Respect as Women

[Amanah]

Worldly culture teaches women that their value is related to youthful sex appeal.
Immersion in this culture bombards us with images of casual sexual encounters as being a normal part of the human experience.

The only voice that I have had encountered that teaches that women are to be respected as family, mothers, sisters, and daughters has come from the church.

The ability to see myself as Christ sees me, and not as the world would paint me, has come from the church.

My self respect, ability to live in the world but not of it, to present my body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, orginated in the teaching I received from the Church.

Mass culture is so pervasive that I need the strength, and support of the church to continue to live a holy, separate life. I'm willing to bet that most people are the same.

Without the church, and the teaching that I received, I shudder to think what path my life would have taken.

OP heritage is tied to the holiness movement, and some of the lines of protection that have been drawn may have been drawn a little more sharply then was needful. And there is a slow course correction that is taking place in the OP movement that I can see since when I first became a part of the movement.

But the beautiful truth that is taught, the power and annointing of the Holy Ghost that is experienced, seeing people receive the spirit of God, seeing lives changed, people healed and given hope, these things are precious treasures.

I don't think the OP movement is perfect, how can it be when it is made up of flawed humans, but I'm convinced it is the most perfect representation of what the bible teaches the church should be that exists on this planet to date.