Teachers of Good Things - Part 2

Teachers of Good Things - Part 2

Rev. Michele Owes [00:00:01]:

Welcome back to Teachers of Good Things. This is Reverend Michele Owes, and I am with Diana P. Cherry. And today, we are, going over some of the most important things that we believe God would have us to share with you today. And we just talked woman to woman about how our hearts bleed for them. There are so many things we want them to know and understand about their value. We want them to know who God created them to be and how important they are. Sometimes we just don't know that. We don't wake up feeling like we're important to anybody, but to think that we are important to a holy God is a whole new concept. And so we're going to dive into that a little bit today. We're going to let wisdom take it away with Mrs. Cherry.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:00:55]:

I just wanna encourage all of us as women to know that, you know, God did not just make a man in his image and after his likeness. Man was the apex of God's creation. That was the best that God could do. And when I was teaching God's Plan for the Woman, I said God went into the best that he had and he took out the best of the best. And with the side that He took out of the man Adam, He made us. And that word, woman, means that we were magnificently formed, and created by God. The word of God says that he formed a man, which means that he kind of like clay or putty, you know, squeezed him here or there so man is kind of broad at the top and kind of narrow at the bottom. But for us, he made us. He skillfully handcrafted us.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:01:37]:

Yes. Amen.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:01:55]:

There is only one you and there is only one me. God put things in us that he did not put in man. We are the emotional part of His creation man. And we were made by God to use our emotions in a godly way. So He put something in us that I call, a response mechanism. God made us respond to the needs of others, but he did not make us to respond to every turkey that comes by and rubs our hands, or our neck and tries to entice us to sin against the God that made us. He gave us these emotions so that we could respond to needs, so we would hear the voice of God. And if we see a need, we can help respond to that need. I strongly encourage all of you who are listening to go back and grab a copy of that Teaching God's Plan for the Woman so that you can have a better appreciation of who we are, who God made us to be, and what our purpose is in life. We were wonderfully, wonderfully made by a Holy God so that we would hear his voice, respond to his voice, and meet the needs of others. This is not in a flashy way but in a very spiritually sound way.

If you feel that you've been in a situation. It might be abusive and you wonder why you stay. Well, you're kind of using a perversion of what God put in you. You feel that you just gotta stay in that situation. You don't. You don't. God didn't make you to stay in a situation where you are abused, or misused. But you do have that response mechanism. So use it, pick up your grace, and get out of that situation. Run from it because you weren't made by God to be abused, or to be misused. Don't be afraid to respond, but just learn how to respond to the needs of others in a godly way, in a way that would further the will of God and be a help to others. So that might have been kinda confusing or that might have been a lot. I don't know.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:04:30]:

I think it was a blessing. I also believe that there are times that, as a young woman, you believe that the man is the prize, or that he is the greater in terms of, oh, he needs to look at me, or he finds me wonderful and forgetting that you are wonderful whether he finds you that way or not. And oftentimes, when there is a breakup or things don't work the way that you would like them to, we think that there's something wrong with us as women. That's the first place we go. But it's just that he couldn't see the uniqueness, your wonderful nature, the greatness that God has placed in you. We can leave a relationship feeling like we lack something, but you don't lack anything.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:05:22]:

Right. We can. I think the most important thing before you get into a relationship is to realize that you don't have to.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:05:30]:

Mhmm.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:05:30]:

You do not need a man to be whole. You do not need a man to validate you. You do not need a man to meet your needs. God made you and God will provide for your needs. We live in such an immoral time now, and people just think that they have to flow with the world. And you don't. Amen. You can flow with the Spirit of God and you really can be successful. You can be happy. You can be gorgeous, you can be all that you want to be, and you never have to be touched by a man. I used to tell the women in the church, that we don't have very much in the flesh that we can give to God. The one thing that we have that we could give to him, that we give to everybody but him, is our virginity. Mhmm. I would like to raise a group of women, especially young women, who would realize that there's no value in sinning. There is no value in giving your body to some man, but there is value and fulfillment beyond measure, if you're able to keep yourself and present yourself holy, a sacrifice acceptable unto God. It would be a wonderful thing. And if you've already sinned against God, given your virginity up, God forgives you. And I often, on our women's retreat, would pray a cleansing prayer. A prayer that would cover you with the blood of Jesus Christ so that if you have lost your virginity I used to declare that the women were then spiritual virgins covered by the blood of Jesus. And if you then sin after that, you are allowing someone to come between you and the blood of Jesus Christ. And so I just want to throw out some of the things that we used to teach at the women's retreats. We used to have So much fun at the retreats.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:07:39]:

Do I hear a retreat coming on the horizon?

