Since childhood, most of us have been indoctrinated with the world’s idea of what it means to be female and what it means to be male. Boys were held to a certain standard, and girls were held to a different one. These standards are actually unscriptural, and have limited both genders in all areas of their lives. God sent his Son to remove the limitations and level the playing field between men and women; and this knowledge transforms not only our marriages but all other relationships as well.

God wants the best for all of us, regardless of who we are. The sin that Adam and Eve committed resulted in man’s domination over woman (Genesis 3:16), and this has warped our thinking without us even being aware of it. But this was not God’s original plan; in fact, when he created Adam and Eve, he created them as equals. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:27, 28). Dominion was to be over all creation, not over each other.

Jesus came to remove the heavy yoke sin had placed on gender relations and restore equality the way he intended it. When the norm was to relegate women to second-class status, he deliberately went against the status quo by ministering to women as well as men (Luke 8:43-48; John 4:5-29; John 8:1-11), and making women a part of his ministry (Luke 8:1-3). His death and resurrection ended the war between men and women that started in the garden of Eden. “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:14-16, 18).

If this message seems far-fetched, it is because it’s radically different than what most of us have learned. We’ve been stuck in the wrong value system, and our wrong-thinking has limited God in what he can do in our lives. Many of us may have felt called to a particular task but shied away from it because we thought our gender, race, social or economic status, or other factors excluded us. But when we learn to think about ourselves the way God thinks of us, we’re freed from all limitations.

Believing in what Jesus did on the cross two thousand years ago to restore equality between women and men gives us the courage to be ourselves, the way God always intended for us to be. There’s no reason to neglect his call on our lives simply because of gender, because there is no male or female in Christ (Galatians 3:28). Our faith in this empowers us and gives us the courage to change our lives, and be a life-changing example to others.