Christian Women – Page 9 – Michelle Lesley

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Allie’s Story:

I was not raised in a Christian home. However, my mom and dad were, and are, very loving parents. Without knowing the Lord, they cared about godly values and taught us the importance of virtue and wholesomeness. I see this as God’s grace protecting me from a lot of sin that I could easily have gotten involved in. They wanted to raise my siblings and me to be familiar with lots of different religions and belief systems, and so the “church” that we attended growing up was quite a melting pot of those things. We were introduced to some of the Bible, but it was presented right alongside many other religious scriptures and teachings, each of them being presented as equal paths to God. We prided ourselves on being tolerant, but the irony is that the main thing that we were intolerant of was true biblical Christianity.

Jesus clearly said in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”. Sadly, I didn’t believe that the Bible was the entirely true and infallible Word of God growing up. The dangers of New Age religion is that you firmly believe that you have the most enlightened viewpoint and that everyone else, especially fundamentalist Christians, are close minded and not truly understanding the Bible or why Jesus came. Any concept of sin, atonement, or God’s judgment is viewed as harsh and man-made and instead, everyone is seen as ultimately good and connected with the Divine. I was completely into this “spiritual but not religious” movement and we worshiped the idol of self and whatever felt good and sounded comfortable. I had a completely backwards view on everything– I loved what God hates and hated what He loves– and was headed towards hell and God’s righteous judgment.

Toward the end of high school, I began to be interested in more things of a Christian nature, through books and music and such. In my senior year, we moved from Wisconsin to Michigan, another aspect where I see God’s grace being very present, as we left our old church and life behind with the move. In Michigan, not only did we have a new friend group that was mainly made up of Christian families, but we also started attending a church that taught the Bible as the Word of God for the first time. It was not a church that I would attend today since they mainly sought to be relevant and preached a very watered-down, seeker-sensitive gospel, but God graciously used that time to open my heart to His Word.

At this point I was reading my Bible daily and wrestling with so many questions. Outwardly, I was already this “good, Christian, homeschooled girl” to my new friends but inwardly I doubted my salvation, and for a good reason. I had never repented of my sins and trusted in Jesus alone to save me. I was trusting in my own works and believing a mashed up version of some Bible verses and a lot of made up things that I wanted to be true.

God used a year of some Bible teaching at that church, lots of individual study of the Word, and some very humbling events to show me my desperate need for a Savior. One day at church, it all came to a head for me and I recognized my pride and facade for what it was. The Holy Spirit’s conviction was strong and I was clearly aware that I was not adopted into God’s family of believers. And I needed to be. Immediately.

That morning after the service I repented of my sins and trusted in Christ alone for salvation! I got baptized that day and submitted fully to God’s Word and ways, trusting in Him alone and not my good works. I cannot convey the freedom and joy that welled up in my heart that day as my greatest problem was taken care of and I was set free from sin to live for Christ. By God’s grace, my mom and sister both got saved within a month of me and we had the sweetest fellowship time reading our Bibles and growing in submission to the Lord. We found a new church that preached the full, beautiful gospel and taught expositionally from the Word each week.

A week after being born again, I began to experience anxiety and panic attacks, something that I had as a child but was again resurfacing. Satan seems to capitalize on the naivety of new believers and God was allowing me to see more of my weakness and my need for Him. My pride would like to tell you that this is something that I quickly conquered, but in truth, I still battle anxiety to this day. I have learned much from the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 when he talks about his “thorn in the flesh.”

Of course, anxiety is not my only area of weakness, and I have become more and more aware, throughout the years, of my sinful flesh and its constant opposition to the things of God. But, I praise God that His Spirit lives in me to conquer the flesh as I am called to daily take up my cross and follow Him. In Christ, I have been set free from slavery to sin and have become a slave of righteousness, as Romans 6 explains. I’m so thankful that sanctification is both a one time event at justification but also a continual process.

I want to point out three areas of God’s work in my life that I pray will be applicable for you.

The first is this: Christ is not needed only by those whose lives have hit rock bottom. I greatly enjoyed my childhood and was walking with the assumption that I was a good person who cared about spiritual things and inclusivity and so that was enough. The truth is that my rebellious heart towards the exclusivity of Christ was just as vile to God as the heart of anyone in history has ever been. I was separated from God by my sins and headed toward hell for eternity. Christ offers the free gift of salvation for anyone at any time and today is the day of salvation! I urge you not to wait as long as I did to be right with Him.

