Women living God’s Way – Titus 2 v 3-5
I believe God speaks today. God’s word is what brings life to this world. We as women need to understand that there is an enemy in the world that wants to stop God’s word – particularly with women. Women have a natural gift that lends itself to relationship, mentorship and nurturing and the enemy wants to prevent these gifts from developing because they can bring such power and freedom into the lives that we have influence over. Hilary Clinton once said “I listened to you and I found my voice”. Through listening she became more than she was before.
My belief is that God is asking his women today to be listening to him. He needs us to be awake and alert. We as Christian women have a voice that needs to be heard. We are created in the image of God; we are the daughters of the King of Kings. We are loved and adored by our Spiritual Father and He is never more proud of us when we step out in faith and use that authority. We need to stand in our authority as God’s children and use our voices. God created the world by using his voice and because we are born in His image we can also speak life and can build up people. We are asked to do just this in Titus. To be reverent in the way we live and train our younger women. So how can we be women of influence and magnets for others and live a reverent life and why must we be awake and alert now in this present time?
Well you just need to look around you to see how our culture has changed. We live in a time of danger. There was a recent census done where islanders were asked about going out for an evening in St Helier and it revealed that less people frequent St Helier at night because of the possibility of being harmed or physically abused. There has been a huge secular cultural shift where people are becoming more isolated partly through technology and partly through families leaving their home town to jobs elsewhere. We therefore see more loneliness then we have ever seen before and no sense of community. Our children are growing up without a spiritual faith, far more secularised and have become more chained because there are no longer any boundaries for them. One night stands are the norm and drinking excess alcohol is regarded as a fun night out!
There has also been an ethical shift change. Laws are becoming more Godless and even the church is muddled up about ethics. There is a drug problem that is now out of control and HIV, Hep B and Hep C and sexual diseases are on the increase. Drunkenness is continuing to rise in our British Culture and sexual idolatry on our screens and easily available on our computers. Our society has become apathetic and our boundary levels have become grey areas.........................Cinema
God is calling us to be Reverent and righteous women. We need to take courage in our hands and make a difference. We need to be women of influence, magnets for others. We need to be awake and alert! Let’s rise up and be courageous, it’s time for crying out to God. We need as Christian women to be pressing into Him our Spiritual Father for our children. Hannah in the Book of Samuel was provoked into action. Jeremiah 9 v1 and 17, 18 and 19 God calls for the wailing women. I don’t know about you but I despair at some of the things I hear that is happening to women in our community. My heart cries out to them for women are struggling with low self worth, low self esteem, alcoholism, abuse and self harming is on the increase. Our sisters are bound in chains and desperately needs the freedom of Christ in their lives. God please turn our prayer lives around; make our prayer life heartfelt and real. We need to be praying for our marriages, our own lives, our families, our children, the children and youth of the church and we need to teach them also.
• Develop an identified prayer time for yourself, where you can pray but also listen to God. This can be done in a variety of ways. Meditate on scripture.......... sometimes a candle help, think about who He is, the light of the world. Soaking is also a good way of concentrating on God and allowing Him to speak to you when you are relaxed and switched off from all the stresses in life.
• Those of you who are married establish a prayer time with your husband....pray for future of kids etc.
• Those of you with families negotiate a family time prayer, once a week is do able and always brings a special closeness and it’s amazing what the children want to pray about at times. You learn so much more about them. Highly recommend it.
• Pray partners and prayer triplets are also highly recommended. Find someone you can trust and who you feel you could share and pray for your innermost fears, worries and dreams.
• Read your Bibles daily. There are many aids out there to help you do this...................... We need to start each day with the word of God. The Holy Spirit will remind us of the word you have been reading. So you need to down load the word of God so that the Holy Spirit can use and remind you when you need it. This time is your time with God, treasure it. He loves spending time with you.
• Listen to God and keep listening to Him during the day.
• Talk to God, He can’t wait to share His time with you.
