Her

This is for the women. But, the wise fellas out there will listen up.

This is my first official writing since my return from Kenya where I was engaged in a long and diverse ministry endeavor that took our team across most of the country. On a side note, all my travel muscles have been put to the test, which means, hopefully, I can be a bit more resilient next time on thirty-hour travel cycles… believe with me! If you are interested in seeing some footage, I encourage you to follow Dorcas Destiny International and their Facebook page. It was an honor to enjoy the beautiful country and its precious people with Donna Werner and Pastor Craig Harvey, our very own Beloved peeps.

In an effort to tone down some of my High Gospel rhetoric, there was a statement I used to make that has been reduced in my more recent communication. There is still some truth in it, but it causes many hearers to struggle. The phrase was, “I do not believe anyone can be a fully mature Christian until they have spent at least a month in a third-world nation doing ministry.” I will openly admit that statement is completely produced as a personal opinion, so if you argue against it, you will argue alone because I have no scripture as a witness. Yet, the premise should be understood, especially here in America, the birthplace of church-i-anity. The inspiration for that statement comes from our inability, as modern Americans, to have even a peripheral awareness of the price that is paid in suffering and pain, as the majority of the eight billion people endure just to survive from day to day. Add to that the additional, lamentable inflictions upon those who choose to follow Christ and increase that suffering. When you see seven-year-old, mostly naked orphan children rummaging through garbage for food or necessities, it reminds you about that time you (not YOU of course) complained about your barely overcooked, gourmet, Angus burger that you demanded to be replaced and compensated for your troubles. (My decades in the restaurant business gave me more of a reality hip-check about ‘Christians’ than most others will ever have.)

One of the glaring realities that can just slap you in the face is the disparaging inequality still faced by women in much of the world. While we here in the progressive, modernized Western world are running at breakneck speeds to completely cancel womankind with the support and weapons of feminists and feminism, the majority of present-day humanity are still struggling to emerge from religiously and politically induced female repression. Much of the world still has a ‘dark ages’ mentality of accepting that things are how they are, and it seems that there is no one to rescue these cultures from that repression. This is infuriating to me because the MAIN PURPOSE of the Gospel is to Liberate and Restore!

Luke 4:16-19 BSB

Then Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. As was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath. And when He stood up to read, the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Just as a friendly FYI, I could preach on these verses for DAYS… but I will spare you and my typing fingers from that adventure. To keep with the thematic direction we started with, allow me to highlight some divine truths exposed here.

• Jesus went back to His hometown, to His home church, to start the most glorious, divine, powerful, truthful, and eternal ministry ever done. That is important. Jesus had a HOME church… that He was so committed unto that His eternal ministry needed to start there. Those who call themselves Christians should have the attitude of Christ who, “As was His custom,” joined the local believing community in person! (Online church is an oxymoron… consider etymology: online = remote, church = to congregate together.) This new, supernatural gift that was given to Him compelled Him to go to His home folks first. We Americans have problems here at home. We, both men and women, should be on fire with righteous indignation at the new breed of woman-abuse clothed as liberal progress or wokeism that puts pedophiles in girls’ locker rooms by force of law. Additionally, they gain permission to mutilate the bodies of little girls by mentally abusing them through indoctrination until they are so confused that they want a doctor (witch doctor) to castrate them to make the pain go away… but that is when the real pain just begins. Transvestites are being promoted to specifically take away from authentic feminine achievements in business, sports, and marketing making real women obsolete. The nuclear family is under a scorched earth command of assault and it seems the women, even the Christian women, are mostly tolerating it. And can someone tell me where are the men? The chivalrous men, who once existed with high regard for protecting and honoring the ‘weaker’ sex… They have disappeared under skinny jeans (or skirts), soy milk frappes, gamer-pic avatars, and furry costumes. No wonder we have ugly men in high heels pretending to be military officers in the current administration… they effectively image the new masculinity.
• Notice that Jesus, “found the place,” that He was to use as the launching point of His cosmos-changing message and ministry we now call THE Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This was no accidental place in the Bible that Jesus just lazily flopped on the pulpit and blindly put a finger on hoping that something cool would pop out. This message was on purpose, and prepared before the foundations of the earth: Ephesians 1:9-10 “And He has made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together in Christ.”
• “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because…” that ‘because’ is important for context. I am illuminating this because as the ‘because’ was for Jesus it is the same ‘because’ for all of us who have the same Spirit. Hang onto that thought.
• What follows is five distinct clauses or facets of Spirit-filled ministry objectives that Jesus spent three-and-a-half years walking out in supernatural power, divine wisdom, and agape love. Here they are, quickly:
  1. Preach (proclaim) the Gospel (Good News) to folks in poverty (spiritually, soulishly, financially, or physically) so as to redeem them from it
  2. Proclaim (declare) liberty (liberation) to the captives (repressed, oppressed, tyrannized, enslaved)
  3. Recovery of sight to the blind: restoring spiritual clarity in a dark world, bringing revelation light to those trapped in darkness, AND healing physically sick people… like He did in nearly every meeting (and is still doing in every meeting unless hindered by religious leaders or erroneous traditions based in bad doctrines by wrong hermeneutics and incomplete exegesis)
  4. Release the oppressed: a jailbreak! What qualifies one for the ‘release’ is the condition of being ‘oppressed’
  5. To proclaim (announce) the Year of the Lord’s Favor: this is a clear reference to the ‘Jubilee’ of Leviticus 25. The Jubilee was to be observed every 50th year, and it involved several practices aimed at promoting social equality, economic stability, and spiritual renewal.
     • Social Equality: The Jubilee was a year of liberation, where slaves and servants were set free. This was a significant step towards social equality, as it prevented the formation of a permanent underclass.
     • Economic Stability: During the Jubilee year, all land was to be returned to its original owners. This prevented the concentration of land ownership and ensured that each family had access to the resources they needed for survival. It also prevented the formation of large estates and the accumulation of wealth by a few.
     • Spiritual Renewal: The Jubilee was also a time of spiritual renewal. It was a year of rest for the land, which was to lie fallow. This allowed the land to recover its fertility, reminding the people of their dependence on God for their sustenance.

