What area of need in your life do you least like to face?
That area is where the battle rages! The Bible gives us markers of a woman who lives under God-control. It also gives us fruit of a life lived apart from God-control. For example: Many women do not have daily Bible study habits because they are really not dependent on God. The average mom is too lazy, not too busy, to study the Bible to be more effective in the lives of her children and the world about her.
These are moms who do not pray as though it makes a difference because there is doubt that much will be changed, if anything. They are ever learning but not changing in their character. The old patterns never seem to die. The average mom is too double-minded to listen and obey the simplest commands of scripture.
In the Book of John there are 49 imperatives to love God.
This woman is a taker; not a giver. She goes to church to get something to meet her need rather than to meet the need of another person with what God gave her during the week from her time spent in the Word. The nominal mom is too selfish or self-centered to make herself available to care for others first.
These women are not involved in sharing their faith or the Word with others. The average mom is too proud to be faced with this sort of reality or too cowardly to take the rejection!
Do you fit into any of these “mom descriptions”?
Compromise is selling out who and what we are for what we hope to get, BUT what we hope to get is not what we want because we’ve been destroyed in the compromise process!
I was recently asked, “Jackie, do you consider every seriously committed Christian a disciple?”
The call to follow Christ hinges on our voluntary yieldedness to His will and way,
not
“Can I just sit on the fence?” or “If I have to…I’m backed into a corner!”.
The seed of loyalty or of being loyal is in every person. If wrongly cultivated there is divorce, dissension, division, disharmony, distrust, and disrespect… all come with turmoil…
“Consider it all joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. IF any of you lacks wisdom, she should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given her. BUT when she asks, she must believe and not doubt, because she who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That woman should not think that she will receive anything from the Lord; she is a double-minded (compromising) woman, unstable in all she does!” “ Jas. 1: 2-8
Disloyalty is double-mindedness…unfaithfulness. What we are loyal to defines our personal convictions. Living in a state of compromise is saying I am living for God’s will and ways but the reality is, I am living for my bad habits (anger, selfishness, pride, personal convenience, drugs, alcohol, porn,…) Living with godly convictions is a belief we will not change, regardless of the circumstance. They are formed when we are certain God requires it…and that settles it!
It is not something we discover; it is something we purpose.
In a day and age where our culture and society dictate a philosophy of “all things are relative and we make our own truth”, it is imperative we choose to live by scriptural conviction. It is fundamental and compulsory!
“God hates those who are double-minded.” Psa.119: 113
Will you purpose with me to develop single-minded loyalties in your commitment to God, as a soldier of the cross and as an extended arm to prepare our children and “God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ is built up until we reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God and we become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Eph. 4: 12-16
Our children and grandchildren are counting on us…!
~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America. Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California. My passion is discipling and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights.
