Quotes from Carolyn Custis James

God created his daughters to be ezer-warriors with our brothers. He deploys the ezer to break the man's aloneness by soldiering with him wholeheartedly and at full strength for God's gracious kingdom. The man needs everything she brings to their global mission.

The ezer is a warrior. Like the man, she is also God's creative masterpiece--a work of genius and a marvel to behold--for she is fearfully and wonderfully made. The ezer never sheds her image-bearer identity. Not here. Not ever. God defines who she is and how she is to live in his world. That never changes.

God deploys his daughters--all of us--to be ezer-warriors for his kingdom all the days of our lives.

Formal religion only takes us so far — for it is both safe and doable. Love, however, knows no limits, takes costly risks, and looks for ways to give more.

God gave us minds and he means for us to use them. We need to know God better, so we won't be trying to trust a stranger when the lights go out and we're in a spiritual free-fall.

Jesus' definition of submission isn't about giving in to the whims and wishes of others. It is rather about giving out from the completeness we have in him and our passion for his kingdom. The submission Jesus models is gospel centered, for he was aligning himself with God's purposes and pouring himself out to rescue a lost humanity (Philippians 2:3-9). Submission for us follows that same trajectory of putting the interests of others ahead of ourselves...

Why is it that no matter how many strong, heroic ezer stories we find in our Bibles...we are never called to this kind of bold proactive living?

God's idea of a partnership places enormous responsibility on his image bearers and also means he wants us to participate in what he is doing here on earth and intends for us to do so, not as isolated individuals, but together.

Eve was created to know and walk with God and to make him known to others by reflecting his character in her life. This is a woman's true path to fulfillment and meaning — the only way we will ever discover who we are and find our purpose. And it is accessible to all of us.

Eve's goal was to align herself with God at every possible level — to share his heart, imitate his ways, love what he loved, and join him in his work. It is the rarest of privileges, the highest of honors, the most daunting challenge imaginable. A simple list of attributes barely scratches the surface of all it means to bear God's image.

Ruth's story helped me see that neither I nor any of God's daughters belong on the sidelines, while our brothers build his kingdom without us. He means for us to work alongside our brothers, and he is doing great things through his daughters, even though we, like Ruth and Naomi, may never live to see the full significance of our contributions.

Jesus didn't come to give us a kinder, gentler patriarchy or a new-and-improved version of any other social system known to humankind. In his own words, he came to bring a "kingdom that is not of this world" (John 18:36, emphasis added)—the kingdom we lost in the fall, a kingdom that is utterly foreign to us.

The ezer is a warrior, and this has far-reaching implications for women, not only in marriage, but in every relationship, season, and walk of life.

Believers--male and female--form a body. Not just any body, but the body of Christ.

Their combined efforts mean kingdom work is multiplied. Far from being shamed in the city gates, her husband is regarded with greater esteem because he has such a wife. And he is first to sing her praises.

In God's eyes, women are not pawns for trading, brides for consuming, bodies to traffic, or passive spectators. They are his image bearers. They are his ezers. That Jesus was willing to die for his daughters tell us how much he truly values us.

When God created human beings in his 'image' and 'likeness,' he was designating us as his representatives on the earth. Instead of running things directly himself, he chose us as his intermediaries to run things here in this world. As his image bearers, we speak and act on his behalf.

Every human being has a strategic role in God's purposes for the world. Every human being possesses a derived significance--grounded in God himself. And every human being is summoned to the highest of all possible aspirations--not to be God, but 'to be like' God himself. God is the standard for who we are and what our mission is in this world. By pursuing this loftiest of all goals, we move toward true flourishing as human beings.

By making us 'a little lower' than himself, God affixed the highest possible value on his daughters and his sons.

Our identity as God's image bearers casts in cement a fundamental equality, dignity, and purpose among all human beings--truth that if embraced and acted on would make the world a better place. But this is just hors d'oeuvres. For God isn't just giving us existence, exceedingly high rank, and the whole world too, which in itself is a lot to absorb. He is giving us himself!

God's vision for us doesn't just reassure us that we matter and that our lives do count for something. God's vision compels us to look beyond ourselves, to ponder a picture of how things were meant to be that leaves us aching for his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and to look for ways to participate in moving the world toward that goal. One of the biggest issues confronting us today is the battle cry of Amy Carmichael and the burning challenge of Half the Sky.

Women in the Bible are wise teachers. They offer up a boatload of profound theology intended to enrich the whole church's understanding of who God is, what it means to walk with him, and how we are to build his kingdom in this broken world.

Before a single human being set foot on this planet, God had already flung the door wide open, issued an official invitation, and put the welcome mat out.

The prosperity we enjoy shapes both the questions we ask and the answers we embrace.