That is about as abbreviated as I can get with those monumental verses. I want to point out something really necessary for our message context today: of the five clauses, three of them were directly and specifically about liberation and freedom. This is one of the reasons this message so deeply resonates in my heart. You could say three-fifths of the Gospel is about Liberty. For the Holy Cause Of Liberty!

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon us BECAUSE we are Liberators also.

Here is a New Covenant definition of true Kingdom Liberty:

“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.”

Galatians 3:27-29 BSB

I do not have the time or the desire to get into a deep dive into the scriptural reality of the co-equal importance of women in the Kingdom, life, and ministry. There are tons of resources available to you to make that leap if you need a full immersion. Start HERE with Doc Ryan on Expedition 44 as a diving board.

Paul and Jesus both considered gals important enough to co-minister with them, so anyone with a different opinion would only be able to argue from an arrogant platform believing themself to have a better opinion than the Lord (the Head of His church) and Paul who authored 2/3rds of the Epistles to the churches and their leaders.

“Soon afterward, Jesus traveled from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with Him, as well as some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna the wife of Herod’s household manager Chuza, Susanna, and many others. These women were ministering to them out of their own means.”

Luke 8:1-3 BSB

“Yes, and I ask you, my true yokefellow, to help these women who have labored with me for the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life.”

Philippians 4:3 BSB

Gals have a unique struggle based on human history and creative purpose.

In the beginning, they (ladies) were uniquely created and positioned to have a divine role in the life of man. This was considered a ‘very good’ thing by God’s own mouth. What was so radical about that statement was that the ONLY thing considered to be ‘very good’ in the creation account was the union of her and him. Maybe you can pick up on why the enemy of humanity has such a vile hatred of ‘her’… She makes life ‘very good’ and she was where the promised seed was to come from Who crushed his ugly snake head with His heel at Golgatha (Christus Victor).

Genesis 3:15 BSB

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.
He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

This was a massive motivator for the nachash (that old serpent, the devil) to persecute, oppress, suffocate, humiliate, and devalue HER ever since. That viper taught MANkind some nasty tricks and we have been perpetuating the cycle ever since, and sadly, even in the modern church, we have built massive strongholds to reduce HER potential.

This erroneous position of two thousand years of secular human culture combined with heretical doctrines perpetrated through false premises has created a three-tiered battleground for womankind to wade into:

(1) The environmental battleground against established male oppression.

(2) The spiritual battleground against religious hierarchical structures.

(3) The internal battleground against her own formed identity.

Ladies, we (mankind… humanity) need you to win all three. For the sake of the world, for the sake of the Kingdom, for the sake of the family… please win.

Here is how you win. Start with (3) and own it. This cannot be done through secular feminism because they have destroyed God’s image of femineity and replaced it with hyper-sexism. The only way to win is with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Jesus is the Creator of your identity and only through the ‘whole counsel of God’ will you be able to properly recalibrate your identity to the blueprint of His creation.

