This is Darren Kuhn with the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we search the ancient paths to find ways that God brings light into a dark world and helps set men free from the struggles that we all face on a day-to-day basis. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Truth Talk Live. All right, let's talk. A daily program powered by the Truth Network.
This is kind of a great thing and I'll tell you why. Where pop culture, current events and theology all come together. Speak your mind. And now here's, today's Truth Talk Live host. Good afternoon, Truth Talk listeners. This is Alicia Grimes and I'm in the studio with Rebecca Breeding. We've been friends for probably a couple of years and this woman, I am so thankful. I told her just a minute ago, there's nobody I would rather have on to talk about this topic with me.
We're going to come out of the gate saying, what is a woman? And we're going to take it maybe where you don't think we're going, but Rebecca, tell me a little bit about you, introduce yourself. Tell me a little bit about your story and maybe why this topic, and you can even give away the real topic if you want to. But why is this topic close to your heart?
Well, it is very important to me because I do believe that God gifts all of us in different ways and I feel like sometimes society pigeonholes us and diminishes the role of a woman and puts us in some sort of a cubby hole. And I have had a few, let me say, restless moments with that because I have been in roles that called for me to use my managerial skills, my leadership skills. And I always felt a tension because I didn't know exactly how bold I should be.
However, I knew that God had gifted me and that I needed to be authentic and I needed to be what he wanted me to be. I've lived in Winston-Salem for three years. We've moved 18 times in our 55 year marriage. I know, yes, in our 55 year marriage.
I grew up with my husband in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and we have had, we have two sons. They're grown, of course, and I have five grandchildren. We're retired, but we're very active in our community and in our church. We volunteer at the kids' schools and we certainly do a lot of work with our church, which is, that's very important to us. And I'm honored to be here with you and I appreciate you inviting me.
Absolutely. We will circle back to some of your story as it weaves through what we're going to talk about today. But I'm Alicia Grimes. I have a ministry in our community called Oasis Ministries and I started it a couple of years ago as a place to gather women around God's word to find discipleship, multi-generational relationships, training, all kinds of things for women. So it's been so much fun and it's turned out to be a broad community ministry, which has been neat just to come alongside people in our community and beyond who come from different church backgrounds. But we all have this common foundation of Christ. And so today I am here, we are here, I'm here with Rebecca to call women up. We believe that many Christian women are not giving or not living in their God-given identities, that we're striving to be everything for everybody and burned out and confused about who we are and disappointed in a lot of ways.
And that's not everybody, but I think sometimes we forget who we are, whose we are and what our purpose is in the world. So I want to call you just to release the weight of trying to meet a standard that's maybe not even biblical. If you're a Christian woman, we're talking specifically to you today or if you're trying to prove that you're enough, that you're worth being loved or you're worth being valued. So Rebecca, do you want to add to that? Well, I feel like, as I said earlier, I think there is a tension because as believers in Jesus Christ, our first identity is as daughters of his.
We are appointed for specific reasons. He's gifted us all uniquely. And I feel like, as long as I stay in the light of his love and his gift and stop trying to work through my own power, then I hear him much more clearly about how he wants to use me.
He didn't create me just to be half of his mission here on this earth. And I think that the older that I get, and it's happening faster, you know, I tell you the older that you get, but this is true for me anyway. It seems like the years go fast. You know, when I had two little children, I thought I was always going to have a diaper bag on one arm and a baby on the other hip. But that was a fleeting moment in my life. And I wish that I knew then what I know now.
I think that I would have lived a more free life to be who he created me to be, rather than trying to fit into some sort of role. Well, I think so many people can relate to that. Back to the question, what is a woman? I guess a couple of years ago, Matt Walsh did a documentary called What is a Woman?
And it was a little controversial because he asked all kinds of different people and, um, you look it up online if you want to want to watch it. But really today, our, our conversation is not around what is a, what is a woman, who is a woman, but what is biblical womanhood? So what is biblical womanhood? I, I really wrestled with coming up with a definition, but I landed on, but it describes a woman who's living her life inside of a biblical framework with Christ at the center of everything. So bottom line, Christ at the center, Christ at the center of whatever he's called you do, Christ at the center of your relationships, your endeavors.
