For Women Only

The following was written by the wife of one of our elders at Unity ARP Church and posted with permission.

TRUE HEIRS OF GOD TEND THEIR GARDENS

I will make him a helper comparable to him, Gen. 2:18.

For Women Only: Helping to TEND AND KEEP

Daughters of Eve, why were we women created? The Word of God tells us we were created to be fit helpers to the sons of Adam, in tending and keeping the garden. Last week you read heart-felt instructions and encouragements for men regarding this tending and keeping – but what is our role? How may we help? Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man, 1 Cor. 11:8. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. 1 Cor. 11:3. How may we please God in the areas requiring our tending [cultivating, promoting the growth of] and keeping [guarding]?

Let us examine the areas we looked at last Lord’s Day Thought, but in reverse area.

1. The Church:

1. How are we women to help tend the church?

1. To help cultivate the church, we women are to be students of the Word, in order to always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect, 1 Peter 3:15, 16a.
2. To help cultivate the church, we women are to be hospitable; Use hospitality one to another without grudging, 1 Peter 4:9.
3. Serve where God has gifted you, For you were called to freedom. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another, Gal. 5:13.

2. How are we women to help guard the church?

1. Keep quiet; be submissive: Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor, 1 Tim. 2:11-14.
2. Be respectful to others: Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves, Phil. 2:3.
3. Have the mind of Christ: I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord, Phil. 4:2. And how can this possibly be done? How can two people ever agree? Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Phil. 2:2, 5. If a matter can’t be resolved, follow the Matthew 18 pattern for resolution.
4. Don’t gossip: Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered, Prov. 11:13.

2. The Home:

1. How are we women to help tend the home?

1. Cultivate an atmosphere of love for God and His Word and love for one another. If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and my Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our home with him, John 14:23; A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. John 13:34. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another, 1 Thess. 3:12; Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God, 1 John 4:7.
2. Submit joyfully to your husband and require the same respect of your children. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, Eph. 5:22, 23a.
3. Use every situation as an opportunity for teaching your children the truths of God, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him, Col. 3:16,17.

2. How are we women to help guard the home?

1. Deal with a spirit of rebellion in your children as its earliest signs (rolling of eye eyes; sighing); know the hearts of your children and know their friends. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry, 1 Sam. 15:23.
2. Don’t allow complaining: “Show yourself a Christian by suffering without murmuring, for which sin fourteen thousand and seven hundred were slain, Num. 16:49.” ~ Samuel Rutherford
3. Dress and behave modestly, likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, 1 Tim. 2:9.
4. Love your husband passionately, They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands, Titus 2:4.

III. The Heart:

1. How are we women to tend our hearts?

1. Make certain you have a new heart that can be tended. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in My statutes, Ezek. 11:19, 20. Remember, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Jer. 17:9. Remember that hypocrite, Simon, who “believed” but was deluded. He was baptized and amazed at the signs and miracles performed by the apostles. But when his unbelief was revealed, the apostles saw that his heart is not right before God, Acts 8:21. Is your heart right before God? Or are you as Ezekiel describes: Your people say to one another, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.’ And they come to you, as people come, and they sit before you as My people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain, Eze. 33:31, 32.
2. Take care where your treasure is. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matt. 6:19-21.

2. How are we women to guard our hearts? Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life, Prov. 4:23.

1. Why do our hearts need to be guarded? Because, “There is nothing one half so worthy of abhorrence as the human heart. God spares from all eyes but His own that awful sight, a human heart; and could you and I but see our heart we should be driven mad, so horrible would be the sight.” ~ Charles H. Spurgeon
2. How then, can our heart be kept? There are some basic means of keeping the heart, mentioned by John Flavel in his precious book, Keeping the Heart. Some of them are:

1. Furnish your hearts richly with the Word of God, which is their best preservation against sin.
2. Call your hearts frequently to an account. Cleanse me from secret faults, Ps. 19:12.
3. Take heed of becoming so busy that you cannot manage without neglecting your main business of guarding your heart.
4. Take heed of losing the sweetness of your communion with God.
5. Carefully observe your heart’s first declining from God and stop them there. Unite my heart to fear Thy name, Ps. 86:11.
6. Live in the midst of spiritual meditation.

I would add this:

7. Let your reading be steeped in heart-guarding works.
8. Keep repenting. “If a small piece of dust gets into the eye it will never stop twinkling and watering till it has wept it out. So the upright heart cannot be at rest till it has wept out its troubles and poured out its complaints before the Lord.” John Flavel, Keeping the Heart, p.7.

So beloved, please know that the tasks of tending and keeping are not yours, but Christ’s. It is Christ in you that will give you the victory – always stained with sin on this side of glory, but with the faithful promise of a day when you will be unable to sin, and you will have a heart that only wants to love, serve and please your Lord and Savior! But for now, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus,

Phil. 4:7.