"Am I My Brother's Keeper?" Part 1

(Ha! Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world ~ Praise God! This isn't ideal, but it works. I would much prefer to do a video or at the very least an audio of this study, but that has been an even bigger battle than just getting the script to post. Rest assured we are not deterred. Bigger and better things are in the works, and we're excited to see what the Lord has in store. In the meantime, get prayed up and get ready to dive in. This has been a HUGE stepping stone in my life. I didn't want to do this study, but I will be forever grateful to Him for giving me the grace to persevere! My prayer is that it will be a blessing to you...)

Introduction:

Let’s begin by reading Genesis 4:1-9. (I know it goes without saying, but I feel that it must be said anyway: the Scripture is what makes this study rich. I know it’s tempting to forego the effort of looking up the verses when they seem familiar, but I must encourage you to do so. I cannot begin to tell you how it has particularly blessed my heart for this study!)

I love the story of Cain and Abel because it has played itself out over and over again in my life. It has been a source of great encouragement to me in my Christian walk.

Cain and Abel both had good intentions in bringing a sacrifice to God, but He respected only Abel’s sacrifice.

Now there wasn’t anything inherently evil in Cain bringing of the fruit of the ground. It simply didn’t meet the Lord’s standard for a sacrifice. I think we would all agree that their hearts were in the right place. But, be that as it may, Cain’s sacrifice was rejected despite it being his idea to bring an offering to begin with.

When it comes to standards it’s so easy to say, “God looketh on the heart”, and go our merry way doing things “for God” while living any way that we choose.

I know. I’ve had the same choices to make that you have faced. Some of us have chosen well. Some of us have chosen wrong. Does that make some better than others?

By no means.

The Bible says, “And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.” He was so hurt that God would not accept his sacrifice, as it hurts us when God reveals that what we are doing is unacceptable to Him when we don’t “see” it that way.

“But Lord I’m doing my best! I’m giving you of the best that I have.”

His ever gentle reply is “And yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.”
Cain was faced with a choice, as you and I are faced with a choice. When God shows us something that needs to be changed or corrected in our lives, our response will either make us bitter or better. God’s intention is to grow us so that He can mightily use us, not to hurt us. But we choose the hurt.

God’s response to us today is the same as it was to Cain in the beginning. “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.”

Abel was minding his own business, doing his best for God, when Cain chose to take his anger at God out on Abel because his sacrifice was respected and accepted with God.

Hebrew 11:4 “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and by it he being dead yet speaketh.”

History repeats itself. When it comes to standards, the two most controversial ones are modesty and music, and those of us who choose right, and honor God in these areas can expect to be on the receiving end of our fellow brother’s and sister’s in Christ ire.
Our focus, though, needs to be on not putting an occasion to fall in our brother’s way no matter how they choose to treat us. That is God’s concern. Over and over He promises that He has our backs when we’re set on doing right. We can’t choose other people’s responses. Our job is to stay focused on the heart of the issue for US. And that is continuing to choose to do right in humility and meekness…even if it means we will find ourselves standing alone. The issue is so serious and the stakes so high, that if we don’t, our brother’s blood will be on our hands.

How this thought puts the fear of God into my heart! The fear of the Lord truly is the beginning of wisdom!

Keeper is literally interpreted as "a guard." The answer to this lesson's title is a resounding "YES!" The Bible says “…none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. (Romans 14:7-12) We are accountable for the choices we make. Not for the affect those choices have on ourselves only, but also on how they affect those around us.

For the purpose of this lesson specifically we are going to see how as women we are not only to keep guard over our husband’s and/or son's hearts, but we are to keep guard over all our brother's in Christ hearts as well. To fail to do so is to defraud them. To defraud is to rob or to spoil. If we aren't a guard of our brothers, we are their ruin.

“Never, ever, ever underestimate the impact of immodesty.”

Josh told me this when we were first married. Think about it. When a woman goes out in public dressed immodestly, man after man after man sees and is affected. That one instance of bad judgment on the part of that one woman can cause countless men to fall.

I. The Heart of the Heart of the Issue: Our Need For Unconditional Love

As women, we are created with an innate need to be loved, pursued, cherished, and thought of as beautiful. From my earliest recollections I daydreamed of being a real princess. We all long to be beautiful, and priceless; to be admired and treasured, but as we grow up, we find out in a hurry that we're just really not all that special. We're ordinary. We'll be lucky to find a man willing to marry us, let alone a knight in shining armor willing to come and fight for us. We live our lives as young ladies hoping for our dream to come true and yet living like we know that it won't. Slowly, over time, we get lured in a little further, a little deeper into believing our own unloving, unlovely thoughts about ourselves, falling prey, hook, line, and sinker to the devil’s lies. But if you are saved, that too-good-to-be-true dream has become your dream-come-true! It HAS. God put that desire in your heart when you were a faith-full, whole-hearted believing child so that He could make it come true for you. That’s just how gloriously He loves. Jesus is your Lover.

