8 Cow Woman - No Greater Love A number of years ago i was meeting with a group of sisters after work at my office for Bible study and prayer. We had joined together because we were feeling unseen and unheard at that juncture in our lives. Our children were mostly grown, our future was secure and we needed the encouragement of others. Through our years together we forged a bond of love and caring that exists to this day. We had been trying to name our gathering of women when one sister shared a story she had heard or read. in this story, a betrothal was secured by the bridegrrom paying a bride-price for the hand of a maiden. The bride price could be a chicken, a goat or a cow. The bigger the animal and the number of animals, the greater the bride was valued. There was a young woman who had no great outward attributes and was overlooked by the men in her community. She was overlooked until one man looked past the outward appearance and offered her father the untold bridal price of eight cows. The villagers were shocked because never had such a grand amount been given for any bride, much less one deemed so unlovely. The story went on to tell how this young woman began to change and grow lovlier over time to become the most beautiful woman of the village. She was changed from the inside out because of the great price and love that was given for her. We loved the story and thought about calling ourselves The 8 Cow Women, but decided to call ourselves Women of Worth or the WOW's! This story fits in perfectly with a study i did in the past on the anciet Jewish wedding traditions. In the Jewish weddings of Israel around the time of Christ, a bride price was offered for the bride that reflected the wealth of the bridegroom as well as the inferred worth of the bride. Once the bride price was agreed upon by the father of the groom and the father of the bride as they broke bread and shared three cups of wine, the couple was betrothed to one another. Once that betrothal was entered into, it was secure and binding. It was not easily broken. That's why the Bible tells us in Matthew 1:19 that Joseph, betrothed to Mary, considered divorcing her when he found out that she was pregnant. The berothal was a binding covenant and held both the bride and bridegroom to purity and honor. Once the betrothal took place, the bridegrrom would work to prepare a home for them within his father's house. The bride had to be ready whenever the bridegroom decided to come for her after he finished prepaing their home. The bride's wedding garments and wedding jewels were given to her by the bridegroom's father. He was responsible for the wedding feast and for providing a place for the bride and bridegroom to dwell. What a beautiful illustration of our union with our Bridegroom, Yeshua. John 3:16 states, "For this is how much God loved the world - he gave his one and only unique Son as a gift. So now everyone who believes in him will never perish but exerience everlasting life." (TPT) This was and is the ultimate bride price! Never has there been a greater price paid for a bride! We are currently in the binding betrothal period with our bridegroom Jesus! We've been bought with a sacrifical price and we're to keep ourselves pure and ready for when Our Beloved comes to make us His Bride. He is eternally bound to us and will not desert us for something better. In the ancient Jewish betrothal, the bride could break the betrothal, but the groom could only divorce the betrothed bride if she betrayed him. It is often stated that Christ would have willingly died for just one of us and I agree while believing His purpose was mightier than one. He became the bride price to claim His Bride. We, in all our unlovliness, become the beautiful and pure Bride in the security of His love and sacrifice. No greater love! No more lovely a Bridegroom! I believe the joy set before Christ that caused Him to endure the cross in Hebrews 12:2, was the joy of claiming His betrothed as His Bride! Think on these things as you remember Christ's willingness to be our sacrificial lamb, to take upon Himself all our sin and all our diseases, to confront satan and hell to be one with His Bride. Remembering the great bride price paid for us will cause us to see ourselves as He sees us, holy, pure and clothed in His righteousness. Holy, holy is He. Hosanna to the King of Kings!

