Go Fish Ministries is a non-profit evangelical ministry, which seeks to aid victims of childhood sexual abuse, violent sexual assault, and domestic violence through it's various ministry efforts.
Go Fish Ministries
Friday, February 11, 2005
A New Millennium of Faithful Women
©2004 Rev. Kimberly Hartfield, B.S.
The new millennium has brought with it a new generation of young women. On the surface they are liberated from the strongholds of a patriarchal society of past centuries and most cultures. But in reality young women today are not much different than our mothers and grandmothers. We want all the same things they did, including a husband who truly loves us for who we are, a family that respects the efforts we make to craft better lives for them, and a self that nurtures our innermost needs in a way that does not forget who we are. Unfortunately, these things seem to evade us in this fast-paced world we live in. We grow up with these ideals, only to be faced with the realities of a husband who only loves us if, children who are disrespectful to us despite our efforts to maintain homes, jobs, school, etc., and finally a self that forgets who we really are when confronted by the harsh realities that we are not who the world would like us to be. We are faithful, even when life hits us dead in the face; we are strong, even when the world would like us to be weak; we are courageous, even when the world would like us to cower to its whims of change.
Even with these evidences of might, many women today are still living in the past ages of self-defeat, catering their lives to serving the temporal realms of sensuality, rather than serving the spiritual realms of the godly. We are servants in this world; either we will be servants of sin and live in defeat, or we will be servants of God and live victorious lives through His Son Jesus, who, by the way, treated women with utmost respect and love. When we seek love in the sensual realm without seeking it equally in the spiritual realm, ultimately we will not find what we are looking for. More than likely, we will find lust, rather than love. For man is human with physical needs; just as women are human with physical needs. When women let themselves be taken in by the lustful desires of man, without the aid of the spiritual commitment of love and marriage, then we will ultimately find ourselves lost in a world with little hope. But not entirely without hope, because even if we have found ourselves in these very circumstances, then we can awaken our spiritual eyes in wedded bliss to the husband that Christ longs to be for us. A Man who truly loves us and wants what is best for us; A God who knows the most intimate details of our being and who loves us anyway. When we place all our hopes and dreams in a physical union, and not in the union of our hearts toward God, then I am afraid we will be severely disappointed.
Many young women today, just as in past centuries live the early part of their lives building up a storehouse of hopes and dreams about love and marriage, and when they finally have it, find that it is still not enough. There is something missing. Earthly love is just not fulfilling. Often we wind up in divorce courts, DHS offices, homeless shelters, or poverty stricken homes with two, three or four kids, no husband, no job, no money, and seemingly no way out. Our previous husbands oftentimes live a more liberated and financially stable lifestyle after the divorce, while we women live struggling from day to day, dependant on government benefits just to make ends meet. Where is the liberation that the world has promised us? Where is the liberation that time has promised us? Where is the liberation of the new millennium?
Today, I tell you as a woman, we women will not find our liberation in the love or the lust of a man, in the respect of a job title, in the independence of the divorce courts, or in any other worldly thing which promises us freedom. Our freedom is found in serving a risen Lord and Savior, who is the only prince who will ever come riding up on a white horse to save us. And He will carry with Him a sword of truth! It will either pierce us through or cut our ropes of bondage. If we spend our temporal lives seeking love in all the wrong places, while forgetting His unconditional love for us, which would redeem us from all sin, then that truth will pierce our hearts when we see Him in His glory. But if we seek His undying love for us with our whole hearts, renouncing the temporal lives we once lived, then He will cut the ropes of sin and bondage and truly liberate us. Yet, we must seek Him in faith and truth! We must know that His shed blood on the cross of Calvary was the result of a love for us that He felt was worth dying for. He knew that mankind and womankind would only be liberated from sin through love. While we were yet sinners, He died for us!
He knew that through the love that He showed for us, we would come to love Him. He loved us first, and through the eyes of faith, we love Him back. He loves us not with a temporal love, but with an ethereal love, which frees us from the judgment of sin for all eternity. The liberty we have in His love first teaches us to love Him, and then teaches us to love ourselves, and in turn to love mankind. The love we have for ourselves is not that gratification of physical needs, but the gratification of a loving spiritual relationship with God and His Son Jesus. And that love for mankind is not a sensual love that gratifies man’s physical desires, but a spiritual love that gratifies His need for a spiritual relationship with God and His Son Jesus as well. And yet when we have this spiritual relation with God, He provides for our physical needs as well. So I challenge this new millennium of faithful women to live as servants to the Lord, not seeking temporal love, which may or may not last this lifetime, but to seek an ethereal love which will follow us through to eternity. If we seek God first, and ask Him to be our Spiritual Husband, then we will not be so quick to fall for the first physical man who comes along and tries to sweep us off our feet. For, only a godly man can come close to loving us as Christ does, indeed. And even then, he is human, and we will have disappointments. But when the disappointments come, we will not be devastated, for we will know there is a greater love in Heaven who will never fail us, nor leave us.