But this discussion really hinges on where you start. And I have a friend, her name's Dr. Christy Thornton. She is a PhD at Southeastern Seminary. She, I got to know her through my seminary program. And she was the first woman to hold a leadership position in the seminary's PhD office. And so she speaks and teaches a lot on this topic. But we talked about the fact that most of the time when people talk about biblical womanhood, they start at family and marriage.
And we just agreed that that's not the right place to start. There's something that's bigger and truer about us than being a wife or mom. Being a wife or mom. And I love both of those roles. I am both of those roles, but I, a role is completely different than an identity. And we're talking on that higher level as what is our identity of women who love Jesus and who want to live that out in this world. So do you have any thoughts on that, Rebecca?
Well, I do know that in Genesis, he calls us Azair or Ezer, uh, Conecto and, um, though he mentions, calls women that three times in the Old Testament. And I think that the important thing for us to remember is that we are his, no matter what our role is in this world. That's great. We'll come back and we'll touch on that again. We'll be right back.
Thank you. Truth Talk Listeners. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com.
Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. I'm here with Rebecca Breeding and we're talking about biblical womanhood. Rebecca, we kind of established that the picture of the life of a woman who has Christ at the center, that's really what we're going for. And we're starting out at a high level to say, what is her identity?
And where does she get that? You know, out of the gate, I wanted to debunk some myths around the biblical, biblical womanhood. There are lots of ways to live out your God given identity and I want you to feel freedom in that. We've talked a lot about that.
There's just so much freedom. As, as individual as every single woman is in the world, she can live that out in that God given identity and with Christ at the center. So this is going to be a little funny, but sometimes, you know, we wonder in the Christian church or Christian culture, like what's the most Christian version of a woman?
I mean, what, what would that be? Like how do you be the most Christian Christian? And maybe we have these stereotypes that may not even be biblical. So I just want to set your mind at ease about a few things that you've been losing sleep about. So you can be a biblical woman and you can bake your bread or you can buy your bread and that good news.
That's good news. You can be a biblical woman as a single married, divorced, or widowed woman. And if there's any category, I forgot, every category of woman can honor the Lord by putting Christ at the center. You can be a biblical woman in the workplace, in the home, as a C-suite member of a fortune 500 company and Rebecca, that is actually you that I'm talking about or with a side hustle. So there's really, they're really not these categories that we value as higher or lower or more, you know, more acceptable in the Christian life. We're just as individual as our thumbprints. You can be a biblical woman. You can homeschool, you can public school, you can private school, private school.
You can cross fit or you can cross stitch. So I'm trying to be funny a little bit about raising chickens or eating chicken. Yeah, you can raise chicken or you can buy Chick-fil-A. But I think sometimes we have this vision in our mind of what makes a Christian woman, somebody to emulate. And we take our, we take our eyes off our race and God's just saying, run your race, lean into who I've made you. But there's some important things that frame our life that we're, that are God given.
We don't earn them. We don't, um, do things to, you know, have those labels put on us except to be born. And I want to talk about that kind of like a picture frame. We are in the middle of the picture with, with Christ as our center, but our lives are framed by four ideas. And the first idea that represents your God given identity is that you're human. Now that's as basic as, as we can get, but what does it mean to be human?
Do you have any thoughts? Well, it means that you had a mother and a father and that your chromosomes are different from your brother or your husband or your dad. That's right. Every, every human is individual. And because we're human, we're not a plant, we're not an animal.
There's something different about humanity. We have a soul. So then the second part of that frame is that we're made in God's image.
And I just love this concept. I've really kind of gone deep into the image of God concept these last couple of years. What does it mean that we're made in God's image?
Help me with that one. He has, um, he has devised us, he's created us. He, he knew what we were going to look like before we were ever born. In Psalm 139, it says that I was knit together in my mother's womb and it was by his design. I believe at that point that he implanted in us naturally recurring patterns of feeling, thought and behavior that are also reflected in his character. Absolutely. Yeah. To be made in his image is like we bear his image.
And when I think of that, if I have a shirt that has a Nike swish on it, I am burying the image of Nike. And they're not paying you. No, they're not.
I'm paying them actually. But in this situation, God's made us in his image and we bear his image. We are created to represent and reflect him in the world.
