Women of Promise

       Have you ever read through all the laws that God gave in the Old Testament? How incredibly detailed and thorough our God is.  Most of us can't even imagine attempting to keep even half of the prescribed rules for daily life laid out in in the first five books of our Bible.  We kinda skim over these precise directions and breathe a sigh of relief that we were born after the time of Jesus -- all is under grace now, right?  We don't have to worry ourselves with all that --right?     Recently, I am beginning to catch a glimpse of the blessing we may be missing by glossing over the Law of God too glibly.  Did God's Law just become obsolete, just because Jesus fulfilled it perfectly and paid the penalty for our breaking of the Law?  Is it just an interesting part of history?  No. It is far more.  Over and over again in Leviticus, God states that "this statute will last forever" or "you shall keep this commandment always."...

Image source: biblecartoons.co.uk      What is the last thing you pick up as you get prepared to face the day?  After you have clothed your body, what is the last thing you grab as you head out the door?  Your purse, your wallet, your phone, your keys, your lunch....?   The Roman soldier grabbed his sword.  This is how Ephesians 6 closes out the section describing the armor we need to stand against the attacks of sin and darkness that are sent our way.   "Take... the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Ephesians 6:17     Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesians from prison.  No wonder he was very familiar with the pieces of armor used by a Roman soldier!  No doubt he had stared down the shank of a daunting weapon:  the double edged sword.  Romans typically used a sword sharpened on both sides and so incredibly sharp that it could pierce a metal shield!   This was both an offensive a...

  Image source:  biblecartoons.org           As a young girl in Pennsylvania where my family lived for a short time, I can remember building a snow fortress in the winter.  My siblings and I, along with the neighborhood children would pick teams and each build the best snow wall we could before engaging in an epic snowball fight.  As long as I was hunkered down close to that snow wall, the snowballs would sail past me or hit the front of the wall and I was safe from the missiles that could sting just a little before splattering to the ground.  I imagine the shield of faith to be something like that snow wall that sheltered me from the onslaught.        In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Ephesians 6:16     This shield of faith is the more mobile piece of the armor of God.  In other words, a soldi...