Rodger and I were discussing the role of women in the church. We agree that women are not leaders in the church but played an important role in their Christian relationships.
Women also are important for the helping of the spread of the gospel. Even street preaching can be one of those callings of the woman. Not very many women are called to this but many are called to speak truth boldly in their relationships to both men and women, as well as children.
When my husband and I moved to South Carolina there were two very godly women who influenced us. They demonstrated a fervor for the truth and a life completely enmeshed in Christ.
These two women deeply influenced Rodger, encouraging him in training himself in the Word as well as using that training to preach to the rest of the body.
Mary and Melly-Sue were wonderful influences in our lives and in Rodgers life especially. They both approached him to encourage him in his walk.
It was in South Carolina that we decided to be baptized. There is where we found the Bible to be preached, the Berean attitude that brought us along spiritually, farther than we had ever been before.
Rodger and I came from traditions in which women remained silent about the things of the Lord. They never spoke the name of Jesus Christ, nor did they teach anything from the Bible. Rodger's comment to me during this discussion was; "I didn't come from a tradition where women were the ones silent, everyone was silent, men and women alike."
We praise the Lord for those godly women who approached Rodger to encourage him in the Word. I had already been in the word for a number of years, but Rodger was too busy with work and causes to really spend much time in it.
Because of these two women my husband and I were able to embark on a whole new adventure of seeking the Word together.
Rodger was raised Catholic from the cradle. He believed he was born a Catholic and was going to die a Catholic. When the Lord got hold of him, he became born again our relationship took a very different path.
Since I was born again before him, we didn't walk together much in spiritual matters. After he became born again our relationship became more of a team working together than each person going their own way.
This is the reason I encourage those who are married to non-believers to hang in there and pray. One never knows what God will use to bring an unsaved spouse to Him.
There will be those who want to inject problems into the marriage by their idea of spirituality. They work to come between husband and wife to cause division. These people use their idea of the "rules", that are not Biblical to encourage the man to dominate over the woman. These people love their dominance and oppression over others, they are trouble makers. There cannot be love when there is dominance. Leading is what God calls for, that is encouragement and love not intimidation and manipulation.
1 Peter 5:3
"Not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock."
Ephesians 5:25: “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her."
Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." ... He who loves his wife loves himself.
A husband and wife are one, Christ made them that in marriage. The wife is the other half of her husband. It is vitally important that the husband listen to the counselor that God gave him in his other half.
We are former Catholics, one having discovered truth before the other, conflict came, prayer increased and the other became born again about ten years later. It can happen, but one things for sure, it probably won't happen if there isn't much prayer, either by us or by others who are watching.
We must pray for wayward or unsaved spouses. Don't gloat when they become born again, its not our work, its the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. It is a joy when the Lord responds to our prayers.
I still pray for our unsaved children and their spouses, although became weary a couple of years ago and stopped praying for them. I didn't regret that because God heard all those prayers from 40 years ago until now, they still counted. But I needed a rest from thinking about them and their foolishness. After the rest I began again and have continued.
When we become tired of the fight, the stubbornness we see in those we love, then is the time to take a step back and spend some time getting closer to Christ Who lives in us.
All our prayers even past ones still count, there is no time or past and future with God. Never be discouraged that the one more prayer was the one that counted and you didn't do it. Our prayers remain heard even after the last prayer no matter how long ago it was.
All we really want is imbedded in our heart, that is for those who are not yet born again to become so, and those who are pretenders to realize their need to submit to Christ, realizing their good deeds are not going to get them there, nor will their rule following. It is a continual seeking the Holy Spirit that is the evidence of the born again experience.
John 16:12-14 "…12 I still have much to tell you, but you cannot yet bear to hear it. 13 However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you.…"
There are many pretenders who minimize the work of the Holy Spirit as though He must work at our bidding. They do not go to Him for guidance, they command Him what to do.
May this arrogance of telling the Holy Spirit what He should do must go from the mind of the one who prays.
Seeking God means asking Him to show us about ourselves that we might repent and be cleansed.
1 John 1:9
"9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Luke 18:9-14
"9 And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt:
10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11 The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
12 I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’
13 But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’
14 I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
