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The Rope of Hope
The Rope of Hope ministry is aimed at us as women who live our every day lives, day in and day out behind a mask of coping with being a Wife, a Mother, Career woman friend ...all in one.....
We carry the burden of doing it all in our own strength trying to mask the emotional pain of dealing with our own perceived failures, as we measure ourselves against the masks of our peers at the work-place and at church. We perceive them all to be doing so well, and so we hide our pain deeper because we fear what others may think of us should they find out who I really am? What will 'they' think if 'they' find out I have been raped, or that I had an abortion, or that my husband is an alcoholic or my child a drug addict, or that the blue eye is not from slipping on the stair case or perhaps ...well you fill in here what you are hiding behind your mask today.
Christian women are guilty of burdening themselves with the additional yoke of hiding their failures and pain away ISO sharing and learning from each other how to apply our faith and live in the liberty and freedom that are ours in Christ Jesus.
I would like to share something precious with you along these lines. When first I thought of how to define STM, I thought I would term it “A ministry for Common women.” But I heard a still small voice say “Are you Common woman? I thought you were Daughters of a King ?” I apologized to the King. It was then I heard “Yes, you are King's daughters but you act and live like common people !”
Tamar was the daughter of King David. Her brother Amnon raped and thus disgraced her. He effectively destroyed her life, taking her virginity and rendering her “used.” But Tamar did not go into the prison of hiding. She tore her clothes and put ash on her face and made her sorrow known. As daughters of the King, we are to do likewise. Tamar is an example to us and her message is to speak up, not only for the abuse to stop, but also signaling for help..... so that those who have been there can reach out and assist those in overcoming the situation we are/were in.
Another woman in the Bible that understood rejection was Rahab. She was a prostitute, a lady of the “Red Light area” in Jericho, a city shut up and fortressed behind walls. Society would have rejected her because of her social misbehavior and so Rahab’s life was not free from sin nor trials...... How many of us are shut behind the walls of shame. ... But when the Lord put her to the test, she by faith chose to be confident in the one true God by hanging a Scarlet Rope through her window and as such she saved Joshua’s men. And so, even though the Bible calls her “Rahab the Harlot” she was remembered for throwing out a Scarlet Rope and through that incident, her own life was steered in a different direction. Rahab the Harlot came to be the great, great grandmother of King David and thus in the bloodline of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do we identify with Rahab’s story? Have we also suffered injury either by someone else’s doing or our own? Has our fear of humiliation and rejection made caused us to shut others out of our lives?
Just as Rahab, we have a choice. Rahab's story is one of Change, Hope and Redemption.
God wants us to be reminded of the hope He gave Rahab, The prostitute. We’ve all made mistakes. But God gives us hope for a new life.
We find this Scarlet Thread of Hope of Salvation and Healing running throughout the Word of God. We know that the promise of the Scarlet Thread starts in Genesis and is fulfilled in the New Testament where the blood of the Lord Jesus on the cross becomes the final scarlet thread through which we are delivered and saved.
Christian women glory in the crucifixion of our Savior on that cross! We have grabbed hold of the rope but we keep looking at each other and spending our time trying to conform to the image painted on someone else’s mask instead of keeping our eyes on the Lord Jesus. The rope of blood that flowed from the Cross of shame is the very rope that will deliver you from your own fears and pain and change your life.
God in His mercy and grace has taken broken women to minister to other broken women here today.The heart of STM is compassion toward broken women who are trapped in their pain behind their masks... for women to discover their God-given Identity and find fulfillment in Christ.
Does what you hide behind your mask make you feel like someone rejected by Society? The Lord Jesus was also rejected by society at large but in the safety of the inner circle with His Friends, the disciples, He made known many things about Himself which was hidden to the world.
The truth about yourself, hidden behind your mask is more often than not the cause of so many other things that goes wrong in your life.. that perhaps drives you to alcohol, or other abusive behavior.
If so perhaps today you need to apply that blood in a fresh way.
Grab onto that Rope of Hope that will lift you out from behind the shut wall of your life. Free yourself with the truth that He knows everything about you, even the number of hairs on your head and that He has called YOU. He calls you not in your own ability but in His. Let us stop looking at each other and climb upwards, never again letting go of the rope of salvation. In the process you will learn many things from the Lord. You may have to forgive the ones who have put you behind the thick walls. You may finally be confronted with the fallacy of believing yourself rather than God because you may be fostering guilt for your own sins even when God makes it clear that they are remembered no more.
Come to the One who said to the religious establishment (Matthew 9:12) that He did not come for those who do not need a doctor but for those who are sick. Come to Him who has come for the outcasts and the broken hearted and who Has promised to bind and heal their wounds. Are you sick today? Sick of yourself? Is pretense tapping your reason and energy. Then dare to take off your mask and come to Him just as your are. There is no other way.
I recall those beautiful words of the old Hymn:
Just as I am, thou wilt receive, wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve; because thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
The scarlet rope ties blood-bought children of God together. May you yourself have the courage to be who you really are as you take off your mask. And may you and I be worthy in mutual love of one another so as to keep hidden in the sanctity of the inner circle, the things that may be revealed.
May you today, like Tamar who was a victim of incest and rape, have the courage to make your grief and defilement known. May today be the beginning of a new day in which you allow the Lord Jesus to heal you through the journey to heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The only true entrance lies in the Scarlet Thread by the way of the Cross.
It was only after I heard the testimony of another woman that I realized that I am not the only woman on earth wearing a mask.
We are not here to berate those who have caused us pain, but to learn to forgive with the help of God and the support of those who have been there.
Be blessed today. Listen as these women share their life stories, and be encouraged to open up and let The God who heals you, YHVH Rofega minister to you..
Holding onto this red rope means to me personally that God sees me and remembers me! May this be your experience also.
Our prayer is that as The Scarlet Rope is extended further and further into the world that women will be bound together in the love and freedom that eminates from the Source that binds us namely Jesus Christ.
"Through the blood of Jesus, even strangers are friends."
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How do we get from “Rope” to “Hope” ?
In the Hebrew, the term used for the Line of scarlet thread as we read in Joshua 2:18 is :
at-tikvat (rope/line) ghut (thread) ha-shani (the red)
There is a whole teaching about the alef/tav, (Hebrew) or the Alfa and Omega (Latin) in this also. The alef/tav (which does not get translated), it merely points to the direct object of the line of scarlet thread. When you have the word 'of' following a noun, it changes the noun to its construct form. The Noun in its original form is Tikvah, which is a Homonym , thus meaning it is one word with two meanings...
Tikvah can mean 'rope', and it can mean 'hope' (Hope as in a promise that has been made)
Remember that In the Book of Revelation Jesus says : I am the Alfa and Omega,,, thus in Hebrew it will be, I am the alef and the tav... So to me, this whole scripture/picture points to the Hope of Salvation in this scarlet thread. Yet not so much the rope, but the God of Israel
In Joshua 5:13-15 we read that the Captain of the Host of the Lord appeared to Joshua before the wall of Jericho fell. Jesus himself was there when the city walls came tumbling down, and in the same way He is present when we allow our own Jericho walls to be broken down in our lives.
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