As a mother, I do not promise to avoid every argument. Fighting for my family entails being a weathered face that can take a punch, the wrinkles deepening around my eyes as I stare through my enemies toward the Son of God.

“Mom, there are people who would kill you for what you believe,” my oldest child said to me the other day, fretful. We were talking about masks and what the future will look like, if the policy of masking children in public schools continues. My oldest is a rule-follower. It’s complicated—teaching all of our kids the value of following rules, but also, how to recognize when rules violate God’s commands. When rules become tyrannical. Slavery is wrong, no matter what policy is in place. Freedom is always God’s will for us—actual freedom in the Way, the Truth, and the Life of the LORD Jesus.

Stubbornness is idolatry, but can I make peace with evil? With lies? What seeds would I be planting in my children, and accordingly, for what kind of harvest could I hope?

11We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians. Our hearts are open wide. 12It is not our affection, but yours, that is restrained. 13As a fair exchange, I ask you as my children: Open wide your hearts also.
 14Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership can righteousness have with wickedness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? 15What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?c Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16What agreement can exist between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
 “I will dwell with them
 and walk among them,
 and I will be their God,
 and they will be My people.”
 17“Therefore come out from among them
 and be separate, says the Lord.
 Touch no unclean thing,
 and I will receive you.”
 18And:
 “I will be a Father to you,
 and you will be My sons and daughters,
 says the Lord Almighty.”

(II Corinthians 6:11-18). There’s a strange story that pops up in the tenth verse of the Twenty-fourth chapter of Leviticus that identifies a man by his connection to his parents—his Israeli mother in particular.

Sunday was Mama’s Day, so I looked up the meaning of the woman highlighted in the Word of God as an “Israelite woman,” who together with “an Egyptian man” became the mother to a son who blasphemed “the Name and cursed” (Leviticus 24:10-11).

The name of this mother whose son is brought before Moses and taken into custody because of his choices, is Shelomith, and it means “Peaceableness.”

The picture of this mother, her blaspheming son, and his Egyptian father reminds me of a lot of professing Christians today—on one hand, straying from the truth in order to seem nice and, on the other, unequally yoked with the world. If children of God insist on implementing this model, we will reap a generation of prodigal sons—descendants with no clarity about God, their own identity, and the honor He is due.

Verse eleven of Chapter Twenty-four in Leviticus sent me back to the concordance gifted to me from the kids’ godmama where I found that the blaspheming son of a peaceable mother had a “wordy” ancestor. Maybe he tried to turn the truth of God into a lie—blaspheming His Name, because

• talking too much was in his genes
• he had a father who probably didn’t train Him to honor God, because he was a foreigner to the identity of God (Leviticus 24:10).

The blaspheming son of the peaceable woman was put in custody “so that the command of The LORD might be made clear” (Leviticus 24:12). This is just one reason why I have to remember my enemies are real—because they roar like lions into my circumstances, making it difficult to hear the still, small voice of God. And I have authority to arrest, to stop, and to silence the confusion tactics used against me.

My enemies wage war as a unit. I am not to fight alone either. As a member of the body of Christ, I need to recognize the enemies of God, giving them no place. No territory—spiritual or physical in which to dominate…

Together, the body must reject the presence and operation of antichrist, which denies Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed), however it comes.