The second point has to do with my pride. I was in a place right before I got saved where I struggled with the fact that I already was identifying as a Christian and most of my friends probably thought that I was a believer. I thought if I truly got saved at that point, those around me would think I was faking it before then, which I was. I beg you not to let this keep you from being saved. Being identified with Christ in His death means also experiencing the death of our pride, and we should feel the sting of denying ourselves and being crucified with Christ as Galatians 2:20 says.

My third point is that coming to Christ does not make all of our problems go away. This is a dangerous misunderstanding of the gospel. As Christians, we are told by Jesus that in this life we will have trouble. We will experience persecution, criticism, opposition from Satan and from the world, perhaps even those very dear to us. However, I cannot convey to you the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. We can receive complete forgiveness of sins as well as abundant life now and for eternity!

Please don’t stop praying earnestly for your unsaved friends and family. If you had known me 10 years ago, I was that person that drove you crazy on Facebook and in person with my prideful resistance to the gospel. I am still amazed at the 180º turn that has come from being saved. I truly became a new creation, as 2 Corinthians 5:17 speaks of.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation;
the old things passed away;
behold, new things have come.
2 Corinthians 5:17

I went from trusting in myself and making God to be who I wanted Him to be, to fully submitting to Christ and delighting that God’s ways are higher than mine. That is the amazing thing about regeneration! Any time God chooses and saves a sinner it is a miracle and worthy of our constant remembrance and praise. Christ is a treasure far greater than anything this world could offer and I pray that you may also know Him as Savior and Lord!

Additional Resources:

What Must I Do to be Saved?

Searching for a new church?

If you are in the New Age movement, or were saved out of the New Age movement and need a little help and encouragement from someone who’s been there, I highly recommend my friend Doreen Virtue and her YouTube channel as a wonderful resource.

Ladies, God is still at work in the hearts and lives of His people, including yours! Would you like to share (anonymously, if you like) a testimony of how God saved you, how He has blessed you, convicted you, taught you something from His Word, brought you out from under false doctrine, placed you in a good church or done something otherwise awesome in your life? Drop me an email, and I’ll send you the particulars for sharing your story. Let’s encourage one another with God’s work in our lives!

Christian women

Throwback Thursday ~ You Don’t Need Jezebel for a Role Model

July 25, 2024July 23, 2024 Michelle Lesley

Originally published January 29, 2021

In the midst of all the craziness going on out there, did you notice that, for the first time in history, the United States has a woman occupying the office of Vice President?

It’s been overshadowed a bit by the Covid vaccination, the protest at the Capitol, the “will they or won’t they” impeachment proceedings against former President Trump, the flurry of executive orders issued by President Biden in his first few days in office, and, of course, Bernie’s mittens.

Sorry to rain on your inaugural parade, there, feminists, but it seems like there aren’t very many folks – at least not as many as you’d probably like – celebrating this supposedly groundbreaking moment for women. I guess it’s kind of hard when the tribe you’re joined to has, for the moment anyway, left you in the wallflower line to dance with the “gender is just a social construct”
guys
gals
humans
huwomens
people.

But cheer up. A few gentlewomen of your ilk are out there beating the drum for Kamala Harris to be the Great American Role Model for young girls to look up to. She’s a woman in a position of power, after all, and that’s all that matters.

Or is it?

For Christian women and girls, it takes a lot more than two X chromosomes and a fancy job title to qualify as a role model, and Kamala Harris doesn’t even come close to being in the running.

For starters, she’s not a Christian. But it goes waaaaaay beyond that. You could probably recite with me the litany of the evils she stands for:

She promotes the torturing to death of babies in the womb, hopes to expand access to abortion, voted against protecting babies born alive after botched abortions, and votes against every piece of pro-life legislation that crosses her desk.
As California’s Attorney General she prosecuted David Daleiden for exposing Planned Parenthood’s illegal sales of aborted babies’ body parts.
She has voted in favor of banning abstinence-only sex education.
She was one of the original co-sponsors of the Equality Act, which enshrines sexual perversion lifestyles into a special legal class, thereby threatening the freedom of churches, Christian organizations, and others to operate according to biblical principles.
She is an outspoken advocate for the the sexual perversion lifestyle agenda
When same sex “marriage” was legalized in California, she praised the decision and celebrated it by performing the first same sex “wedding” in San Francisco.
She has been supportive of Black Lives Matter and many of their protest activities.

