Find A Christian Man

Category: Preparation for Marriage

Marriage preparation begins long before the wedding day. Explore biblical teaching on becoming spiritually prepared for covenant through your relationship with God, prayer, healing, maturity, character, wisdom, and a growing understanding of what God designed marriage to be.

Not Bothered by the Heat or Worried About the Drought

A couple that met each other in the workplace recently announced their engagement. They’re both in their early 40’s and have been dating a little over a year. After hearing the news, Steven, a colleague and friend, said to me, “I would never get into a serious relationship with anyone I work with!” The firmness in his statement led me to inquire why he felt this way. He replied, “I think it’s just too much pressure and discomfort on one another if something goes wrong, and things don’t end up working out.” I certainly understood where he was coming from, but I was a bit surprised to hear his point of view. He is an optimistic person of faith and has encouraged me and others that with God, all things are possible. I was struck that in the area of relationships, he chose to see the limitations rather than the opportunities.

Jeremiah 17:7-8(NLT), “7 But blessed are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence. 8 They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.”

Someone asked me, “How do I know that my faith is in God and not in the wrong thing?” Jeremiah 17:7 answers this question beautifully. It tells us that blessings come to those who trust in God, and it also tells us that trusting in God means that we have made HIM our hope and confidence. When we make God our hope and confidence, the ultimate result is always going to be good. We can trust this because our Heavenly Father told us in Romans 8:28(NIV), “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Loving God means being obedient to His Word and walking according to His purpose. When He’s our central focus in this way, we’ll correctly discern a blessing from a trick.

When other things are our hope and confidence, those things take centerstage. We think about them continually, and we feel that our lives are less than what God has made them because we don’t have the things we desire. Feeling that way means we need to pray more and shift our focus back to God.

Our Heavenly Father set up the pattern for what makes a relationship work. He did this from the very beginning, and we can have a good visual of it from learning from the relationship He had with Adam and Eve. He walked with them daily and was delighted to do so. He demonstrated to us that just as communion and communication are a vital part of our relationship with each other, they are an extremely important part of our relationship with Him. He is the Creator of all that exists, and when we think about this, we might find it hard to believe that God wants an intimate relationship with us, but that is why He created us. He wanted a family. He wanted children and we’re it. So, a commitment of quality time to talk and fellowship with God one-on-one is critical to sustain the kind of relationship with Him that He wants.

As women that are not yet at the end of the manifestation process of crossing paths with our destiny partners, we understand Steve’s thinking about how tricky relationships can be. Many of us have had our share of toads. Initially, we thought they were princes, but came to find out they were not the one for us. These situations can be devastatingly disappointing, and they often cause heartbreak that is challenging to get over. We want to be as far away from the person that has broken our hearts as possible, and we certainly don’t want to have to see them every day at work.

Jeremiah 17:8 gives us just the perspective we need on this. It tells us that when God is our hope and confidence, our roots will reach deep into Him, and we won’t be bothered by the heat or droughts. Heavenly Father is not a God that fails; He’s a God that always leads us forward and higher in blessings and spiritual growth! Being in a relationship with God means that He is going to grow us up in Him. It means that even if you’ve experienced situations that didn’t turn out as you expected, and even if you feel you’re in a drought and don’t see anyone that comes close to being your prince, you will not let yourself wallow in sadness. You will not let your heart be troubled because you know beyond knowing that God is faithful to His promises.

Jeremiah 17:8 also provides another key to remaining in faith. It says our leaves remain green. They don’t wither because of conditions of heat or drought. For those of us that are like trees planted by the river, our leaves don’t wither because we are committed to continue producing fruit. This is where many have fell off the wagon. When our confidence is misplaced, we stop concentrating on pleasing God by producing fruit. Instead, we concentrate on loneliness and lack. Or we concentrate on the man we think is the one and try to put God in second place. That will never work. Ministering the Word to others, being a blessing to their lives, helping those in need, sharing the Good News and encouraging those within our span of influence, good deeds like these are our fruit. They prove that our confidence is in God. Our focus must be to continue producing and laying up treasures as Christ has instructed us.

When our hope and confidence is firmly placed in God, we are not worried about the heat or the drought. We are in a posture of walking with Him and waiting to hear His instructions and directions. God is in the business of making your desires a reality. The fruition of your blessing is between you and God, and no one else can make your dreams come true except Him. Don’t be afraid to let go of past mistakes, expectations, and anything else that blocks you from trusting Him. Have confidence that whether its at work, in the grocery store, in church or fellowship, at the gym, or anyplace else, God has appointed the time and place of every blessing that happens in your life. When your relationship is tight with Him, there’s no way that you’ll miss what He has for you.■

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Not Bothered by the Heat or Worried About the Drought”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2023. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

May 24, 2023
The Bridge Not Easily Crossed

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12(NIV), “9 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: 10 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. 11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken;”

The thing that speaks to me uniquely regarding this passage in Ecclesiastes 4 is that its wisdom takes out all the fuss we add to relationships. God delivers His standard here, and it is very simple common sense; this is what I love. Its practical guidance is beneficial no matter your situation. Whether you’re single, married or divorced, the principle of strength in unity and partnership can be applied across the board. If you’re finding the process of going from single to married to be a bridge not easily crossed, don’t allow yourself to be discouraged or deterred. Cling to the simplicity and common sense of God’s standard and let Him guide you as you cross the bridge from single to married.