YOU ARE HIS PRINCESS!
He is in pursuit of your heart, willing even to fight for you to the death.

He cherishes you so, that He can't stop thinking about you.

And He thinks you are beautiful ~ breathtakingly so. (Romans 8:35-39)

But as glorious as that reality is, it comes with some heavy responsibilities. Sadly, most of us want the benefits of being a princess without the responsibility royalty demands; and we’re not talking just any royalty here ~ we are talking Godly, holy royalty. As we have studied before we are more prone and conditioned and used to believing the devil's lies rather than God's truths. We're just so used to hearing them; it's a habit to rehash them over and over again in our minds so that we are convinced they must be true. Indeed, we know no other reality. We live the “proof” of what he tells us in every recurring failure, day in and day out. The devil’s lie: "You are worthless." "You are ugly." "How could anyone love you when you can’t even stand yourself?" “You’re too______.” “You’re not______ enough.”

God’s truth: “It is impossible for you to be too much and yet not enough at the same time. When you gave your life to Me, I put My life in you. You are complete in Me. Right now. There’s nothing “too much” or “not enough” about you. You are just what I created you to be, and I don’t make a mistake. Not even one. (Col. 2:10)

The only one, who can stop the stream of lies, is you. You get to choose what to believe. Jesus speaks life! Choose life. Choose JOY!

Sin is self-destructive. We often create the very thing we fear the most because we do not flee from indulging in the sin which comes from choosing to believe a lie. For example, inevitably our choice to believe we are ugly manifests itself in our pursuit to achieve “beauty” as the world defines it. It’s the “if you’ve got it, flaunt it” mentality. We see it everywhere we go, in almost every female that we encounter. Tragically, this leads to ever lower feelings of worthlessness as it encourages the opposite of what our hearts are truly seeking. Instead of being cherished, we are used and then thrown away like a filthy rag.

Some of us get this, and our lives show it. Some of us don’t, and our lives show it. Until we grasp and choose to believe this truth, the remainder of this lesson will be unable to take root in our hearts.

I. His Unconditional Love Is the Sole Motivating Factor of a Holy Life of Holy Service

Matthew 5:28 “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery WITH HER already in his heart.” (Emphasis mine)

We are so quick to throw this verse in men’s faces, but the truth is we woman are just as guilty.

Hebrews 13:4(-8) Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. But be content…

John 8:3-11
When the woman was caught in adultery and brought to Jesus, the men (scribes and Pharisees) who caught her “in the very act” were ready to stone her. I somehow doubt this was a case of being “in the right place at the right time”. I think they were where they didn’t belong. At the very least they had been watching her, and (this is purely speculation) perhaps entertaining wrong thoughts about her themselves? It isn’t hard to believe, especially in our day and age.

Jesus simply said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her…And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the eldest, even unto the last…” (Emphasis mine)

They were ALL guilty. And so are we, if we are honest. We are all guilty of excusing our own sin. Sometimes we get so desensitized to sin as a result that we don’t even realize that we do it. We’re in denial.

Notice Jesus’ response to the woman, as she stood alone with Him. He did not condemn her, but neither did he condone her sin. He called it what it was. Sin. “Go, and sin no more.”

They that are forgiven much, love much. At least that’s what should happen. But all too often his mercy and grace are misconstrued as a license to sin. Jeremiah 5:7-9

Proverbs 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

The breastplate of righteousness is the biggest piece of amour that God gives us to wear. I think this is significant. Why? Because the Christian life is not a royal ball, it’s a royal battlefield, and the territory sought is the captivation of our heart. The breastplate of righteousness protects the heart.

Whether we are single, married, widowed, or divorced we all have the same basic needs and desires as women. The prefix to our name does not, cannot, and will not meet those needs. God created those deep needs on purpose. That purpose is NOT that we could go through our lives being miserable and wondering what we’re missing, or why we’re not worthy of having them fulfilled, or even so we can seek to fulfill them ourselves. God’s divine purpose was to create those needs to be so deep and wide and multifaceted that no mere man could ever possibly fulfill them.

Only HE could.

That’s how He loves.

NEWSFLASH: If you are not allowing your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs to be met by Jesus right now, that won’t change with a change of marital status. The battles you face as a single woman are the same battles we married women face. Fantasizing about what you don’t have but wish you did is the first step toward adultery if you are married, or fornication if you are single. Keep your thoughts captive and your body under the Holy Spirit’s control. (II Cor. 10:3-5 & I Cor. 9:27)

James 1:15
“Sin will take your farther than you are willing to go, keep you longer than you are willing to stay, and charge you more than you are willing to pay.”

All it takes is a seed.