…and so much more.

Is everything she stands for evil? I doubt it. I would assume she’s not in favor of kicking puppies or armed robbery or littering, and probably lots of other things. But from a biblical perspective, in her capacity as a governmental leader, she generally advocates for wickedness. And that is certainly not the type of person Christians should look up to as a role model.

Which must have been what got my friend, Pastor Tom Buck, thinking about the evil Old Testament queen, Jezebel, and led him to make this astute observation on Twitter:

And, though he wasn’t actually calling Vice President Harris “Jezebel,”¹ he’s absolutely right in drawing the comparison between Israelite women looking up to a wicked queen and Christian women looking up to a Vice President who fights for all sorts of things the Bible calls wickedness.

Do you know who Jezebel was and what she stood for? She was the wife of King Ahab, who, 1 Kings tells us, did more evil in the sight of the Lord, and did more to provoke the Lord, than all who were before him. And his “vice president,” Queen Jezebel, pushed him there.

Hold your nose and brace yourself, and let’s check out Jezebel’s bio:

1 Kings 16:31– Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal (whose name means “Baal is alive”). Idolatry was the way of life she had been raised in- an idolatry that required human sacrifice as a sacrament.

1 Kings 18:4,13– Jezebel “cut off” and “killed” the prophets of the Lord.

1 Kings 18:19– Jezebel welcomed, embraced, and honored the 450 false prophets of Baal and the 400 false prophets of Asherah.

1 Kings 19:1-2– After the showdown on Mt. Carmel in which God demonstrated through Elijah that He was the one true God, and Elijah put the prophets of Baal to death, Jezebel swore to kill Elijah, God’s representative to His people.

1 Kings 21:1-16– Jezebel, in the name of the king, ordered city officials to have false accusations of capital crimes levied against Naboth in order to execute him and steal his land, which Naboth, in obedience to God, had refused to give the king.

1 Kings 21:25– “There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited.” She encouraged the king toward greater wickedness.

2 Kings 9– God was so disgusted with Jezebel’s vile character and behavior that He destroyed Ahab’s lineage and killed Jezebel in one of the basest, most humiliating ways possible. Dogs, at the time, were wild, filthy, and despised, so much so that to call someone a “dog” was an outrageous epithet. And anyone not receiving a proper burial was looked upon as cursed by God. We’re given some hints in this chapter that Jezebel may have been sexually immoral, but Scripture places far more emphasis on her sins of idolatry (often called “whoring” in the Old Testament- indeed, 2 Chronicles says “the house of Ahab led Israel into ‘whoredom'”, i.e. idolatry), rebellion against God, and general wickedness than on any acts of sexual immorality she may have committed.

That’s Jezebel. A woman in the second most powerful position in the country who facilitated the murder of innocent human beings, ran swiftly to do evil, and zealously defied the commands of the living God.

Let the reader understand.

You cannot look up at the cross of Christ and look up to Kamala at the same time. She champions the sins that nailed your precious Savior to the tree.

“So who can I point my daughters to as role models?” a reader recently asked me. “With so many false teachers out there, I can only think of one or two well known Christians I can hold up to them as examples.”

That’s OK, because you don’t need to.

Forget the evangelical celebrities, ladies. Teach your girls to look up to the godly older women in your church, and, if God has so blessed you, in your family. And you look to them, too.

Look for the women in your church who are like the godly widows of 1 Timothy 5. The ones who…

are deserving of honor
“set [their] hope on God and continue in supplications and prayers night and day”
have been faithful wives
have a reputation for good works
have been godly mothers
have shown hospitality, served God’s people, cared for the afflicted, and devoted themselves to every good work
are faithful to Christ
aren’t idlers, gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not
give the adversary no occasion for slander.

Look up to the women in your church who exemplify the godly character of the older women in Titus 2. Women who…

are reverent in behavior
control their tongues and speak of others in godly ways
don’t allow themselves to be controlled by alcohol or anything else but Christ
are able to teach and train young women to be godly women, wives, and mothers
strive to prevent the word of God from being reviled.

These are the women you and your girls should look to – not the celebrities who don’t even know you exist, but the older, spiritually mature real life women you know and have access to. The women you can pour your heart out to, call when you have a question, get wise counsel from when you need advice. That’s the biblical model – personal discipleship, not admiration from afar.