You can’t do it without God
The principle reality about any quest we attempt to undertake is that we can’t do it without God. The truth of this goes without saying, but still many of us neglect to pray and be obedient in a way that signals we are letting Him lead. Nothing makes sense without God, but with Him, the quests we think are complicated and difficult are made light and far less challenging. God is about increase, sharing, and unity, because all of these, and much more, embody what it means to love in the way that He does. This doesn’t mean that being single is a negative thing. It’s not. It gives us time to concentrate and focus on our relationship with God. Some might feel they’ve had a little too much time for this, but God is the Judge of that. He knows when our hearts are full of His love. And He also knows when we are at a point spiritually when we will not shortchange our time with Him simply because we have a new man in our lives.

The simple truth He is revealing is that His Will is that people stand together and help one another. He loves unity, and He wants us to know this. So, when we’re at a point of praying that we’ll meet a good man and get married, we are praying to expand our lives by caring for and supporting another person. This is fruitful because God makes it plain for us in Ecclesiastes 4:10 that with two, you’ll have a better return on your labor. This means you can accomplish more things together than you would alone, but we must never forget that our working together with another must be fueled by our honor and obedience to God.

You must use your time now to pray that God teaches you the lessons that are specific to being the helpmate your spouse needs. You must have God’s guidance for this. Without His love guiding us, we become confused and entangled with too many expectations and too little spiritual discipline.

Know how to help each other up

In Hosea 4:6(ESV), God said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge.” Heavenly Father is speaking directly to us, His children, and He’s telling us that we can be severely harmed because we have refused to know Him as well as we should. Many single people have not applied discipline when it comes to reading and studying God’s Word. If they are not doing it while they are single, they probably will not do it when they become married. Because they haven’t used their time as singles to study God’s Word, they won’t be able to withstand some of the rigors of married life. They’ve neglected to heed God’s warning in Hosea 4:6, yet they expect to be blessed with a lasting marital union. This is not a spiritually mature posture.

Hebrews 11:6 tells us that God is a Rewarder to those that diligently seek Him. Diligence is a discipline. It is evidenced by a consistent pattern that becomes a habit. Once we have worked a habit pattern of diligence in our lives, it stays with us. The characteristic of diligence towards the things of God helps to preserve our marital unions, and we can’t be ignorant about this. God’s requirement and expectation is that we will be a helper to our spouses. He expects that we will allow Him to work through us so we can help our spouses up when they fall. However, if we are not seasoned in His Word, we’re not even helping ourselves, so how can we help a spouse? We must be diligent about the things of God, so that we are spiritually prepared to help our spouses in the way God has ordained.

Make a cord of three strands
Jesus Christ must be the head of our marriages. His love is the glue that holds it together. It is inevitable in a marriage that there will be disagreements. Some marriages don’t survive them. Weaknesses of the spouses are weaponized by the devil to put a wedge between the couple. When neither spouse has built within them a habit pattern of prayer and walking in the Spirit, small things fester and slowly become layered over time. But when one of them has the faith to press into God and let Jesus Christ take the wheel, the Holy Spirit can strengthen their union. This is how the spouses together with Christ build the strong cord of three, and it will withstand the plots of the enemy that are designed to come against their union.

Knowledge about God’s Word is our greatest weapon, and when we don’t have it, life can be extremely difficult. If we are without the Godly wisdom necessary to be the good helpmate that Heavenly Father desires, the enemy will continually steal the opportunities that are necessary for us to cross paths with our destiny partner. We will be stuck on the bridge, never crossing it because we’re blinded by a lack of knowledge. We won’t see the very instruments that lead to our blessing. God loves unity, and you must pray and ask Him to teach you to work together with your spouse. He requires you to diligently apply yourself to this before you marry. You must get into His Word, so that you are spiritually strengthened and prepared to be the helpmate God desires you to be. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

English Standard Version (ESV), The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

“The Bridge Not Easily Crossed”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2023. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

May 10, 2023
Choose Me, Please

“Men don’t notice me, and I don’t know what to do to change that.”

When we’re frequently in the company of more than a few men that are believers, and none of them seem to notice us, it can really do a number on our self-esteem. You wonder if there’s something you’re doing that is counterproductive to your goal of meeting Mr. Right. I’ve heard this concern from single women more than a few times, and it makes you want to do something to wake up certain men and say, “What’s wrong with you?!!!” All these amazing women that are beautiful inside and out are out there, and single men are like, “I’m waiting to get myself together financially first before I seriously date.” Seriously! What about what God says, does that count at all in their calculation, or is this ‘financial stability’ thing just an excuse.

