You know…women played a very important part in the story of Jesus.
He was born of a woman, prepared for burial by a woman (the alabaster box woman), first seen by a woman after his resurrection.
He commissioned the women to go tell his disciples that he had risen.
He never disgraced, reproached, belittled or even stereotyped a woman in the Bible.
Indeed we are special in his eyes.😊😇
Tonight we are going to have an exposition on the interactions between Jesus and three of the women in the Bible and how we can relate it to our present day situations.
The theme of tonight’s session is *Unashamed*
What does it mean to be ‘unashamed’?
Can anyone help us answer?
🌺Contributions:
💮Feeling or showing no shame
💮Not being afraid of who you are,what you carry and whom you represent
💮Without remorse
We’ll begin answering this question by looking at the story of The woman with The Alabaster Box in Luke 7:37-39 (The Passion Translation)
“In the neighborhood there was an immoral woman of the streets, known to all to be a prostitute. When she heard about Jesus being in Simon’s house, she took an exquisite flask made from alabaster, filled it with the most expensive perfume, went right into the home of the Jewish religious leader, and knelt at the feet of Jesus in front of all the guests.
Broken and weeping, she covered his feet with the tears that fell from her face. She kept crying and drying his feet with her long hair. Over and over she kissed Jesus’ feet. Then she opened her flask and anointed his feet with her costly perfume *as an act of worship.*
When Simon saw what was happening, he thought, “This man can’t be a true prophet. If he were really a prophet, he would know what kind of sinful woman is touching him.” (emphasis mine)
In case you skipped the Bible passage, please go back and read it again. 😅
From the passage above, we understand that everyone knew this woman as a prostitute.
She had that tag on her everywhere she went, people would point fingers, talk behind her back and look at her with disgust. ☹️
Perhaps you have been given a tag just because of the mistakes you’ve made in the past… and you’ve heard it for so long you began to think that maybe that’s truly who you are?
Jesus is setting you free tonight!!
So back to the woman, we don’t have much information about her from scriptures but one thing we know is that they knew her to be a prostitute…
When this woman walked into the house where Jesus was, she knew that there’d be people who would still look at her as a sinner, as unclean but she didn’t care because the One who would give her a change of name and story was sitting in that house…she was *unashamed*, she knew that if she could just get to Jesus, something would happen. 🔥🙌🏻
Do you know that Jesus has the power to change your life if you’ll only just let Him???
And so she went to Jesus, fell at His feet, the passage reads “Broken and weeping”, she started wiping His feet with her tears and drying it with her hair. 🥺
I don’t know about you, but my hair is very important to me. 😏😅
A woman with this kind of posture was saying,
“There’s nothing left to lose anymore, you’re all that matters now Jesus, I have come to the end of myself… just take it all”
Then she broke the alabaster box of perfume, that was probably all she had left. Some versions say it was a year’s worth wages. Do you know what it cost to give a year’s salary???😳
But it was an act of worship to the One who would die for Her.
The Bible states that the scent filled the whole room.
Cause you see…
Worship is more than just singing to God and feeling emotional about it, it’s also about living your life in a way that brings glory to His name so much so that the scent of your life is perceived by all who come in contact with you and ultimately draw them to Jesus.
Further more in the passage…(verses 39-50)
We won’t read it all because of time…
The people present in the room are angry, first that Jesus allowed this woman touch Him and that she ‘wasted’ the perfume. 🌝
When you decide to start living your life for Jesus, people will talk about you, call you names, try to stop you.
I remember sometime ago, while on campus, somebody told me, “fine girl like you, see how you’re wasting your life, with all this church things”😅
That even made me more determined to not stop cause comments like this show that we’re hitting the devil’s kingdom hard. 😼😅
All you have to do is focus on the One you’re living for and let Him defend you.
Because that’s what happened in that passage, not only did He defend her, he forgave her her sins and changed her name forever.
No longer to be known as the Prostitute but forever known as The Woman with the Alabaster Box
All praises to Jesus, our Defender🙌🏻
Someone is receiving a change of name tonight in Jesus name!
I believe we’re already getting blessed? 😄🙌🏻
I don’t know about you, but I am! 😄😄
Next we’ll look at The Adulterous Woman.