And there's so much to that. It means that we have the capacity for a relationship with God and people. We have the authority to work for the flourishing of the world. We can love, we can think, we can re reason, we can create. It means that you have inherent value, inherent dignity, just because God gave you just because God made you and he gave that to you. So having the image of God is that's in everybody, no matter if a person believes or doesn't, we're all created. And that's one reason that Christians believe in the sanctity of life. We believe that, you know, that every person has dignity. They don't earn that dignity.
They're, they are not disqualified from value because they can't contribute. So it, it impacts the way we see the world and the way we interact in the world. And the way that we treat each other.
I absolutely agree. I think he created us for relationship and he created that need in us to connect with other people because if he had not had that character, then he would have not even needed us, but he was lonely and he created us to have communion with us. I really think about how God always existed and within the Trinity.
So not to like, just to take what you said, a little different direction. He's always had himself, he's always had father, son and spirit. So in, in one, he was really never lonely. It's kind of like out of the overflow of who he was in that relationship.
It's like when you've got something good and you're like, I want to extend it to somebody else. So out of that overflow of his love, he created us and he put his image in us so that we represent and reflect him in the world. So if you're listening and you don't know what your purpose is in life, this is it. He created you human, and then he put his image in you. But there's a third part of that frame and that we were created as female, which is where we start to see distinction and creation. But God, in Genesis, it says, God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. So God created two genders to bear his image together. He designed us to work together to fulfill his purpose and he designed creation so that one gender cannot accomplish that alone. So tell me what you, you brought something to the table earlier and I was like, Oh, you got to share that Rebecca.
Yeah, I would love to share this. While many devout Christians see a woman's function as subordinate to man, the word ezer or ezer in the Hebrew is the way that he describes this is in Genesis 2 18. And actually three times through the Old Testament, he refers to women as ezers. The woman wasn't created to serve the man, but to serve with the man. Without the woman, I mean, the man's only half the story. She wasn't an afterthought or an optional adjunct to an independent self-sufficient man. God said in Genesis 2 18 that without her, the man's condition was not good. God's intention in creating the woman for the man was for the two to be partners in the many tasks involved in stewarding God's creation. I mean, that's humbling just to think that he lets us be a part of this, to serve with others, to accomplish his purposes. Absolutely. And I want us to see that, um, from, from the perspective of God, we are necessary to the mission of Christ. Amen. We'll continue this conversation when we come back, but you're awesome. Rebecca, this is so much fun.
You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Today, we're talking about biblical womanhood, and that's the life of a woman who has Christ at the center. We talked about how four things that really represent our God-given identity. The first is that we're human. The second that we're made in the image of God, the third that we're female.
And this is the one that I really love. I love all of them, but that we are in Christ. We have a new identity in Christ. And, you know, there are so many identity statements and, you know, I feel like we're constantly bombarded with false identities, but when we realize who we are in Christ, that, that really changes everything. Yeah.
I don't know what that's looked like for you. When did you feel like you started to really walk and what God said about you? And, you know, I know it says, I know it's two steps forward once. It was specific for me.
Yeah. Uh, we were living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the time, and we went to a new church. And it was the first time I'd really understood my, um, my identity in Christ. I'd been a Christian for many, many years, but I really never understood that he created me in his image and for specific things, excuse me. But I do remember, uh, understanding for the first time that though I had scars and damage from my childhood, there was the creator of the universe who said, you come up here, you crawl up in my lap and you can call me Abba. And that means Papa, I am a child of God. And that was very, um, that was transformative for me. It really was when I realized I had had disappointments in my personal life, but there was the God, the creator of the universe, my creator who said, you're not a mistake and you're not an accident.
You're my daughter. That's so profound when we really, you know, we're made in the image of God, but when we become Christians, the image of God is deepened because it, it, it's restored in us. And then we have this identity in Christ. And it's an expansion of the image of God is based on the salvation of Christ.
We're adopted. Like you said, we're adopted into the family of God and we were adopted into the life of the Trinity. You know, if you feel insignificant and you're a believer, you have been invited into the life of the father, son, and spirit who have existed eternally and have eternal plans for this world. And so your life is not small, it's not insignificant. And as a woman, as a woman who's living biblically within that framework with Christ at the center, the possibilities are endless with what he could do with your life. So I, I guess I don't want women to see themselves as, you know, sidelined or less than, and I think we tend to struggle with that maybe with some insecurities anyway. But I think, um, you know, God has called us out and he's called us up to something that's greater than our own personal journey and personal lives, right? Here are a couple of categories. Um, when we think about where do we see this in scripture?