Then, it is (2) next. Sadly, what may need to happen is that some of these oppressive and bigoted ‘churches’ need to experience a mass exodus of women (and courageous men) who heroically will not tolerate God’s daughters being treated in an anti-Christ way. When that happens, it will force those ministers to face scriptural reality and repent or they will have their candle removed by the Lord. I know there are not many churches today that have embraced and committed to fostering a liberated spiritual environment, but there are more than there were. If those churches were ‘rewarded’ with genuine attendees, that would send a signal to Christendom that what was once tolerated will no longer be.

Once SHE is right in her heart and identity, AND the church properly holds her in value, (1) will have no choice but to submit. Culture is downstream of the church. When we get it right, the world will have to conform or suffer the spiritual consequences of wrestling with God. Nobody wins that fight… and never will. The world persists because we, the church, are obstinately dug in.

The blatant reality of the normalcy of the second-class status of womankind in Africa (and most, if not all places I have been all over the world) was an ice-bucket alarm clock awakening me to the necessity of fighting this good fight of faith. I am encouraged that progress is being made, but we have so far to go yet. This awakening is part of THE Great Awakening we are in.

During the mid-Scamdemic fight where our children were targeted for abuse by the schools through forced masking (child abuse) and distance learning (educational abuse), these decisions literally threw our helpless and innocent children into the viper’s pit where sexual, physical, and mental abuse could be perpetrated without hinderance by their abusers because we removed the safety net of mandated reporters. The ones given the last line of defense for our kids became the abusers jamming masks and suppression down their throats. I often wondered “Where are the men” (again)? This eventually became the year of the Mama-Bear. The moms showed up… in courage, in numbers, in righteous anger. They were the tip of the spear of the movement that is now gaining strength for children’s rights being recaptured in our nation.

Our society is in desperate need of the return of ‘The Virtuous Woman.’

Proverbs 31 defines her… Jesus gave her the grace to fulfill her definition, and men(!) we have a responsibility to fight for her, affirm her, exhort her, and liberate her when necessary from the three battlegrounds.

10 A wife of noble character, who can find? She is far more precious than rubies.

11 The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he lacks nothing of value.

12 She brings him good and not harm all the days of her life.

Men! Can I get an ‘amen’ to that? Gals, can I get a ‘that’s right’? One of my favorite things to tell Kay (my virtuous bride) is that my heart safely trusts in her and she makes me lack nothing. I found my precious ruby of noble character.

17 She girds herself with strength and shows that her arms are strong.

18 She sees that her gain is good, and her lamp is not extinguished at night.

This ain’t no sissy chick… no sir. The virtuous woman is a strong woman, with capacity and capability that exceeds the faux version of a woman selling her body and soul on media or in the workplace. The virtuous woman is not advanced by her cleavage, she is promoted, blessed, and rewarded by her grace. She is known for her arms (strength of action) not her other visible parts…

23 Her husband is known at the city gate, where he sits among the elders of the land.

The benefits to the husband of a virtuous woman are greatly underrealized. I KNOW that much of my success can be directly attributed to Kay’s virtuous character. There is NO WAY I could be who I am and do what I do today if it was not for her. So, I rise up and call her blessed! I am known at the city gate (influence, authority) because she has my back, standing arm-in-arm with my Lord.

26 She opens her mouth with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

Not criticism, not complaining, not gossip, not backbiting… but her mouth opens with wisdom and faithfulness in living. Faith-filled instruction is what her words are known for. That! Gals, be that!

28 Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband praises her as well:

29 “Many daughters have done noble things, but you surpass them all!”

Guys, it is time to admit the ‘GOOD THING’ (Proverbs 18:22) we have… sons and daughters, it is time for you to admit that your virtuous mother protected you from the destruction of your own ignorance more times than you have thanked her for. Rise Up! Our virtuous women put to shame the “Real Housewives of …”

30 Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

31 Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her at the gates.

Ladies, do not fall for that trap of being ‘charming’ by Hollywood standards. Do not get sucked into the plastic, make-up, glamour model version of false beauty that washes away, fades away, or ages away. Stay true to the true beauty that shines from the son-light of your character. Reverence for God is radiantly attractive… choose that over the culture that is promoting ‘Only Fans’ attraction.

Notice the fruit of her own life, hands, and choices are orchestrated by God to be what brings her praise. Gals, do not live for the praise of ANY man (except Jesus)… do not allow the trap of other people’s opinions to steal away the blessings of God’s righteous rewards. Do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do. That is how a virtuous woman positions herself for proper praise.

Dear sister, we need you in this battle to awaken humanity unto righteousness. We cannot get there without you. I for one promise to defend and protect your honor with all my life. I am sorry that this will be a tough battle, but remember ‘Heroes Do Hard Things’! The rewards will greatly outweigh the costs.

I love you,
Steve