One of the world’s number one question should be, “where is the man that she was caught in the act with?” 🤷♀️
No one knows 🌝😅
But that’s by the way.😅
John 8: 4-11 (TPT)
Then they said to Jesus, “Teacher, we caught this woman in the very act of adultery.
Doesn’t Moses’ law command us to stone to death a woman like this? Tell us, what do you say we should do with her?”
They were only testing Jesus because they hoped to trap him with his own words and accuse him of breaking the laws of Moses.
But Jesus didn’t answer them. Instead he simply bent down and wrote in the dust with his finger.
Angry, they kept insisting that he answer their question, so Jesus stood up and looked at them and said, “Let’s have the man who has never had a sinful desire throw the first stone at her.”
And then he bent over again and wrote some more words in the dust.
Upon hearing that, her accusers slowly left the crowd one at a time, beginning with the oldest to the youngest, with a convicted conscience.
Until finally, Jesus was left alone with the woman still standing there in front of him. So he stood back up and said to her, “Dear woman, where are your accusers? Is there no one here to condemn you?”
Looking around, she replied, “I see no one, Lord.”
Jesus said, “Then I certainly don’t condemn you either. Go, and from now on, be free from a life of sin.”
(Emphasis mine)
It’s quite a long passage. But please let’s take a moment and read through.
🌺 Contribution: Jesus is my advocate so no one can condemn me for no reason coz I have been justiified
Just as verse 11 said, Jesus doesn’t condemn you.
He doesn’t!!!
For some of us, we are so wrapped up in the guilt from our mistakes that we find it hard to believe that Jesus loves us or that He even wants to have anything to do with us.
But that’s the reason He came to die! He came because of YOU. And it doesn’t matter how far gone you think you are, His arms are always outstretched waiting for you to come home.
Listen carefully…
No matter how abominable you think the sin you committed might be, whether it be abortion, fornication, lesbianism, murder, slander, betrayal, masturbation, pornography, drug addiction, sex addiction… just name it…
My Bible tells me in Romans 8:38-39 that *NOTHING* can separate us from the love of God.
Absolutely nothing can make the Father stop loving you, not even your sins😩
Jesus doesn’t care about your past, He died for us while we were yet sinners.
He loves you regardless of what you might’ve done.
Ephesians 3:18-19 (The Living Bible Translation)
“…and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself”
What He’s interested in is what He can make out of your life if you’ll just let Him.
Mind you, He won’t impose Himself on you.
It is the devil that condemns, but the Holy Spirit convicts. These are two different things.
The devil wants you to keep you in a state of condemnation so that you’ll keep having guilty conscience and be afraid to go back to the Father. He wants to keep you *away from* the father.
The Holy Spirit convicts you, not by beating you down for your actions but by reminding you that, that is not your true self and encouraging you to approach the Father for mercy and grace. He tries to *get you back to* the Father.
Please let’s look closely at this so that when certain thoughts come into your mind, you can discern who and what is speaking…
Finally we’d be looking at The Samaritan Woman by the well.
It’s a very long passage in John chapter 4 that runs all the way from verses 4-42 so we’d just highlight key verses from it.
Vss. 16-18
Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.
The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:
For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
Understand that there’s nothing hidden from Jesus, He knows your tiniest dirtiest secrets, habits, besetting sins and it still doesn’t make Him stay away.
Instead, he wants to help you get rid of them.
Guilt eats at you till it breaks you down.
You might not even know it’s the reason behind some of your present actions because it’s been buried in for so long.
But Jesus wants to make you whole so that your life can be a testimony to other women too.
Vss. 23-24
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Sisters, that hour is now. We are living in the times of the manifestation of the prophecies of Bible days.
God is seeking for true worshippers that’ll worship Him in spirit and truth.
Why is worship important?
Because you cannot talk about God’s love without worship.
We receive God’s love and we respond to Him in worship.
Remember what I said about worship earlier, it is more than just singing but also about living.
Vss. 29-30, 39-42
Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.
And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.
So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days.
And many more believed because of his own word;
And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.
Ladies we are saved to serve. Christ’s sacrifice was aimed at turning us back to the Father. And we are to continue in that mission. It’s like an appointment, that when you accept you get under Heaven’s payroll.