In Titus 2 v3-5 women are encouraged not to be slanderous. I feel God specifically mentions this because women have a tendency to gossip. God calls us as Christian women to be different. Many of us tend to underestimate the power of our words and their effects on others. Words can be creative and build others up but of course they can also be painful and destroy. I came across a little anonymous poem which is a light-hearted reminder for us to be mindful of what we say:
If your lips would keep from slips
Five things observe with care:
Of whom you speak, to whom you speak,
And how and when and where.
As the poem indicates, we must be careful concerning of whom we speak and how. Scripture also warns us to be mindful of the manner and content of our speech. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph. 4:29). It is not only overtly unwholesome talk that we are told to avoid but “worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness” (2 Tim. 2:16). Worldly refers to that which lacks relationship of affinity to God; empty refers to chatter that is devoid of moulding our lives as believers.
We need wisdom when we speak. James goes on to teach us about two kinds of wisdom – worldly and godly. We must seek godly wisdom. “... wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” 3:17. The answer as to how we attain such wisdom appears in James 4, “Submit yourselves, then, to God....” v7.
If we are to live godly lives, as well as submitting ourselves to God we need to surrender our words: surrendering our words includes surrender of our tone of voice and the body language that accompanies what we say. In the same way, we must surrender our thoughts; after all, thoughts are merely words spoken internally. Paul commends us to think on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy (Phil. 4:8). It’s good to remember the following: that which our lips, mouths and words utter, our lives must reflect and not contradict.
Are there words that you have spoken which you now regret and of which you would like to repent – perhaps gossip, put-downs, words said in haste or in anger? Ray Prichard offers the following suggestion concerning things we say about other people.
If you must share what you know, use three questions as guides before telling what you know to someone else.
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?
There wouldn’t be any gossip if we used these three questions before speaking.
Frances Ridley Havergal, in her book, Kept for the Master’s Use, shares a beautiful prayer she once heard which affirms what I have been saying:
Lord, take my lips,
And speak through them;
Take my mind,
And think through it; take my heart,
And set it on fire.
Titus then goes onto giving very clear advice for the older women to mentor or teach the younger women of the church. I believe in this day and age there is more need than there ever has been before for this to happen. Due to lack of community, broken families and people having work much further away from their birth family there is such a need for teaching and mentoring. People feel far more valued when they are taught a skill or someone invests time and energy in them. It is also a biblical and natural thing to do and is often life changing.
Who can be a mentor? Why don’t you shout out some qualities you think a mentor should have and that way I will know you are still awake!
• Someone more experienced
• Mature in their faith
• Close relationship with Christ
• Humble attitude
• Trustworthy
• Open and honest
• Shows care and concern
• Prayerful spirit
• Visionary
• Wisdom
• Good Listener
• Genuinely interested
• Committed
The goal of the mentor for the mentoree would be to build a strong attachment to God by recognising their individuality.
What is Mentoring?
“Mentoring is a relational experience in which one person empowers another by sharing God-given resources.”
Paul Stanley and J. Robert Clinton, Connecting.
My vision is to see every person in St Andrew’s mentored. It would be lovely to see the nineties mentoring the eighties, the eighties the seventies, the seventies the sixties, the sixties the fifties, the fifties the forties, the forties the thirties, the thirties the twenties and so on.
Those of you who are interested in mentoring come and see myself or Jackie afterwards. But before I finish in prayer I want to recite a poem about our culture which really speaks volumes for a need for mentoring in our churches.
What kind of age do we live in?
We have got:
• Taller buildings but shorter tempers
• Wider freeways but narrower viewpoints
• We spend more but have less
• We buy more but enjoy it less
• We have bigger houses but smaller families
• More conveniences but less time
• We’ve more degrees but less sense
• More knowledge but less judgement
• More experts but more problems
• We’ve multiplied our possessions but reduced our values
• We’ve been all the way to the moon and back but we have difficulty crossing the street to greet the new neighbour.
• We’ve conquered out of space but not inner space.
• We’ve cleaned up the air but polluted the soul
• We’ve split the atom but not our prejudice.
• We’ve learnt to rush but not to wait
• We’ve higher incomes but lower morals
• More acquaintenances but fewer friends
• We’ve built more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever but have less communication
• These are times of steep profits for some and shallow relationships
• These are times of more leisure and less fun
• More kinds of food but less nutrition
• These are the days that many homes have two incomes but more divorce
• Of fancier houses but broken homes
• It’s a time for much in a show window but nothing in the stock room.
