Quotes from Mary A. Kassian

The sons of God are Jews, Greeks, and Gentiles; black and white; despised and respected; rich and poor; tall and short; men and women. All the features that externally define us are inconsequential when it comes to salvation, for Jesus brings "many sons to glory" (Heb. 2:10).

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Romans 12:2

And since that fateful day, "I'll do it my way" has been the prideful inclination of every man and woman who has ever lived. We mess up our lives by refusing to accept God's boundaries. We mess them up more by trying to cover the resulting problem with our own flimsy, ridiculous efforts. Instead of humbly submitting to God, we stubbornly refuse to believe that He knows better. We are literally "hell-bent" to do it our own way.

Spiritual discernment involves using God's Word as the standard for distinguishing and separating ideas and behaviors. It distinguishes and separates truth from falsehood, darkness from light, healthy from unhealthy, sound from unsound, and good from evil, based on the Bible's plumb line.

If you are unprepared to live the way God wants you to, chances are, you'll reject sound teaching and will simply gravitate toward teachers who will tell you what you want to hear.

God want us to put Him on display, so that everyone who looks at us sees the beauty of His image. It's a profound honor and responsibility to bear the image of God.

God had already told Adam and Eve what was right and what was wrong. But Satan said, in essence, "That's his opinion; you're entitled to your own opinion—you can make your own decisions about what is right and wrong.

Eve took the bite. But instead of the promised benefits, she found herself with a mouthful of distasteful consequences—guilt, fear, and alienation. The fellowship she had enjoyed with God and her husband was broken. Paradise had been lost.

And there are no shortcuts or substitutes for "constant practice" when it comes to developing spiritual discernment—

As obvious as it may be that it's important to follow the designer's directions when it comes to assembling shelves, it's a point so many women (and men) miss when it comes to "assembling" their lives and relationships. The fact is, any time we fail to consult the Designer and follow the directions He has provided, we're going to end up with a mess!

A woman who attends to her heart will attend to her ways.

Your womanhood is ultimately not about you. It's about displaying the glory of God and His powerful redemptive plan.

Over and over again, the Scripture teaches that God's laws are for our good and our protection and that obedience brings blessing. But Satan places in our minds the idea that God's laws are burdensome, unreasonable, and unfair, and that if we obey Him, we will be miserable. He tempts us to question God's wisdom.

Every time we look at each other or talk to each other as men and women, we should remember that the person we are talking to is a creature of God who is more like God than anything else in the universe, and men and women share that status equally.1

Men were created to reflect the strength, love, and self-sacrifice of Christ. Women were created to reflect the responsiveness, grace, and beauty of the bride He redeemed. And marriage was created to reflect the covenant union of Christ and His bride.

makes Satan's offers so alluring and so deceptive is that they look so right. The Devil is in the business of making sin look harmless, attractive, and promising. The problem is that Eve didn't stop to evaluate what was really happening. She didn't take the time to discern truth from error. She didn't stop to consider the cost and the consequences of what she was about to do.

The Lord created His girls to have responsive spirits. Women are responders. Responding is in our nature. We will either respond to good or we will respond to evil. We will either respond to truth or be swayed by lies. If we don't establish the practice of receiving and responding to God's Word, we will be more vulnerable to be receptive and responsive to the wrong kinds of men, ideas, or counsel.

Trusting the wisdom of our good, loving heavenly Father is safer and far more attractive than trusting Satan's deceptive sales pitch and stepping out on our own.

Wild" is what we are whenever we disregard God and rely instead on the world's advice, or on what seems right in our own eyes.

Woman helps man glorify God in a way he could not do if she did not exist.

Each day we make dozens and dozens of small decisions. Each individual decision seems trivial and inconsequential. But together they add up to a habitual pattern that is either life-giving or life-quenching.

A True Woman is characterized by right thinking … She is not swayed by every "wind of doctrine" (Eph. 4:14) that comes along. She has a heart for solid biblical teaching and has a growing knowledge of God's Word. She knows how to evaluate what she hears to see if it measures up to Scripture. And she knows how to live her life in a way that "accords with sound doctrine" (Titus 2:1).

Most people—even Christians—have unthinkingly exposed themselves to so much deception that they do not even realize they are being deceived.

In this study, we have tried to focus on timeless biblical principles rather than the specific application of those principles.