forliberty--a brave heart's quest for freedom

Is it a Boy or a Girl?

Have you ever heard of a gender neutral baby?  (I know there are genetic defects, but I’m not talking about those rare cases.)  I read a news story last week of a Canadian couple who had a baby they named “Storm.”  They decided to keep Storm’s gender private from all their friends and family so that when Storm grows up he/she will be free to choose the gender it feels it should have been born with.  I’m assuming sex change operations may or may not be required at that point.  I’m also assuming the strategy will get increasing difficult as dress, hair style and modesty issues arise. The person writing the article didn’t have any problem with the child choosing its own gender.  The author said that the danger for this child would be that it wouldn’t be able to identify with either gender if it was brought up completely neutral.  I didn’t agree the child should choose its own gender, but the article shouted out to me how confused our society has become over gender issues. 

 

Contrast these parent’s reaction with parents throughout the millennia.  Up until recent technological advancements, the first statement made when a child was delivered was, “It’s a BOY,” or “It’s a GIRL.”  Even now, whenever a couple announces their pregnancy, the first question asked is, “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl or are you going to find out?”  Gender differences have always been important because God created the genders separately and we innately know it. 

Not only did He create the genders to be different, He created them to represent His character.  God has both masculine and feminine traits.  He created male and female to bear His image and to share the blessings He has for them. “Then God said,  ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.’ So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.’” (Genesis 1: 26-28; NLT).  The first words in the text after “male and female he created them” are “Then God blessed them.”  It is a blessing of God to be distinctly male or distinctly female.

My dad was instrumental in helping me develop my identity as distinctly female.  In a previous post I told how he had flowers delivered to my mom and me for our Mother-Daughter Tea.  Dad brought flowers to me himself on the occasion of our Father-Daughter Banquet.  The card accompanying the beautiful red rose corsage read:  “I’m proud to be your dad.”  I had a wonderful time the night of the banquet as just Dad and I went out to the special dinner.  He opened the door for me to get into and out of the car and again as we went in to dinner.  We held hands as we walked and talked.  I felt truly cherished by my dad.

I hadn’t had any real dates in high school.  I never went to the school dances.  Occasionally I would be invited to a party, but I never felt comfortable at them with the drinking, dancing and pairing up that inevitably went on.  All I knew about being with men was what I knew about spending time with my dad.  I knew I wanted to marry a guy just like him.  I would have skills and abilities to bring to our marriage.  He would have his own talents.  We would be a team together accomplishing much more than either could individually.  He would make me feel feminine and I would make him feel masculine.  This was my dream and I held out for it until the right guy came along.

A dad’s encouragement turns out to be crucial in gender identification.  Dads teach girls to feel cherished, protected, competent and very feminine.  They teach boys to think and feel like a man.  Each needs to get appropriate gender related information if a father is absent when the child is growing up.

Our society can’t provide the proper feedback to either boys or girls.  We’re having a sexual identity crisis.  Feminists have pretty much succeeded in their agenda to emasculate men and liberate women to defend their rights to their own bodies.  Homosexuals accuse those with traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity of being “homophobes.”  It seems everyone is confused and leery of defending God's design. 

Confusion is almost a definition of adolescence and gender confusion is normal at this stage of development.  Adolescents are confused about who God is, confused about what they want to be when they grow up, confused if they want to follow the standards their parents have been setting, and many are confused about their sexuality.  It is wrong to take advantage of that confusion and urge an adolescent to experiment with the homosexual life-style to see if he/she is actually a homosexual.  The responsible adult reaction to adolescent confusion is to empathize and offer facts, insight, positive role models and support to the teen as he/she attempts to find the truth.  It never pays to encourage a child to take the most destructive path and see if that works out. 

I think there is so much confusion because there is a wide range of what is normal masculinity and normal femininity.  I don’t know what  makes others feel so different from everyone else as an adolescent.  For me it was my large size, thick glasses and lack of coordination and shyness.  I could never fit into a glamour mold, nor an athletic mold, nor any other role that the media glorifies as uber feminine.  All I know is that most adolescents feel inferior to everyone else and especially inferior to media portrayals of ideal. I’m grateful I had a dad to appreciate my developing sexuality in a way that helped me grow out of my confusion and feelings of inferiority and into the woman God created me to be. 

