminism, self-glorification, personal success, or whatever - and walk out into the open carrying absolutely nothing but the Cross! Self completely crucified, and Jesus Christ magnified and exalted. Then and only then will we be able to have the kind of unity described here in Galatians.

This is the kind of unity that is made up of men and women laboring together for the honor of their king - in the roles God has created for them. And He has given us all the information we need in His Word about what it means to be a man or woman of God. Feminism is crafted by the whims of the culture, Christ-centered masculinity and femininity were intricately designed by our God.

It is no cultural mistake that the woman has been called “the weaker vessel” (see 1 Peter 3:7). Ladies, this is the legitimate truth, and we should be excited about it! We are a picture of Christ’s bride, and if we believe that God is all-powerful, then we must agree that His bride is not all-powerful; she is dependant upon Her heavenly Bridegroom to provide for her every need - He is her strength, her joy, her peace, her endurance, and her everything. Other than Jesus Christ, there is no such man in this wide world. We, as Jesus-centered women are created for Jesus - to know Him and to make Him known. Such is the purpose of masculinity as well - that Jesus Christ would be Lord over their lives and their closest heart friend. And each man was created to be a picture of Jesus. This is why we see the man’s role as provider and initiator; it’s who our Jesus is, and the reflection He desires to see in the lives of the men around us. Ephesians 5:23 has such a great picture of this:  "For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.”  

The reader continues, “In the series ‘Romans For You’ by Tim Keller… He outlines how Paul’s discussion of adoption was actually radically different than the cultural ideas of adoption at the time. In Roman culture, women were not considered valid for adoption, since adoption was seen only as a means to distribute an inheritance. Since only males could receive an inheritance, only males were considered eligible for adoption. Paul challenges this by saying that God adopts His children as sons AND daughters, going against the culture of the time and promoting women to a position of equal opportunity with men. Reasons like this are why I support gender equality from a Christian worldview.”

My response to this is, as I previously stated, God loves men and women equally, but He has different roles for them. I agree completely that God adopts His children as sons and daughters, but Paul’s intention was not to exalt women! Paul knew his position - In Christ! And the only one to be exalted as we stand in Christ is, of course, Christ! God has made us as women to be bearers of life and nurturers of relationships, but our ultimate purpose is to glorify His name! He uses the roles He has designed us for - bearers and nurturers - in many different settings, according to His will for our lives. Even if you and I never become moms biologically, we are meant to be bearers of new life - meaning that we bring the Gospel with us everywhere we go, and disciple the women God brings into our lives, as He sees fit.  

No matter how your life looks twenty years from now, His will is for you to follow Him in obedience in every area of your life. His Word is very clear about the roles and design for womanhood and manhood; this is serious stuff, unlike what our culture is telling us! It is not our job to “match” the men. There is no place in all of Scripture where we are told to pursue equality; as a matter of fact, we are commanded in His Word to have this attitude about our rights:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:5-7a).

We are commanded to be servants; not “personal rights activists.” May our womanhood ever be marked by servant-hood, and a full abandonment to Jesus Christ - in the way we view and exercise our role and in the way we understand the man’s role - and in every other place in our lives.   

I have found that if our culture is promoting something, I must not look at it from their point of view, ever. I have to see everything through the lens of God’s Word. As we navigate through current issues - feminism and beyond - we must know His Word! Or we will become the women as described in second Timothy: “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (2 Tim. 3:1-7 NASB, emph. added).

Our God is fully aware of the state of our world and the strong pull of feminism. And He is not applauding it! He knows that feminism will one day fall, and all shall be as He intended.

 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5 NIV).

A final thought for the person who has come to the end of this article and is still a feminist: do you think we will be feminists in heaven? Focused on gaining equality between men and women? If you know God’s Word, you’ve probably caught onto something - Scripture and all of life is about Him! Not us, but Him! And when we are all in eternity together our focus will be perfectly set upon Him, and there will be no temptation to look anywhere else.

Men and women of the Cross, we are citizens of heaven, even now.

May we live as such.

The Day I Failed My Driving Test

It was a cold, cloudy kind of day with fresh snow on the ground when I went to take my Driver's Skills test. If I passed this test, I could get my license by Christmas. I was nervous, to say the least, but I reasoned that I had logged nearly seventy hours of driving under supervision, so I should be ready. The instructor took me out to the car and began explaining what the test would involve; everything sounded great, until one little phrase caught me: "If you fail the parking skills portion of the test, we will not go on to the driving skills portion."