And ladies my age and older – those of us who have been married a minute and have managed to shoot our little arrows out the door and into lives of their own, who have flourished in a life of God-ordained singlehood, who have suffered the loss of a spouse or the loss of a marriage, those of us who have been there, done that, and been around the block a time or two – well, scroll back up there and read those character qualities from Titus and Timothy again, because those are the women we need to be. It’s all well and good to point these younger ladies to the godly older women in their churches, but we’d better be there for them when they show up. We need to strive to be able to say to them, as Paul said, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.”

Younger women need, and older women need to be church “mothers” and “older sisters” who lead by example and nurture those under their care in real time.

Nobody needs Jezebel as a role model.

¹Tom was accused by some of using a racial slur against Kamala Harris, because, apparently some consider the term “Jezebel” to mean “a promiscuous woman of color”. This was certainly news to me, Tom, and a host of others who had never heard such a thing before. He was (as am I in this article) strictly referencing the Jezebel of the Bible and her evil character, which had nothing to do with ethnicity, and little, if anything, to do with sexual immorality. Jezebel is an icon of female wickedness just like Hitler is an icon of wickedness in general. When you compare someone to Hitler you’re not saying they’re German or antisemitic, and when you compare someone to Jezebel, all that’s being implied is that she’s a generally evil woman, regardless of race or chastity.

Mailbag

The Mailbag: Video Q&A

July 23, 2024July 22, 2024 Michelle Lesley

Originally published June 15, 2020

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been out of state caring for my mother after a lengthy hospital stay. But I haven’t forgotten about y’all! On the drive up and the drive back I posted Facebook Live and Instagram Live videos answering your questions. If you don’t follow me on social media, you may have missed them, so I’m sharing them here today. Maybe I answered a question you’ve been thinking about sending in? Watch and find out!

Looking for a resource I mentioned in one of the videos? Check the tabs in the blue menu bar at the top of this page, or use the search bar (be sure to spell correctly).

May 26, 2020- Road trip QA&A, Facebook Live

May 26, 2020- Road trip QA&A, Instagram Live

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June 12, 2020- Road trip QA&A #2, Facebook Live

June 12, 2020- Road trip QA&A #2, Instagram Live

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If you don’t already follow me on social media, check out my Contact and Social Media tab in the blue menu bar at the top of this page and give me a follow!

If you have a question about: a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected.

Podcast Appearances

Podcast Guest Appearance – Contending for the Word

July 10, 2024July 10, 2024 Michelle Lesley

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with my friend Dave Jenkins on his podcast Contending for the Word, in an episode titled Unmasking False Teaching in Women’s Ministries.

Listen in as Dave and I discuss marks of a false teacher, your responsibility to be a careful listener at church, conferences and other events, issues with The Gospel Coalition, LifeWay Women, and Crossway, the importance of the local church, and more!

(I misspoke at the 30:01 mark. When I said, “The Gospel Coalition is less progressive…” I meant to say “LifeWay Women is less progressive…”)

Be sure to check out Dave’s website, Servants of Grace, where you’ll find an abundance of great teaching, podcasts, and materials, as well as his social media links- and give Dave a follow!

Articles / resources mentioned or touched on in the episode:

The Gospel Coalition

Searching for a new church?

Speaking Engagements

A Word Fitly Spoken

Got a podcast of your own or have a podcasting friend who needs a guest? Need a speaker for a women’s conference or church event? Click the “Speaking Engagements” tab in the blue menu bar at the top of this page, drop me an e-mail, and let’s chat!

Share Your Testimony

By the Word of Their Testimony: Holli’s Story

June 12, 2024June 11, 2024 Michelle Lesley

Note from Michelle: Ladies, if you’ve been around the blog for a while, you might remember Testimony Tuesday which featured testimonies from my readers. I never wanted Testimony Tuesday to go away, I just stopped receiving testimonies from y’all. Let’s reignite Testimony Tuesday under its new name, By the Word of Their Testimony. See my end note for how to share your story.

Holli Solenberger’s Story:
Priscilla Shirer and Letting Go

Aside from leaving my last church, this ranks a close second to the hardest I’ve had to submit to the Lord’s pruning out of my life.