Awake!
Awake and do rightful acts, for some of us do not have an understanding of God. I tell you this to your shame! (I Corinthians 15:34) Awake, you who sleep, arise from the deadness of sin, and Christ will enlighten your spirit. See that you walk carefully, not foolishly, but wisely, buying the time because the days are evil (Ephesians 5:14-16). It is high time to awake out of sleep: for now our salvation is nearer than when we once believed it was. The night is almost over and the day is at hand: let us throw off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in sensuality and loose living, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for physical desires gratifying its lusts (Romans 13:11-14).
On the Masculinity of God and Christ
©2005 Rev. Kimberly Hartfield
Is God masculine? God said in the Bible, “I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst (Hosea 11:9).” The Bible also tells us in John 4:24 that God is Spirit and that those who worship must worship in spirit and truth. If God is not a man and God is a Spirit, then is God masculine and why do we think of God in such a way. The Bible as we have it was written by the great prophets of the Hebrew culture, which was a patriarchal society. These prophets wrote the words of God under inspiration, but not without cultural influences on the way they presented the information God wanted us to have. We think of God as our heavenly father, and yet many of the descriptions of God and Christ in Scripture have what some consider feminine characteristics, such as great sympathy, compassion, and emotion. God’s word also tells us that in heaven, we will be like the angels, which are neither male nor female (Matt. 22:30, Mark 12:25, Gal. 3:28). If we were made in the image of God and our spirits are neither male nor female, and neither are the angels, then we can assume that God is neither male nor female as well. Yet Jesus told us to pray Our Father in Heaven. When we say that God is our father, then it is meant in such a way as to denote that God is the source of us all, not that God is masculine in form. The word Father and Son also denotes an intimate relationship, not necessarily that of a father and son, though the relationship between the Father and the Son is that of a begotten heir, not one of adoption as we are adopted into the family of God. At the creation, God created humankind as male and female, both in God’s image. Yet God created Adam first then Eve. God took from all the qualities of God and created man in that image. Then God took the feminine qualities of God from the man and created woman. The Creator divided those qualities that God had given to mankind between the two of them so that the two together would be a unified picture of the attributes of God. God did not divide the original qualities of the physical and spiritual essence until man was first created. Then the division of that physical and spiritual essence between the man and the woman was made. The original Adam was the image of God, neither male nor female, or should I say instead, both male and female.
Science tells us that there are children born today, which are viewed as imperfect because they have both masculine and feminine physical characteristics and that though these children appear as masculine, they are unable to procreate. It is now possible to surgically correct this defect much like God could have altered Adam to make him more masculine and created Eve from what God derived from Adam’s spiritual and physical essence. It could be that these are a clue to us as to how Adam [(wo)mankind] was originally created and possibly how we should view God and Christ, that is, as both masculine and feminine. Christ necessarily appeared to be masculine, for if he had appeared as a woman, he would not have been recognized as the Messiah in a patriarchal society. The scripture also tells us in Isaiah 53:2 that Christ had no attractiveness that we would be attracted to. It could be that Christ was one of these imperfect, or should I say perfect children. The scripture tells us in I Peter 2:24 that (S)He suffered every possible thing on the cross that we could suffer. If Christ were only a man, then how could he understand the sufferings of a woman? Yet if Christ were both masculine and feminine, then certainly (S)He could understand both men and women. One of the greatest things about Christ’s ministry is the total respect (S)He showed to women along with the fact that (S)He allowed women to have a significant place in ministry. Some argue that women are not to teach men, and yet Jesus allowed women to proclaim both testimonies of his Messiahship and the resurrection to men in several instances in Scripture. In John 4:14-29 Christ ministered to the woman at the well, who then went into the town to tell the men that she had found the Christ. When Christ was first seen by Mary Madeline at the tomb in John 20:19, (S)He specifically sent her to bear witness to Christ’s brothers (disciples) what she had seen and what Christ had told her to tell them. There were also women who followed along with Christ and the disciples at their own expense and ministered along side them (Luke 8:3). Some have argued that there were no female disciples and so there should be no female ministers. Yet there were no disciples who were not Jewish either, and there are many ministers who are not Jewish. Christ came to reconcile us to God, and to end the curse of the fall of humankind. When (S)He died on the cross, then it was made possible for all of creation to be freed from that curse. God gave us the wisdom to know that through Christ we are free, along with the knowledge for the modern technology that allows us to free ourselves from the curse. Man no longer has to sweat for his bread, neither is woman still obliged to suffer through childbirth, nor is she subject to man’s rule, except where they are unregenerate and without Christ. Scripture tells us that there is no difference between us when we are in Christ (Gal.3:28). There is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, slave nor free. God is not a God who can be limited to a masculine definition created by a masculine patriarchal society. God is much greater than that. God is not a man and neither can man become a god. It’s time that the men in our societies realize that God has not given them exclusive rights to God and the Kingdom of God and to follow the example of respect and equality for women that Christ gave us. Including leadership roles in the Body of Christ.