Where are we? You know, is this just because, you know, we're like rah, rah, rah, rah, rah girls, girls. Uh, I don't want to ever present anything that's not biblical, but it is so biblical. If you look in the Old Testament, all the different women who were used in the Old Testament, I know you've got several favorites. I love Deborah. I love Esther. I love Ruth. I look at the non-traditional ways that God used them. I mean, yeah, Ray.
Oh, isn't that the truth? Right. You know, and they were all, uh, they, they fulfilled that role of a rescuer, a helper, you know, and I feel like it's so important for us to know scripture simply because when we get down on ourselves or we're feeling less than or worthless, you know, right. One of my prayers through the years has been, Lord, show me, show me what to do. Show me where you can use me.
How can I be of service to your kingdom? I think we need to go back to scripture and look at people in the women in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Right. Look at Priscilla and Aquila.
It says in there that she actually names her by name, that she was a teacher of Apollos along with her husband. Right. And, um, you know, he, uh, the Bible doesn't skirt. We can actually come with, with, uh, we can be armed with truth if we know our scripture and if we'll go to his word, it will encourage us so that we can encourage others. Absolutely.
Yeah. The New Testament. Well, for one thing, right out of the gate, Jesus gives the great commission and he gives it to all of his followers.
He had the 12, he had the 70 or 72, he had the one 20 and women were part of the 72 and the one 20 and then he gives a great commission. He says, go make disciples, baptize them and teach them everything I've commanded you, which is, which is scripture. It's salvation. It's everything that Christ enlightened for us when he came.
And so that's a high calling that we're part of fulfilling the great commission to take this message across the street and around the world. I think it's important to, for us to really understand, um, you know, and not, not be so self aware that we're not looking at what the purpose is, but I think it's important for us to recognize where, how God has gifted us so that we can be used in those formats. I think that it, God is so logical. I mean, it's just, you know, he created us for a purpose in Ephesians two, 10 he calls this a masterpiece. He said, you are God's masterpiece created in Christ Jesus for good works that I've prepared in advance for you. He created us for that. How can we know where he wants to use us if we're not aware of what our strengths are, what our gifts are, what our talents are? You know, that's also reminds me of the spiritual gifts.
Yes. All the spiritual gifts in the new Testament, they're not gender specific. There is a specific call for qualified men to take the elder position. But apart from that, you don't see any distinction in the spiritual gifts. And so I think it's exciting that we're called, um, you know, as Romans first Corinthians, Ephesians, first Peter list, all these incredible spiritual gifts and God has given each believer something to contribute in the body of Christ. And there are all kinds of free assessments that you can find on the internet where you can take a spiritual gifts assessment to really kind of help you along and listen to the affirmations of other people when they tell you that you're really good at this or boy, you really ask the greatest questions or you, or I wonderful spotter of other people's talents. Listen to those things and receive them because those people are seeing things that maybe you haven't ever really noticed.
And that's how God can use you. You're right. I do. Um, I do love the life way has a great, um, spiritual gifts assessment. I think it's lifeway.com slash spiritual gifts. Try something like that.
Give it a try. I'm sure you can find it. Yeah. Um, we also see Jesus, um, women play in critical roles in Jesus's ministry. And in Paul's ministry, there are so many listed. And I think sometimes when we read the new Testament, they're not always in the foreground, they're somewhat in the background. And so, you know, there are times when I'm studying the Bible with somebody and they're like, I had no idea that all these women were involved in Jesus's ministry. And just because they're not, you know, the 12 or, you know, in the front of the picture, every time we kind of miss that.
And maybe we even don't see ourselves in that mission. So any of those women who stand out to you and Jesus's ministry or Paul's ministry? Well, Mary Magdalene, of course. Oh, my favorite.
Yeah, I know. And, and, and rightfully so, uh, uh, Joanna was a great supporter of the work of, uh, of the, uh, disciples, the apostles financially. She was a great supporter of them. And, um, I do feel like, um, you know, his mother was Mary.
Yes. I think she had a pretty important role. She really did. And there's so much written about her in scripture and there's so many things that we can really discover about her that let us know that she was fully human. Right. She was fully human when she went looking for him when he was 12. I mean, what in the world are you thinking about?