I first saw Priscilla Shirer in the movie War Room. I was at a former church a few years ago – when War Room was in theatres. The ladies’ small group at that church was going together, and with everything going on, I felt I needed that community, so I went.

What resonated in my heart during that movie – I was not prepared for. You know how a movie changes your perspective, or speaks to a part of your life that is needed? This was my reaction. It was so strong, that it served almost like a catalyst – very similar to when you hear a new song and you love it so much, you want to find more by that same singer? I had to find out more about Priscilla.

I was really surprised to find out she was the daughter of Tony Evans – who (at the time) I thought was Biblical, so that association made me think, “surely she is solid too – she was in a Christian movie – I have to find her teachings!” So, I searched on YouTube, and found more – and that was it for me. She spoke to my heart, she’s a momma of boys like me, she was relatable, funny, and seemed genuine. On so many points, I was an instant fan.

I dove down into finding many of her teachings and watched them back to back. If it spoke to my heart, it got a green light – period. She talked about Jesus, and God, and Christianity, so I thought she was okay.

I NEVER EVER bothered to check out what she was teaching with what the Bible says. Ever.

As I have pled with others to be discerning, I speak from true repentance – because I have never been discerning as God says to be. I chose to accept what people said as truth – without seeing what the Bible says. I loosely and wrongly allowed things people said into my beliefs (the fancy word is theology) without reading what God thought about their beliefs. And I have no excuse. It’s all there in the Bible. But if what somebody said sounded good, I didn’t look in God’s Word.

And to be blunt… looking back… I really believe I didn’t look because I didn’t want to. I felt good and knew – I believe at least subconsciously – if I looked, and was convicted if God says differently, I’d have to let go what made me feel that way. I know I am not the only one to do this. I’ve met thousands of people that – like me – chose to be misled into what the Bible says are myths and fables (which is what it mentions any truth apart from God’s truth).

I really believe I didn’t look because I didn’t want to. I felt good and knew – I believe at least subconsciously – if I looked, and was convicted if God says differently, I’d have to let go what made me feel that way.

I talk a lot about letting go of things and people that were precious to me. I still love many of them. But I know they aren’t good for me, so because God requires in His Word to choose – you can’t have both, you can’t have one foot in things He says are wrong, and the other in things He says are ok – that is SO painful.
SO painful to let go of. To submit to Him. This is what I mean when I talk about living with open palms. It means being willing to let go of anything God says is not okay – even if your heart doesn’t want to.

Well…one day, in the middle of my youngest son’s hardest time (so far) in his little life, I heard Priscilla was going to be speaking at her father’s church – about 30 minutes away from me. I cleared my calendar, got dressed, and went to see her. There was a worship/singing part, followed by her speaking. I was so enthused to see the woman I felt God used in my life in person, I don’t even remember what she talked about.

When she was done, I waited for nearly an hour to speak with her one on one for just a few minutes. She saw me waiting and kept telling me to hold on and hold on, so I did. And when she got to me, I just lost it. I cried and cried – I knew whatever I said had to be to the point, because many others were waiting still. As the tears fell, she started crying too, as I told her, “I want to thank you for God using you in my life! I’ve been through so much and I saw you in War Room and ever since I have watched your teachings and I’m so grateful for you being used by Him in so many ways!” We hugged then, a tight but quick hug, then took a selfie.

Priscilla and Holli

Fast forward to the past few months…God didn’t just lead me to leave my last church! He led me to give up so, so much more – including Priscilla. This has been just as painful. When things speak into our pain, in deep ways – oh my, my, my. That is just heartbreaking to open our clenched fists and submit…to….God.
I only speak about my own convictions, and I share openly – knowing many will be hateful to me, hurtful, talk about me, treat me harshly, because they would rather live with their fists tightly closed. They aren’t ready.

And there is nothing I can do to change that. I am only a vessel. It is God’s sovereignty that chooses if – or when – others are convicted, like I was. I share – knowing the repercussions – for the very few that the Lord will, as He has me in His kindness and mercy, give ears to hear – and a soft heart towards Him and His Word. And hopefully open their palms too.

This is one of many things that God has brought about, that’s about Priscilla – but I submit to you that though there are many God calls us to let go of, for the false things are everywhere, there is but one Standard that we hold everything and everyone up to – God’s Word.

I pray this helps you not only with Priscilla but to see through this example written about, why being a Berean is so important.