If you struggle with your gender identity, you can be re-parented.  God is our perfect parent, and as always, He has a lot to say on the subject.  The following are some Bible passages that deal with God’s plan for the sexes:  Genesis 2:18-25, Proverbs 31:10-31, Galatians 3:28-29, Ephesians 5:21-33, Colossians 3:18-19, 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and Titus 2:1-8.  From these passages we can see that neither maleness nor femaleness is superior to the other.  Both are highly prized in God’s sight and have important roles to play.  We can grow out of our adolescent confusion if we see things from God’s point of view rather than society’s. 

Is it a boy or a girl?  God had it figured out from the moment He created the individual.  If we can agree with His design we’ll come to a peaceful acceptance of our maleness or femaleness.  

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
      and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
      Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
      as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
 You saw me before I was born.
      Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
 Every moment was laid out
      before a single day had passed.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.

(Psalm 139:13-17a; NLT)

This is Dedicated to The One I Love: Jesus Lover of My Soul

Jesus told a story in Matthew 25 of ten virgins waiting for the bridegroom to appear for His wedding.  It was supposed to be an illustration for us as we, His Church, waiting for His second coming when He’ll take us to heaven to live with Him forever.  It’ll help us appreciate this time we’re here on earth if we understand what Jesus’ audience would have known, being familiar with Jewish wedding traditions.  Our groom is very Jewish after all. The Bible speaks over and over of Jesus as the Royal Bridegroom, and His Church is His betrothed bride.

 

Our Groom is every woman’s dream.  There are many majestic descriptions of Him in the Bible, but I chose one that sums them up for me.  Hebrews 1:2b-3 says, “ God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe.  The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.” (NLT)  He creates and sustains everything, He has the very character of God and He cleansed us from all our sins.  This is a groom we can trust and look forward to spending our eternal lives with in Heaven.

 

The  Hebrew word for groom is Hatan.   It means one who makes a covenant. Our Heavenly Hatan has made a new covenant with us.  Hebrews 9:15, 28 says, “ That is why he is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant. (28)  So also Christ died once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him.” (NLT)  This is the New Covenant He made for us.  We no longer have to sacrifice animals to cover over the sins we’ve committed.  He died once for all to bear the penalty for our sins.  Those who receive Him await as a purified bride for His return.  Every time we take communion, and at all moments in between, we’re remembering that He bore our sins, so we don’t have to. (We couldn’t anyway.  We’re not worthy to bear our own sins.) 

 

Why would our Hatan do that for us?  He loves us and wants to be intimate with us and it was the only way to establish that personal, intimate relationship He desires.  Isaiah 62:4 and 5 says, “Never again will you be called ‘The Forsaken City’ or ‘The Desolate Land.’ Your new name will be ‘The City of God’s Delight’ and ‘The Bride of God,’ for the Lord delights in you and will claim you as his bride. Your children will commit themselves to you, O Jerusalem, just as a young man commits himself to his bride. Then God will rejoice over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride.”  Every bride wants to be cherished and adored.  God, Himself, delights in us, His bride.

 

Now that we’ve established the identity of the bride and Groom, we need to understand the wedding ceremony.  Ancient Jewish wedding traditions are very different from modern American ones.  We get a glimpse of the differences in the story of Mary and Joseph and their betrothal.  Was she married to him or engaged when Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit?  Let’s look at several of the steps in a Jewish wedding to get a clearer understanding.

 

The first element in the wedding process is the match.  The father of the groom selects a bride for His Beloved Son.  The choice of the groom and consent of the bride are important , but it’s the Father that makes the match.  In Ephesians 1:4 it says, “ Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.” (NLT)  God loved us and chose us to be His.  I think Scripture supports that God loves all of His creation, and wants everyone for His own.  Sadly, not everyone consents to be His bride and gets left out of all that follows.

