Double Take

Have you ever been warned against following your heart. It’s partly because of Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? But also because following your heart is equated with acting on your emotions. But is that the same thing? Do we have evil, wicked hearts? Are emotions and desire the same thing?

I think that we as believers sometimes get trapped in our belief systems, and we defend them with a lot of determination. Some would have us think that we must purge our emotions and desires. That is just not true. God wants us to desire Him and He made us emotional creatures. You can have emotions and desires, but you just can’t live in them. So let’s talk about these two things.

How’s life going?  A little busy? Kind of crazy? Maybe that’s an understatement. There are family responsibilities, relationship problems, work issues. And then there’s the news - politics, wars, crime. We get bombarded with all of it. It’s easy to get distracted, and depressed, and even hopeless. We can easily get stuck there.

Today it’s Rick’s turn to share the character traits of God that he’s seen in his life.

We are part of a house church with a small group of good friends. One of the women came up with what we call a “Grace Box.” She composed questions, statements, verses, etc. and wrote them out on note paper. We pull one out for topics to talk about.  One of those topics gave us the idea for this podcast. 

(apologies for the camera malfunction!)

If you have listened to us very often, you know that we believe that you cannot earn God’s love, His righteousness, or get any closer to Him than you are right now. This is foundational to our ministry. God has always wanted to be in relationship with what He has created.

What did we get when we got Jesus? Salvation, yes. Forgiveness of sin, absolutely. What about wisdom and the freedom to use it? What else is ours?

Last time we talked about our original catchphrase, “free the saints” and what that means to us. From time to time we reevaluate why we do what we do, and make space for God to change our direction. One of those times is when we landed on “what Jesus do you know?” What do we mean by that?

When we founded Oneness Ministries, we used the catchphrase “free the saints.” It was a hashtag on all our social media, and a slogan on our website. It hasn’t been used much in a while, but we think it’s time to bring it back. Let’s flesh out what it means and why it’s so important to us.

Lydia and Priscilla – they were anything but hidden in the early days of the church. These women were well known among believers. They were students of Paul, and valuable partners with him in fostering the growing church.

For a series about Hidden Women, the story of Junia reveals her as the opposite of that. Her life shows she was determined, bold, fearless and well known through her ministry. Paul refers to her as an apostle, and someone he greatly admired. She was tireless in spreading the gospel, likely by planting churches, and caused enough of a ruckus to be thrown into prison for a time. 

What do we mean by hidden women? There were many women mentioned in the New Testament that were deeply involved in the early church. Even those that are named tend to be easily forgotten. Some because they are mentioned in passing, and some because it’s difficult to find teachings about them if you don’t know where to look.

Paul’s letter to Philemon is his shortest and most personal. It contains no doctrinal statements, no warnings about false teachers, and no mention of apostolic titles. The reason for writing was extraordinary. We look to author Paul Ellis for insight into this quiet voice.

We’ve talked about Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus as part of the group of women following Jesus. Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha were also included. So many of the other women remain unnamed, but we choose to remember that they existed and were essential partners of His earthly ministry. Today we focus on three more whose names we know: Joanna, Susanna, and Salome.

Mary was the young woman chosen by God to be the mother of Jesus. She must have felt the great weight of this, as much as she could understand at the time. She obviously had a great love for and trust in God.

Jesus engaged with women. He listened to them. He SAW them. Women weren’t part of the Twelve, but they were part of His group and ministered with Him. How Jesus loved and valued women is an example for the church today! For the next few weeks, we focus on the women who followed Jesus. Today we take a second look at Mary Magdalene.