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:07:42]:

I would love it. I would love it. Some quiet time with women, yes. Who are sincere about their walk with God. None of us are perfect, but I would just love to have a perfecting, conference for women to reteach God's Plan for the Woman because God hasn't changed. And His plan for us in the beginning is still His plan for us.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:08:08]:

I think a wonderful thing is to know how much He loves us and how His arms are outstretched for us. No matter where we are, where we've been, what we've been doing, how we've been thinking, He's always ready to receive us. The fact that He's numbered every hair on our heads, even the ones we lost, He knew about those too.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:08:29]:

And I look at them all the time.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:08:32]:

The fact that He says that He will perfect the things that concern us. Yeah. In other words, whatever is concerning us at this moment, He has a way to perfect it.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:08:41]:

Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:08:42]:

But we so often don't go to Him. We go to other places. We try to do other things. We add to ourselves things that don't bring us joy. But if we could find a way to run to the Father instead of run to the other things, we'd get what we need to feed our souls. Yeah. Not just our minds, but also to feed our souls and cause us to be one again. I was reading in the Old Testament, I'm not gonna try to quote exactly where, but Scriptures stay in my mind, not necessarily the reference, but the scripture said, and God will wait so that he can be kind unto you. And when I read that, I thought about how long my Heavenly Father waited for me, the flawed me. He waited for the flawed me so that he could show his kindness to me.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:09:31]:

My goodness.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:09:33]:

And so when times get tough, I just remember that my Heavenly Father is waiting for me to get to Him so that He can be kind to me. Yeah. And I think if we can all just forget about what we've done and I don't mean forget about it callous way. Learn from our mistakes because we all have made plenty.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:09:54]:

Yes, we have.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:09:55]:

And and just be able to continue to love the Father that loves us. Wow!

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:09:59]:

Yes.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:10:00]:

And to stay focused on the things that he desires of us. Yeah. I think we'll get to a place where we recognize that we're somebody valuable to him. Mhmm.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:10:11]:

And we're just making God our priority.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:10:13]:

Yes. And then we won't just let any joker come by and devalue us. Because we have value with a holy God. Right. And I think that's so, so important.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:10:24]:

It is. It is.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:10:26]:

So share with us some of the scriptures that just lifted you when you needed to be lifted.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:10:33]:

Well, I guess the greatest time of need was when my husband left to go to heaven. I tell people I did not leave him, I would not have left him. He left me and he went to heaven. You know, kind of like you, I just live in an atmosphere of God's word. Yeah. Not necessarily specific scriptures, but I know that God is God. I know that He loves me. I know that He cares for me. And during those moments when I would be lying awake at night maybe with a tear on my cheek, I would chastise myself. And I would say, you know better. You've been taught the word of God. You know the word of God. You've ministered to others. And how dare you now not allow the power of His grace to keep you from this pity party. Mhmm. I talk to myself from the atmosphere of God's word. Not necessarily scripture after scripture, but from the atmosphere of His word. I knew His word. And the thing that I did not want to do was to dishonor Him by not handling my husband's passing In a way that would glorify him. I often used to teach the women that there are not many opportunities that we have in life to glorify God.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:11:53]:

Mhmm.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:11:53]:

I mean in difficult times if God doesn't show up. You are out of here.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:12:05]:

Yeah. Mhmm.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:12:11]:

And I've not had an illness where I had an opportunity to do that. But when my husband left me after 21 days short of 50 years, I knew that I had to call on everything that I knew about him. Like I said, not to quote scripture to myself, but to live in His word, to be His word, to be the example that He desired me to be, to not give public displays of emotional failure.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:12:43]:

Mhmm.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:12:43]:

I knew better. My husband had taught us how to avoid emotional failure years ago. And I just saw his passing as an opportunity for me to avoid emotional failure. And I just talked to myself. The most interesting thing that happened was one day I was complaining and God said to me, When are you gonna thank me for what I've done for you? Mhmm. And arrogantly, I said, what do you mean what you've done for me? Mhmm. And he said, thank me for what I delivered you from. And so that word of God was made manifest in my heart.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:13:24]:

I can't think of a single scripture that freed me, but I'm free. What you're sharing right now is a segway to something we've talked about for a while between the 2 of us. We will be sharing a segment on the widow's walk because both of us are widows. We never imagined that we would be widows. We always met in fours.

Rev. Cherry

Yes. You and your husband, me, and mine worked together in ministry. To come together now, and it is the two of us without them is different. We are living the deposit that both of them made in our lives. The widows walk.

Rev. Owes

That is true. And I also want to share that, when my husband went home to be with the Lord, one of the things that God said to me was, when are you going to thank me for the time that you had? When are you going to thank me for the hours, for the moments, for the fact that you had the lion share of his life? When are you going to thank me for the fact that you had a godly life, a loving life, a wonderful life with him? And how dare you question when I bring my son home? He's my son. I had to get my little self together because no matter how much my heart broke, I knew that God wasn't trying to hurt me. Right. It hurt me, yes. But God wasn't trying to hurt me. Then I had to also recognize that God left me here still with a purpose and a plan. I couldn't get lost in what I was feeling at the moment or I would have missed what God was doing. Yeah. What we're sharing with you today is don't get lost in the situations and the circumstances of life so much that we miss what God is doing in our lives.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry [00:15:28]:

Right. There's nothing in life that should devastate us and cause us to be useless. Amen. Fruitless for God's plan and purpose in our lives.

Rev. Michele Owes [00:15:40]:

Amen. And that's a great way to end our podcast number two. And we'll move on, so you'll be hearing again from us soon. I heard retreat somewhere. I did. I heard the widows walk somewhere. Yeah. So we're gonna continue. Alright. Thank you so much. We love you guys. God bless.