You know, you didn't ask for permission to leave the wagon train. I feel like, you know, it's, uh, it's important for us to, to be familiar, to be very familiar with how women are represented in scripture to debunk a lot of the myths that are out there and the ways that sometimes, you know, I mean, I don't think that devout Christians really mean to do this, but I think sometimes they kind of pigeonhole women and I think God's got a much broader, greater purpose for us as women. I think of it as being a trophy of his grace.
I love that. You know, one thing I want to make sure we don't ever, we don't lift women up by tearing men down and we, we love and we respect our men, our men leaders, the leadership of our churches. And so in no way, hear me doing anything to disparage men. I just want to also remind women that you're part of this mission and that you have a place and you know, just to remember who you are and who you are and that you've been created for a purpose and given an identity that just redefines everything.
And he wants us to live out that identity. Today we're talking about biblical womanhood. A couple of ways that we frame, this is it's a woman with Christ at the center and she has her identity as a human, as a female, as somebody made in the image of God and somebody who's in Christ. Yes. So I wanted to go back and just, you, you mentioned a couple of women from the old Testament and you were talking about them in the context of his heir.
Yeah. Ruth was in his heir, daughter-in-law Abigail was an Azair rancher wife who saved her household from disaster. Look at Esther. She was a harem girl that grew into a powerful queen and Deborah, oh, let's talk about warrior princess Deborah.
She went as their woman who was equipped to lead. I mean, that's in the book of Judges. You know, the old Testament is just full of wonderful pictures of how God has used females in his work.
Absolutely. Then we talked a little bit about Jesus's ministry and Paul's ministry. Sometimes I think we maybe misunderstand some, some of Paul's writings and, but let me, let me give you a list of people who were, he names among his coworkers, Phoebe, Priscilla, Lydia, Hunia, Trophina and Trophosa.
I wonder if they were twins, Eudaea and Syntyche, Mary, Persis, Nymphah, Chloe. He described women as coworkers, sisters, partners in the gospel, deacons, servants, teachers of scripture, business women, agents of hospitality, workers, leaders, and supporters. So there's so many roles that women play in the new Testament, which really kind of brought us to this other conversation. Once you see your life as Jesus in the center and I am understanding my identity, my God given identity, what about the rest of life? What about tomorrow when I wake up and I have all these other roles, how do I keep those in the right place? How do I allow my primary identity to shape my second year?
I'll call those secondary identities. And you have some insight on that. Yeah, I really do think that we need to seize the seasons of life. You know, not everybody's married. And does that mean that God can't use a single woman?
I met some women the other night that own companies that are nurse practitioners, that are physician's assistants, that aren't married. Yes, someday they would love to be married. But they aren't taking a lesser role in God's kingdom. They are seizing this season and they are being all that God created them to be. I think sometimes it's easier when we're not distracted by husbands, though we do love our husbands, you know, and our children, and in my case, my grandchildren, but to soak in the fact that at this point in my life and really, really throughout, since I've become a Christian, my primary lifeline, my primary link to my life is my relationship with Jesus Christ, plus nothing.
That's it. There was a time in my life, if you don't mind me sharing this. No, I'd love for you to. I mean, I had really made my husband, my God, and I was unhappy and I decided it was his fault because I wasn't happy.
And I went through a season of self-reflection and counseling and work and God spoke to me, not, I'm not going to, I don't want anyone to think that I hear voices, but he spoke to me very, very clearly. And he said, I created that hole in your heart that only I can fill. That's not your husband's role. You need to let him off the hook.
I'm jealous and I want you to belong to me. He's your partner in this life. He's not your savior. And not only did my, my Christian walk become better, my marriage, surprisingly, my marriage got a lot better. Well, when a husband doesn't have to hold the weight of our primary identity, then he can, he can rest in the role that God, God created, God created. And all the other, all the other secondary things that he did, and all the other, all the other secondary identities, you know, maybe it's your, your profession, it's your hobbies. You know, sometimes I think we think there's, they're sacred and they're secular and never the two shall meet. But what if who we are with Christ at the center, knowing our identity, securing our identity in Christ, we took, we took that into every relationship and every, every role that we play in life.