 

After the match is made, the bride price has to be paid.  It’s required by the law and paid by the father of the groom.  It reflects the value of the bride. We're told in 1 Corinthians 6:20, “For God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” (NLT)   The price our Groom’s Father paid for us was high, because He values us so. What was our bride price?

“For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver.  It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.  God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but he has now revealed him to you in these last days.” (1 Peter 1:18-21; NLT)  Our Groom paid our bride price with His own life as He established His new covenant with us.

 

After the bride price is paid, love gifts are given by the groom to the bride before He returns to His home to make preparations for the wedding.  They are a pledge of His love and a reminder to the bride that He will return for her.  He’s thinking of her and desirous to complete the marriage.  The separation may be long, so He wants to be sure she remembers she is His. 

 

Our love gifts from our groom are very precious, and allow us to remember Him as we serve Him while we wait for His return. “And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.” (Ephesians 1:13b and 14; NLT)  He didn’t just leave the Holy Spirit in the world. Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.” (John 14: 16 and 17; NLT)  We can read more about the love gifts the Holy Spirit gives us in 1 Corinthians 12 and in other  places.  This Gift is so real to us that we know the truth that Jesus will return for us.

 

The Marriage Covenant is then written.  The document states the rights of the bride and the promises of the groom.  Jesus established a new covenant with us.  We have it in writing in the New Testament.  The whole Bible lays out the plan of God redeeming His people and entering into a personal relationship with them.  It’s our Marriage Covenant.

 

The betrothal then begins.  This is the time Mary and Joseph were in when Jesus was conceived.  It’s a time where the couple is set apart to prepare for their marriage.  It is a time of great anticipation for them.  The groom is preparing a new home for them, and the bride is purifying herself as she waits for him in her father’s home. It will be the father of the groom who decides when everything is ready and the marriage can take place.   To break the marriage at this point requires a divorce which can only be initiated by the groom. 

 

We’re in our betrothal period with our Groom as well.  He has provided everything we need to know Him, so we can be assured He won’t break our covenant or divorce us.  We’re told in 1 Peter 1:3-5, “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.  And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.” (NLT)  God is protecting us as we live in this earth awaiting Jesus’ return.  It’s our responsibility as the bride to remain pure and set apart for our One True Groom. 

 

Jesus told us He would be busy during this time, too. “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.” (John 14:1-3; NLT)  When we take communion, we’re also remembering we’re His and He will come for us.

 

We’re now eagerly awaiting our marriage consummation.  As in Jewish tradition, the groom’s father decides when everything is ready and he can return for his bride.  It will be a surprise for her.  She is waiting in anticipation for him to come get her.  She is taken from her home and brought to the groom’s home.  She wears the wedding garments and crown the groom has provided.  They enter the marriage feast and then live happily ever after.  Many Scriptures confirm these events will happen for the bride of Christ.  Some are:

 

Mark 13:32:  “However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.”

1 Thessalonians  4:17: “ Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever.” (NLT)

 

1 Peter 5:4:  “And when the Great Shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never-ending glory and honor.” (NLT)

 

Isaiah 61:10:  “I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God! For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation  and draped me in a robe of righteousness.  I am like a bridegroom in his wedding suit or a bride with her jewels.” (NLT)

Revelation 19:6-9:   “Praise the Lord!  For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honor to him.  For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself. She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear. For the fine linen represents the good deeds of God’s holy people. And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.’ And he added, ‘These are true words that come from God.’” (NLT)

Let’s be ready for when our Groom returns for us like half of the virgins were ready and went in with the groom when He returned in Matthew 25.  We’re made ready by entering into the marriage contract and accepting Jesus’ bride price for us.  We have the Holy Spirit to reveal all truth to us and empower us to live and wait for Him. 

God left us a love song in Psalm 45.  Verse 11 says, “So the King will greatly desire your beauty;  Because He is your Lord, worship Him.” (NKJV)  He hasn’t forgotten we’re still here waiting.  He considers us beautiful and eagerly desires us.  He’s waiting until all of His Bride is complete.  Let’s worship and serve Him as we wait in eager expectation for that day.