A Girl’s Responsibility
Even with the most comprehensive and put together discipleship program girls today have a responsibility to act rightly. Women, and girls, have tremendous power at their fingertips. While most young women would say that they want a man to lead, provide, and protect them, many of them settle for far less than God’s ideal for a godly man. As John Ensor so helpfully says in his book, Doing ThingsRight in Matters of the Heart:
“Sisters, abstaining from sexual immorality is, for you, too, a matter of submitting to God and his commands. But it is more. It is God’s “Mature Manhood Test Kit” for women. The immature, self-centered, ungodly man will test negative in a matter of weeks. The deceitful and cunning predator will test negative in a matter of days. Men willing to wait, and wanting to wait, will test positive. It is not a lack of sexual interest; it is a healthy fear of God. It is love, which at this point rightfully expresses itself as protection from sin and shame. If he weakens, help him succeed. If all else goes well in the development of the relationship, you know you are marrying a godly man, one who has self-control and a clear sense of his calling as a man.”
To put it simply, girls can encourage men to be men. They can test them by their willingness to wait to fulfill their sexual desires until marriage. It is not normal for boys to expect sex and get it outside of marriage, at least not in God’s economy. Yet, so many of them think this is the case. As we disciple them and walk them through God’s design for them as women they will learn that they have tremendous power to either encourage men to act honorably or dishonorably. And something happens when we help girls do this—the bad boys move on.
I find great encouragement in the fact that young women today want to marry well and live as godly women. But we have to go further than the desire. The Evil One wants nothing more than for them to abandon God’s design and follow the culture. And the cultural onslaught against womanhood is just as bad. By God’s grace our churches can, and should be, places where young girls can grow in godliness and their desire for marriage and family, and be protected from the boys who will keep them from these matrimonial dreams becoming a reality.
This post is the third post in a two part series. Read Part 1 and Part 2