This woman didn’t hesitate to share this wonderful experience that she had just had with the Savior.
And at the end of it all, the people no longer acknowledged her *as the woman who had different husbands* but as the one that linked them to the Messiah.
Take a moment and digest these…
As we begin to round up…
I cannot help but repeat it again and again that God loves you no matter what you’ve done, where you’ve been or mistakes you’ve made.
You have to get past feeling guilty for those actions and start receiving His love.
For some of us it’ll be having a reconnection, maybe one sin or the other made you drift away from God… He’s calling you back now. All you have to do is go back in prayer and ask for mercy.
And puhleeeaasssseeee🙄 Be real! Leave all the big grammar and tell Him as it is, there are times I just go to God and weep, I just tell Him that I don’t have words to express the way I’m feeling and that He should listen to my heart.
If I told you the content of my prayers you’ll laugh. Sometimes I go, “Papa, I’ve come again o…I know I’ve been away for so long but you know you can’t throw me away na…” 😅
You need to be able to see God as real and as a Father.
Someone recently helped me understand this dimension of God as a father and that’s why as frequently as possible, I call Him Abba, meaning ‘Father’.
I want it to sink down into my spirit that He’s my father, that I am His beloved daughter, a princess and that He’ll never leave me.
For some of us, it might be that you’ve never received Jesus as your Lord and Savior yet.
Now is the time. Tomorrow is not promised. You might have been postponing, feeling like you want to ‘enjoy’ life first. I want to let you know that true enjoyment is found in Jesus. He gives peace that no one can give, He loves like no man can love you. I call Him my Lord Permanent, whoever I marry is Lord temporal😅
Some of us have searched for love in all the wrong places, compromised our standards and even gotten our hearts broken, while looking to fill that emptiness in our hearts.
I speak from experience sisters, I’ve been there before.
But it only takes so many relationships to realize that only He can fill that void in your heart.
Romans 10: 9-10
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall *not be ashamed.*(Unshamed)(emphasis mine)
If you’re ready to accept Jesus tonight, please say this prayer that I will type now:
Lord Jesus, I am sorry for living in a way that has not been pleasing to you, living a life without You.
I confess my sins before you tonight and I ask that You forgive and cleanse me from my sins.
I accept you as my Lord and Savior. Come take Your place in my life.
In Your name I pray, Amen!
I want to believe that a number of us have said this prayer tonight and there’s celebration in heaven right now. Glory! 💃🙌🏻
*If you said this prayer you can also dm me so we can talk more.* 🙏🏻🙏🏻
Welcome to God’s family.
Tonight we pray that the enemy will not steal these words of life that we have received tonight!
Instead they’ll fall on the fertile parts of our heart and illuminate us.
We decree that every ungodly habit, addiction, besetting sins that still has its grip on any of us is broken in the name of Jesus!
We say no more to shame, guilt and condemnation.🙅♀️
Satan we bind your hands over us, we come against you by the blood of Jesus! We loose ourselves from every form of your oppression in Jesus name!
Everyone sick here tonight receives healing in the name of Jesus!
Every broken heart/mind/spirit here tonight receives healing in the name of Jesus!
The chains are broken, we have been set free by Jesus and we are free indeed in Jesus mighty name!
Alleluia!!
I believe and trust in my heart, that women of God are rising out of this platform, women who are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, who are not ashamed to tell of how Christ has changed their lives, who are not ashamed of pouring their alabaster box at the feet of Jesus.
🙌🏻🙌🏻
May we truly be known as godly women and may we be ignited and as well ignite others with an unquenchable fire in pursuit of God and the interests of His kingdom.
Amen.
And so we have come to the end of tonight’s session and I trust we have all been greatly blessed by it.
For our new members, the group is still functional. We have our monthly sessions and classes that also run regularly here on the platform.
There are also nice resource materials such as PDFs, audio messages exclusive to members of the group only.
We hope that you stay with us as we continue in our mission of impacting ourselves, our society and our world in a godly way. 👌🏻👌🏻
It’s been an awesome night ladies. 😄
How many of us believe our lives are changing?🙋♀️
It’s a wrap ladies.😄
Thanks and God bless🙌🏻🤗
SisterSister 