A Woman of Great Worth

We met over coffee. It wasn’t the usual two cups and a table in a coffee house. We had just been introduced. I was holding my coffee cup and saucer in my hands when I started to gesture with my right hand which was holding my full coffee cup. I watched in horror as my coffee with cream collided with her lovely cream colored silk blouse. It was not a pretty sight! I profusely started to apologize for my clumsiness, assuring her that I would pay to have it cleaned or replaced. She started laughing and assured me that her blouse would be fine and that it was no big deal. She was wrong. It was a big deal because it was the start of an amazing friendship that was not bound by age, by location, or by background, but by the love and pursuit of God. As our friendship and love for one another grew over the years, she became my “iron-sharpening iron” friend and my biggest cheerleader. She was always eager to share with me what God was teaching her and just as eagerly listened to me share. There was never petty girl stuff between us. I knew she loved me unconditionally and she knew I loved her the same way. We could, and did, share our hopes and dreams, our visions for our futures, our struggles and defeats and our joys along the journey. She was one of the most giving, unselfish people I know. She gave even if it meant doing without for herself. She would buy a new purse for a friend or two and still continue to carry her old one. She cared for her mother and father when they were unable to care for themselves, as well as caring for her husband and three sons and the myriad of women with whom she maintained active contact. No one was too small or too great for her touch. She was one of the main protagonists for a women’s Bible study group, Women of Worth. She brought together a number of us who were feeling overlooked and unseen as we entered middle age. We started meeting together at a coffee shop to study until we outgrew that space and moved to meeting once a week in my office after work. This diverse group of women became more than friends, they truly became sisters as we prayed, shared and studied together. One woman shared an island tale of a very plain woman being wooed with an unheard of bride price of eight cows. That bride price was greater than any that had been paid for even the most beautiful bride. We all loved the story as the tale progressed to share how this woman became the most beautiful on the island because of the great price paid for her. What a kindred story of the redemptive love of Jesus! We, at first, called ourselves the “Eight Cow Women”, but then thought perhaps we should change it to Women of Worth. Not as colorful a moniker, but just as accurate. My friend, Lena Chaco Akindipe, passed from this present glory into the next after a short battle with pancreatic cancer on Sunday evening. She had called to let me know the dignosis in September and that it was Stage IV. I didn’t cry. We were both praying and believing for a miraculous healing. She had so much she still wanted to see and do. She had more vision and purpose for her life that was yet to be experienced. She wanted to grow old and active in the Kingdom with her husband, Femi. She wanted to see her sons pursuing their purposes and visions with families of their own. She wanted to lay hands on the sick and dying and see them healed. She wanted to be about her Father’s Kingdom business. She wanted to love the unlovely, the lonely and the forgotten for a very long time. Her time was cut short. Even those of us who knew of her battle were not ready for the suddenness of her passing. She and I had been texting several times the week before as she let me know of her father’s passing on Tuesday. I was not ready for the call telling me that she had passed on Sunday. I felt cheated from more time with her and I have grieved. I’m not grieving for Lena because I firmly trust that she is more fully alive than she has ever been and that she is fulfilling everything that she was created to do and to be. She is completely enveloped in the love of the Father and that gives me peace in the midst of my grief. My grief is for Femi, Matthew, Johny, Andrew, her sister, Susan and family, and for all of us who loved her and were loved by her, and for those she never got to meet. I’m thankful that Jesus understands our grieving and that our tears will cease and we will have joy even in the midst of the grief as we trust Him. I miss you, Lena, my sister, my friend. You were and are a true gift from the Father to me. I will miss the random calls and your greeting, “Hey girl! What’s going on with you?”. I’ll miss laughing with you. I’ll miss our phone sessions of hours sharing what we’ve been studying in the Word. I’ll miss being able to call you with some new understanding or a new provision from the Lord. I miss you, my sister, my friend. You lived your life well and impacted all those you met with the unfailing love of God. Until we meet again, Lena...

Travesty Christianity

Travesty Christianity

My heart is heavy over the Church. I'm not writing about any specific congregation or denomination, but about the Church - the Bride of Christ. My heart is heavy for the Church in our nation. The word travesty means " a mocking imitation" and that seems to be where we dwell as the Church in America. A mocking imitation of what we are called to be and do. Our own plans and purposes mocking the very Christ we are supposed to be living. That applies to me, too. I am not writing this to point a finger, but to try to point us back to our purpose and place in today. I see very little difference in the Church and the world. I see us, the Church, living lives in pursuit of things, position and power as the world lives, instead of pursuing Christ. I see us caring more about how we look on the outside than what our hearts look like on the inside, even though our Father looks on the heart as primary. I see us scurrying to win favor from others while leaving very little place for the One Who favors us. I see us dressing to draw attention and admiration to ourselves rather than clothing ourselves in purity and holiness to draw attention to Him. I see us spending more time studying our TV screens and computer screens than studying the Word of the Living God. I see us giving more honor and homage to the Hollywood star and the athletic star than to our Morning Star, the Christ. I see us scurrying about trying to fulfill our image, or someone else's image, of what we should be doing or how we should be living rather than waiting on God's directives and resting in Him. I see us living lives full of activity and busyness, but with little purpose and destiny. I see a travesty of what the Church is meant to be. We are meant to be a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people, the Bride of Christ. Nice words. Powerful words. What do they mean and how do they apply to us?