I think that would probably give a lot more purpose and satisfaction to some of our secondary identities. Well, and he, he's broadened our influence. If he's put us in a role where we're actually working with other people or even managing other people or teaching for, to me, that's a personal, I think our teachers today are heroes, such an opportunity to be a Christ, Christ, a bearer of Christ's image as you influence others. It all depends on us remembering who we are and like you said, whose we are, and then take that into every role that we find ourselves in. It's really an opportunity.
It's a mission field. Yeah. I also think kind of to build on what you're saying, it is so easy for us to make those primary identities secondary and those secondary identities primary. And honestly, a secondary identity, like I said, it can't hold the weight of our life.
And, and they're also, they don't, they're not always stable. You may, you may have a family and your husband may die or, you know, all kinds of things can happen. And if that is our lifeline, if, if that's what we've built our life on and we have no greater identity, uh, overarching to give us hope and purpose, then we're devastated. You know, maybe even your, you know, your secondary identity is, is as a runner.
Well, if you make that primary and you get an injury, you're not a runner anymore and you're devastated. So, you know, secondary identities are, are, are for a purpose. God has a purpose for those, but to understand that they come under the umbrella of something that's much bigger and much broader and God's saying a lot more about us at another level than what we can accomplish.
That is so true. I had a very good friend when we lived in Iowa, her husband was a, uh, was ill. She took care of him and he passed away. And she told me one day, she said, Rebecca, you don't understand. She said, I didn't just lose my husband. She said, I lost my job because my job was taking care of him. She, it was a pivotal point in her spiritual life, but there are in my life now at this age, there are a lot of my friends who are losing their husbands. That doesn't diminish our role as, as, you know, as Christ bear images of Christ.
And I feel like he can take every season that we're in. And if we are committed to being the women that he created us to be, we can be fruitful and we can make a real difference in his kingdom. I love that. The last identity area we wanted to briefly touch on was broken identities. And those are the identities that come from maybe our failures, maybe things that have we've done, maybe things that have been done to us and they just play like tapes in our minds. And, you know, we can either ask the Lord to redeem those and show us purpose, even in that brokenness and maybe a way to use that in the lives of other people. Or we need to take, we need to ask the Lord, take these away.
I need a new message. Selective amnesia. Selective amnesia. I forget a lot. Why do I keep remembering all the bad stuff? But you know, I love what you said the other day. You said God can take our mess and make a message out of it.
Yeah. And that's, that's really the idea around God, redeeming our past and our suffering and those losses that have caused us to be broken, our sin, our sins, what's broken, our relationship with him. When that's restored, he can re remake that and give us a different lens through which we see it. And then, you know, I think about Satan when he intended to harm Joseph or when he tends to harm us and we end up, God uses that and turns it around and use it for somebody else. I'm sure he's just furious. He's like, that's not what I'm going to happen.
Stomping his feet. Absolutely. Well, as we, as we've kind of come to a close here in the next couple of minutes, any, any last words, Rebecca, just for women as they're trying to figure out who they are, they're trying to reach and grab onto that primary identity in Christ. Well, the, the, um, burden that really is on my heart is for anyone that's out there that's listening right now that doesn't have the security of knowing who they are in Christ. Find somebody that, you know, is a Christian and help let them help you walk through what truly it does mean to be a child of God, to be a daughter of the King, to be as my mother used to say to me, don't let anybody put you down.
You're a princess because your daddy's a King. I do think it's important for us to encourage each other, for women to support each other, to nurture and to build up the faith. You know, it's easy sometimes for us to get discouraged, but I think that if we look outside of ourselves, there are a lot of women out there that are hurting and that need to have that reassurance that God has got a purpose for them. God has a plan and God loves them. Just like Oasis Ministry, seen, known, and loved. Thank you, Rebecca.
I do just want to add to that. You know, we, we come into this world into a broken state. We have a broken relationship with God, each other, creation, ourselves, and God doesn't want to destroy us.
He doesn't want us to destroy ourselves by, you know, being separated from him. And so he sent Christ, the second person of the Trinity, took on humanity, came to earth to live a perfect life that we can't, to die in our place for our sins. And then he rose again to prove that he could defeat death and sin. And through repentance and faith, we can come into our relationship with him. So I would just encourage you if you're out there today, repentance and faith, and on the other side, you find that identity in Christ, forgiveness, restoration, and freedom. Have a great day. We'll be back.