Shall we stand and pray
My belief is that God is asking his women today to be listening to him. He needs us to be awake and alert. We as Christian women have a voice that needs to be heard. We are created in the image of God; we are the daughters of the King of Kings. We are loved and adored by our Spiritual Father and He is never more proud of us when we step out in faith and use that authority. We need to stand in our authority as God’s children and use our voices. God created the world by using his voice and because we are born in His image we can also speak life and can build up people. We are asked to do just this in Titus. To be reverent in the way we live and train our younger women. So how can we be women of influence and magnets for others and live a reverent life and why must we be awake and alert now in this present time?
Well you just need to look around you to see how our culture has changed. We live in a time of danger. There was a recent census done where islanders were asked about going out for an evening in St Helier and it revealed that less people frequent St Helier at night because of the possibility of being harmed or physically abused. There has been a huge secular cultural shift where people are becoming more isolated partly through technology and partly through families leaving their home town to jobs elsewhere. We therefore see more loneliness then we have ever seen before and no sense of community. Our children are growing up without a spiritual faith, far more secularised and have become more chained because there are no longer any boundaries for them. One night stands are the norm and drinking excess alcohol is regarded as a fun night out!
There has also been an ethical shift change. Laws are becoming more Godless and even the church is muddled up about ethics. There is a drug problem that is now out of control and HIV, Hep B and Hep C and sexual diseases are on the increase. Drunkenness is continuing to rise in our British Culture and sexual idolatry on our screens and easily available on our computers. Our society has become apathetic and our boundary levels have become grey areas.........................Cinema
God is calling us to be Reverent and righteous women. We need to take courage in our hands and make a difference. We need to be women of influence, magnets for others. We need to be awake and alert! Let’s rise up and be courageous, it’s time for crying out to God. We need as Christian women to be pressing into Him our Spiritual Father for our children. Hannah in the Book of Samuel was provoked into action. Jeremiah 9 v1 and 17, 18 and 19 God calls for the wailing women. I don’t know about you but I despair at some of the things I hear that is happening to women in our community. My heart cries out to them for women are struggling with low self worth, low self esteem, alcoholism, abuse and self harming is on the increase. Our sisters are bound in chains and desperately needs the freedom of Christ in their lives. God please turn our prayer lives around; make our prayer life heartfelt and real. We need to be praying for our marriages, our own lives, our families, our children, the children and youth of the church and we need to teach them also.
• Develop an identified prayer time for yourself, where you can pray but also listen to God. This can be done in a variety of ways. Meditate on scripture.......... sometimes a candle help, think about who He is, the light of the world. Soaking is also a good way of concentrating on God and allowing Him to speak to you when you are relaxed and switched off from all the stresses in life.
• Those of you who are married establish a prayer time with your husband....pray for future of kids etc.
• Those of you with families negotiate a family time prayer, once a week is do able and always brings a special closeness and it’s amazing what the children want to pray about at times. You learn so much more about them. Highly recommend it.
• Pray partners and prayer triplets are also highly recommended. Find someone you can trust and who you feel you could share and pray for your innermost fears, worries and dreams.
• Read your Bibles daily. There are many aids out there to help you do this...................... We need to start each day with the word of God. The Holy Spirit will remind us of the word you have been reading. So you need to down load the word of God so that the Holy Spirit can use and remind you when you need it. This time is your time with God, treasure it. He loves spending time with you.
• Listen to God and keep listening to Him during the day.
• Talk to God, He can’t wait to share His time with you.
In Titus 2 v3-5 women are encouraged not to be slanderous. I feel God specifically mentions this because women have a tendency to gossip. God calls us as Christian women to be different. Many of us tend to underestimate the power of our words and their effects on others. Words can be creative and build others up but of course they can also be painful and destroy. I came across a little anonymous poem which is a light-hearted reminder for us to be mindful of what we say:
If your lips would keep from slips
Five things observe with care:
Of whom you speak, to whom you speak,
And how and when and where.