Post Election 2012...My Thoughts

Well, Ive been silent all these months. I've read. I've listened. I've mourned. I've prayed. I've sought answers and strategy and attempted to refute those answers and the strategy that I received. My prayer has been for Father's will to be accomplished here on this earth as it is in His Heaven. I sensed a check as to what to ask for, because I believe He has a bigger picture and a greater plan than I know. His plans always are bigger and greater than anything we can conceive or dream. Years ago, while sitting in church listening to a volunteer from the local crisis pregnancy center, Holy Spirit told me three times that abortion was not the worst thing that could happen to someone. I was shocked and asked what He meant. His answer, in my spirit, was that those little ones are instantly in His presence and are fully who they were created to be. The parents and abortion providers who are driven from seeking Him because of the venom and lack of love directed at them by those seeking to "save" the unborn, are much worse off if they spend eternity without Him. He wasn't giving me an endorsement for abortion, but a glimpse into His bigger picture. I shared some of that reasoning at a meeting months later for picketing abortion centers. I said that we were operating as the world does in our actions and attitudes and those were not winning strategies. We needed to be more concerned about reaching those involved in the abortion process through our love instead of our anger or judgment. I was thanked for my remarks and told that I didn't understand the situation. Thankfully, many years later, love appears to be the strategy that many followers of Christ are working from in the abortion arena. Father God has a bigger role for His Church and a greater plan for America than we can accomplish without our reliance on Him. I've observed our Christian populace relax in our nation when we have leaders that appear to be closely aligned with our creed. We don't seem to have much intensity in being the Light and Salt we are called to be. We have become so similiar to the world in which we live, that most observers would only know we are "christians" by our church attendance or the crosses we wear. We have become ready victims to the lure and seduction of the world in which we live until something or someone challenges a "right" that is perceived to be ours! Oh, Church, we were created and called for so much more! We weren't called to follow blindly behind the world's ways while we sing our religious dirges. We're called to be Light and Salt to a dying world! We're called to repair the broken fences in our nation and to shore up our walls! We're called to walk in love towards our brethren in Christ and to reach out in love to those outside the family of faith. The Word states that His love never fails and that when the world sees how we love each other, they will be drawn to Him. Anyone got a better plan than that? I don't think so! Psalm 20:7 states, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God." This election, as all others I've observed, have had our "chariots" of Republican and Democrat. We had our "horses" named Obama and Romney this time. Our hope, our salvation cannot be in anything but the Lord Eternal, Jehovah! Regardless of whether your "horse" won or lost, we have a challenge and a call to be a source of life, love, hope and peace that reaches across party lines, religious beliefs and any other divisive thing. Will we heed the call this time, or will we decide to hunker down and just ride out the storm as many did last week when Sandy hit the northeast? Now is not the time to cease being the Church. Now is the time for the Church to manifest the person of Jesus Christ to our perishing nation. It is easier to just be religious, but that is not what we are to be. Stand and take up the mantle of salvation that we have been given and light the path for our nation to once again become, "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."!

Such Very Good News!

Well, my mind and heart are at it again, so I'll try to share them with you. I was taken to church as an infant and have spent most of my life in it since then. My desire is not to tear down, but to try to build up the Church of Jesus Christ...His Bride that He is coming back for! I was introduced to Holy Spirit in my 30's and didn't feel comfortable talking about Him until my 50's. No, I'm not a slow learner, I just wasn't hearing enough about Him to hear Him often and I had little knowledge of His power. His presence was real, but His power was not recognized or acknowledged and I thought the people who professed to walk in that power were a little weird, anyway. I often wondered why we, The Church, were not seeing and doing the same types of things that Jesus and the apostles did. Why weren't we seeing the transforming, healing power that sets others free in all areas? The more I studied the Word the more hungry I became to know Him and to follow after Him. During those years I had two very close friends die when I believed Jesus had healed them. In a gutsy, but desperate move for this Baptist-raised daughter, I even took one of them to a Benny Hinn meeting to get her healed. She died and less than a year later my other precious friend passed suddenly from a liver disease. Both of them left young children and husbands behind and one very discouraged and confused friend...me. I decided I wanted nothing more to do with His "supposed healing power" since it had not worked for my two friends. That's how I lived for awhile. Not seeing and recognizing the power of the risen Christ and seeing how the Church was filled with hurting, ill and dying people, I began a journey to try to find this Risen, Victorious Christ the Word conveys instead of settling for something less than He! That journey is ongoing and never-ending, but I am finding The One Whom I have sought! I am much less concerned about church activities than I am about learning to live as The Church! The early Church cared for one another and no one went without. They operated under a true understanding of Christ's resurrection and ascension that empowered them to go about doing good as Jesus did...healings, miracles and abounding in grace and love. His Spirit dwells in us. His heart is our new heart, therefore it's a good heart. My hands touching someone are filled with the same power and love as Christ's because He lives in me! WOW! The Church is not "like" family, it is family! We sure aren't taking great care of our family and yet, Jesus said that the world would know we are His because of the way we (the Church) love one another and that it would draw the world to Him because of that love. The Gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ - His death, burial, resurrection and ascension that leads to a life more abundant than anything we can think or imagine! Let's live that truth. Let's be the Church! Let's lay hands on the sick and see them healed. Let's offer love and grace wrapped in truth and see the lost, lonely, downcast and abused start living as the favored of their Abba, 'cause that's who they are! Let's start living and moving in the power of Holy Spirit who is breathing a fresh breath over the Church! Let's!