In my mind I was thinking, "Wait a second... I'm not good at parallel parking, but I can drive okay... can't we test the driving first? I'll be driving a lot more than I'll be crazy backwards parking anyways, right?" Nevertheless, I put the family minivan in drive and headed over to multiple lines of bright, orange cones with white, plastic pipes sticking out of them. "This is probably easy, I've practiced a ton. It will be great!" Umm yeah... not quite... twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the passenger sea, tearing up over the fact that I had failed.

My mom already knew most of the details, but I went ahead and re-lectured her on all the ways I should have done better. Times pulled forward while in parallel parking position: basically 1,000, cones hit when backing in: at least 2..."Maybe I'll never get my license. I am a terrible driver! I always fail." Interesting, apparently my momentary optimism had faded.

As you can see in my embarrassing story, so often we can go from the enthusiastic-optimistic-roses-are-all-red attitude, to “everything is going completely wrong.” The day before I took the test I had prayed, “Have your way in this test, Lord.” I had left it in His hands - until my moment of panic - then all the sudden I went back and basically said: “Hi Lord, do you mind if I have that burden back? Putting it on my own shoulders will be perfect.”

As my mom drove us home, I began thinking of all the reasons why this circumstance was unbelievable: it cost $50 for the test, my dad will probably be upset, now I have a “record,” and there is a houseful of people waiting at home who were going to ask with bright eyes and big smiles, “did you pass?”

Having a Christ-centered response is a whole lot more than optimism, it’s an attitude of the heart - one that the Lord wants to build into your life, and guess what? He is using all the people in your life and every circumstance to mold you into His likeness. Just as I wished the instructor had tested my driving skills instead of my parking skills, sometimes I allow myself to believe that if the Lord would only test some other area of my life — then I’d pass His test. But if He gave us our way in things, would we really become like Him?  Would we be reminded of our continual need and dependency on our Savior?

No.

After I had failed my Driver’s Skills test, there were so many things I could have chosen to be thankful for: I had a very sweet instructor, the road wasn’t icy that morning, I got signed up right away to retake the test, and more.  I’m the one who would always go around to family members and remind them, “gratitude is the inner attitude of thanksgiving!” Yet, when a difficult moment came (which was a great opportunity to live what I had already said), I complained and did not overflow with the love of Christ, as we are called to (Jn. 13:34-35).

     

That test was a lot more than just a test on my driving abilities; I believe that the Lord was testing my heart. Would I still praise Him even if I didn’t receive my desired outcome? I could have, but instead I saw it as something I deserved but hadn’t yet received. My attitude was, “Lord don’t I deserve this? I’ve been learning for a year and a half! Everyone else my age has already gotten their license.” It’s amazing how we can hide wrong motives even from ourselves! I am so thankful that God does not leave me in my sin; He loves me so much that He’s willing to let me fail, feel pain, and go through rough times so that I might glorify Him more fully. How often in your life do you allow yourself to become ungrateful, simply because things aren’t going your own way?

Another thing that happened after I had failed my test was that I allowed my mind to dwell on thoughts about myself, “maybe I’ll never get my license,” “I’m a terrible driver,” “I always fail.” I should have directed my thoughts to Christ and the fact that He never changes and never fails, even when I do. In the moments of failure, discouragement, and pain we prove who we trust, who we believe, who we want to be successful. Am I seeking to glorify myself?
Oswald Chambers once said:

“Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God’s purpose is not to perfect me to make me a trophy in His showcase; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He wants.”

When I try to pick up my own agenda and run with it, I fail miserably, but when I surrender my plans to Him, I can know that He will accomplish His will in and through me. When you and I purpose to do His work in His time and in His way, life changes - it is no longer an aching burden - but rather, a joyful assignment sent from the King Himself.
You don’t have to make my mistake! Ask the Lord to give you His response in every situation - ask that He would overtake you and that His love would be radiated through every fiber of your being.

 But don’t forget that you cannot have Christ-centered responses on your own strength, or you will fail miserably. Instead of asking yourself, “what would Jesus do in this situation?” Ask the Lord how He would like you to respond. Can you imagine how my Driver’s Test situation could have turned out differently if I had made it my first priority to bring Him glory instead of myself?