As the poem indicates, we must be careful concerning of whom we speak and how. Scripture also warns us to be mindful of the manner and content of our speech. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph. 4:29). It is not only overtly unwholesome talk that we are told to avoid but “worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness” (2 Tim. 2:16). Worldly refers to that which lacks relationship of affinity to God; empty refers to chatter that is devoid of moulding our lives as believers.
We need wisdom when we speak. James goes on to teach us about two kinds of wisdom – worldly and godly. We must seek godly wisdom. “... wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” 3:17. The answer as to how we attain such wisdom appears in James 4, “Submit yourselves, then, to God....” v7.
If we are to live godly lives, as well as submitting ourselves to God we need to surrender our words: surrendering our words includes surrender of our tone of voice and the body language that accompanies what we say. In the same way, we must surrender our thoughts; after all, thoughts are merely words spoken internally. Paul commends us to think on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy (Phil. 4:8). It’s good to remember the following: that which our lips, mouths and words utter, our lives must reflect and not contradict.
Are there words that you have spoken which you now regret and of which you would like to repent – perhaps gossip, put-downs, words said in haste or in anger? Ray Prichard offers the following suggestion concerning things we say about other people.
If you must share what you know, use three questions as guides before telling what you know to someone else.
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?
There wouldn’t be any gossip if we used these three questions before speaking.
Frances Ridley Havergal, in her book, Kept for the Master’s Use, shares a beautiful prayer she once heard which affirms what I have been saying:
Lord, take my lips,
And speak through them;
Take my mind,
And think through it; take my heart,
And set it on fire.
Titus then goes onto giving very clear advice for the older women to mentor or teach the younger women of the church. I believe in this day and age there is more need than there ever has been before for this to happen. Due to lack of community, broken families and people having work much further away from their birth family there is such a need for teaching and mentoring. People feel far more valued when they are taught a skill or someone invests time and energy in them. It is also a biblical and natural thing to do and is often life changing.
Who can be a mentor? Why don’t you shout out some qualities you think a mentor should have and that way I will know you are still awake!
• Someone more experienced
• Mature in their faith
• Close relationship with Christ
• Humble attitude
• Trustworthy
• Open and honest
• Shows care and concern
• Prayerful spirit
• Visionary
• Wisdom
• Good Listener
• Genuinely interested
• Committed
The goal of the mentor for the mentoree would be to build a strong attachment to God by recognising their individuality.
What is Mentoring?
“Mentoring is a relational experience in which one person empowers another by sharing God-given resources.”
Paul Stanley and J. Robert Clinton, Connecting.
My vision is to see every person in St Andrew’s mentored. It would be lovely to see the nineties mentoring the eighties, the eighties the seventies, the seventies the sixties, the sixties the fifties, the fifties the forties, the forties the thirties, the thirties the twenties and so on.
Those of you who are interested in mentoring come and see myself or Jackie afterwards. But before I finish in prayer I want to recite a poem about our culture which really speaks volumes for a need for mentoring in our churches.
What kind of age do we live in?
We have got:
• Taller buildings but shorter tempers
• Wider freeways but narrower viewpoints
• We spend more but have less
• We buy more but enjoy it less
• We have bigger houses but smaller families
• More conveniences but less time
• We’ve more degrees but less sense
• More knowledge but less judgement
• More experts but more problems
• We’ve multiplied our possessions but reduced our values
• We’ve been all the way to the moon and back but we have difficulty crossing the street to greet the new neighbour.
• We’ve conquered out of space but not inner space.
• We’ve cleaned up the air but polluted the soul
• We’ve split the atom but not our prejudice.
• We’ve learnt to rush but not to wait
• We’ve higher incomes but lower morals
• More acquaintenances but fewer friends
• We’ve built more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever but have less communication
• These are times of steep profits for some and shallow relationships
• These are times of more leisure and less fun
• More kinds of food but less nutrition
• These are the days that many homes have two incomes but more divorce
• Of fancier houses but broken homes
• It’s a time for much in a show window but nothing in the stock room.
Shall we stand and pray