This Chick...Filet of Christ!

WOW! I am so impressed at the showing in support of Chick Fil A yesterday in the United States! I read so many reports of the large crowds of supporters and the small showing of protestors...it was all over the internet. I wasn't there. I couldn't go, even though I am in agreement with Cathay's statements and support his business as often as I can. If you went, this blog is no condemnation towards you...this is what my response was to this latest drama. As I shared in my last posting, this past year has been a year of a many-faceted changing of things I believed and followed. Not a changing of my Savior and my Father, but a changing from being a works driven and people-pleaser to a love and grace giving, God-pleasing warrior! Years ago as I was in a church meeting listening to a representative of the local Crisis Pregnancy Center share their vision and purpose, Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, "There is something worse than the abortions that happen to these little ones". I was shocked and asked Him two more times what He said and I received the same words. Then, I asked Him to explain what He was saying so I could truly undertand. He replied that when these "little ones" lives are ended, they are immediately in His presence fully formed and fully grown to live out His purposes for all Eternity. Those that committed and submitted to those lives ending will spend that same Eternity without Him if they are never shown the gift of love and forgiveness of His heart towards them and are unable to believe it because of the lack of those same gifts in believers. Eternity with Him or Eternity without Him! Which is greater? He was not condoning abortion in any form, but was showing me His heart of love and compassion for those we (the Church) were condemning. I feel the same way about the same-sex marriage issue and any other issue that causes us to become bile erupting volcanoes instead of love erupting light! Yes, those are sin and sin is bad, but so is gossip a sin and gluttoney a sin (as well as a whole list of other things) and those sins are church embraced and often, church driven. What is really going on here? We are in a BATTLE! Not a battle against homosexuality, abortion or same-sex marriage, but a battle against the Church being the Light & Salt we are called to be! The enemy of our souls has devised a pretty slick plan to keep us out of the true battle. He gets us whipped up over something about our "rights" and others' "wrongs" till we're too whipped, too defeated, too angry and too judgmental to fight like the soldiers we're called to be. II Corinthians 10:4-6 tells us that our weapons of warfare are different than the world's and yet, we continue to fight the world's way. No wonder we haven't won very many battles! Can you think of any we've (the Righteous) won by battling as the world does? I remember the condemnation that arose over the church in America when Madeline Murray O'Hare was able to get prayer removed from public schools - the church hadn't done enough...and America has continued it's downward slide in spite of all of our boycotting and placards and Christian broadcasting! What's the answer then to a world of choas, sin and darkness if we don't fight the same way as the world system? Our God, The God of the Angel Armies, gave us His battle plan in II Chronicles 7:14. "If My people (we, the Church), who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from THEIR wicked ways, THEN will I hear from heaven and will forgive THEIR sin and heal their LAND." How effective of the enemy to convince us that prayer really doesn't change much and it certainly isn't quick enough, so let's fight his way and keep loosing battles. It makes us feel godly that we supported a "good" business and boycotted a "bad" one...after all, we are followers of Christ! Followers? Then let's start following! He ate with sinners, went to their homes, touched the unclean and loved the unloveable...are we truly followers just because we bear His name? He never loved the sin, but He ALWAYS loved the sinner! The only people he took issue with and chastised, were the religious ones who had a form of godliness, but no intimacy with Him. I know this is long and I know effectual, fervent prayer requires more of us than fighting the way we have been, but we were told that we have to die in order to live, we were told that God's ways are not our ways and we were told the battle plan. A filet is a generous piece of meat or fish with the bones removed, usually taken from the most tender selection of meat. We need to be choice filets of the King, tender in our love and compassion with all the dry bones removed so the meat we offer is desired by the ones in this world who are dying for lack of food!!! Think on these things...