By: Heidi Jo Fulk
In the last T2 post, we ended by focusing on some key truths for when we feel overwhelmed by the requirements of the Titus 2 mandate. (I’m not alone, right?! Somebody out there has got to be at least a little dazed by something on that list.) But alongside—or really more at the foundation of those truths—is the capacity God gives us to obey and live out those commands.
This capacity was a new revelation for me. As I prepared for the T2 series, I read the book Spiritual Mothering—The Titus 2 Model for Women Mentoring Women by Susan Hunt. As I read, I was struck as she linked our “new creation” status as followers of Christ with our womanhood:
“When the Holy Spirit produces faith in a woman, she becomes a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). A dramatic result of her newness is her even greater potential for the development of (her) female capacity. The Christian woman not only has a new Pattern, she has a new Power.”
Whoa. I’ve often contemplated and even claimed the fact that in Christ, I am a new creation. But I think I had a more general view of that. Like I am a new person in Christ. And that’s true. But also, more specifically and personally, I am a new woman in Christ. So all the unique female characteristics God has given us as women—all the distinctive roles, all the specific functions in the home and church—all of that is made new when we trust in Christ as Savior. We have a new capacity to be the women God created us to be and a new power to live out the life God calls us to as women.
The effects of this truth reach into every corner of our lives as women—as wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends. It can wash away so many of the insecurities we have. It can fill holes in our hearts and minds that a lack of a nurturing, godly mother may have left us. It can overcome pain and sin that keeps us from living like Titus 2 shows us we should. It can eliminate our excuses and doubts.
If you are a follower of Christ, you are a new creation. You are a new woman in Christ. As you seek to follow Christ as that new woman, you may be overwhelmed with all that includes. You may think, “There is no way I can love and submit to my husband AND love my kids AND be self-controlled AND pure AND busy at home AND kind. Not with all I have to do. Not with my past. Not with my husband or my kids. Not with my personality”.
But when you know and believe that Christ has created in you a new capacity and given you the Holy Spirit’s power, very simply, you can. Through obedience, prayer, time in the Word, and a fierce dependence on Christ, you can. Not perfectly or constantly, but faithfully.
Will you?
HEIDI JO FULK is passionate about encouraging woman and girls to love and live God’s word. She is wife to her high school sweetheart, Dan, and mom to their four young children — Emma Jo, Gretchen, Tucker and Brock. Heidi leads a women’s Bible study and an elementary girls’ ministry at her church. – See more at: http://www.beyondbathtime.com/titus-2-why-these-seven-things/#sthash.DUTHHfVF.dpuf