If we’re keeping it one hundred, many of these men could have been more financially secure years ago, but they splurged on stuff like sneakers, clothes, or some other non-essential things, and didn’t use their money wisely. Do you think if they lacked the discipline a year ago that they’ve changed their game up a whole lot now? Having money in the bank is a really good thing, and we should all be striving to save and be more financially disciplined, but not to the point where money is governing our decision-making process rather than the wisdom of God’s Word.

A man’s responsibility is to be a provider, there is no doubt about this, but his ability to do so is an empowerment from God. It isn’t based on a man’s idea of what he needs. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 6:8 that Heavenly Father knows what we need even before we ask. So, a man must depend solely on Heavenly Father as his Source, because this is the posture that pleases God. The man should understand that his motivation and commitment to care for those God has entrusted to him is what catapults him into God’s favor.

The wisdom of Ecclesiastes 4:9(NLT) tells us, “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.” This is a jewel for single people, but how can a single woman convince a single man that a serious and monogamous relationship is a precious blessing and not a detriment or a squash on his dreams of financial security? What can she do to make him see her as an asset and not a liability? Is there anything she can do to make him choose her as his wife for life?

Those are questions for the ages and many women have pondered them. But the answer is that a single woman shouldn’t think she has to try and convince a man of her worth. Her responsibility is to be convinced of it herself. How does this happen? How do we become grounded in the reality of our worth? The answer to this question requires us to know the Source of our worth, because He is the One who gives us value.

Before God rescued us from eternal darkness, Ephesians 2:1 tells us that we were dead in trespasses and sins against Him. Nothing dead has any value, but because of God’s amazing grace, He sent His Son to die so that he would save the world. God sent Christ to redeem us, and this redemption gave us our value because Jesus Christ gave us new life!

If we miss the extremely important reality of what Jesus Christ accomplished for us and where we were before he saved us, then something within us is still in the dark. God gave us value, and without our relationship with Him through Jesus Christ, we have no identity and no idea of our value. If we are not basking in the joy of what God has done for us, our light is not on. If the light is not on, the love of God is not powerfully radiating from our being, and we are not the magnet we could and should be. We must truly understand the depth of God’s love for us and the great sacrifice our Lord and Savior made for us all.

1Corinthians 6:19-20(NLT) tells us, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” The Spirit of the Living God dwells within us, and he is the One that causes us to live a successful life as a follower of Christ. Living through Christ is our source of power. Heavenly Father makes this clear to us in 1Corinthians 4:20, which tells us that His Kingdom is not just a lot of talk, it is living with His power!

The Holy Spirit will do what we allow him to do. If we are not surrendering to his guidance and letting him teach us how to be our best for God’s Kingdom, then we are missing the mark. You and I, and everyone that has ever existed, live from the inside out. This means that the real action of who we are, what we represent, and what we can do illuminates from within. Blessings land in our lives and remain as a result of what is in our hearts and minds, so our aim should always be to let the light of Christ shine from within as we remain continually infused with God’s Word.

Getting ourselves pampered and pretty has its place, but it will never be enough to catapult us to next level of blessings and spiritual growth. God’s love in Christ is the glue. It causes us to cross paths with our destiny partners and keeps the relationship unified. Without God’s love in Christ and the gratitude we should have for what He’s done for us, you and I don’t have anything to draw out our blessings. We will not be able to hold things together. So, as a woman of God, of course you know that along with yours, there are lots of pretty faces out there, but a pretty face will not move a man to change his mind about marriage. You must be blissfully thankful to God, and you must be confident in your Christ identity. When you are, the transformative power of His love that is operating in your life will ensure that the right man recognizes you as the right woman for him. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Choose Me, Please”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2023. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

May 3, 2023
God Is Waiting on You

Romans 8:29(NIV) says, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” Many believers underestimate God’s allegiance to this verse and some even think He will negotiate with them over it. God’s goal for everyone is to become the very image of Christ. This earth experience gives us the opportunity to line up our souls with God’s Word so that our souls will be transformed; this must be our most important mission in life. Heavenly Father blesses His kids, there can be no doubt about this. He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ, and He hasn’t withheld any good thing from us. Our job is to never forget that our blessings are contained in the example of Christ. He is the mold from which we are cast, and we are cloned to the image of Christ by our obedience. 2Corinthians 10:6 affirms that obedience to God is the way to demolish the darkness that seeks to tear us down. The example of Jesus Christ represents our Heavenly Father’s faith in us. It’s our ticket to happiness and all the other blessings He has in store.

We can’t do things our own way and stamp it with ‘Success!’ Life never works out when we try to rely on our own effort to bring things together. Heavenly Father tells us in Romans 8:28 that HE is the One that causes all things to work together for our good. If He is for us, who can be against us?!!! It is our Almighty and Powerful God who justified us in Christ, and nothing can separate us from His love. As a single believing woman, you may have thought about taking your quest for marriage into your own hands. You may want to rush things along because you feel that God is taking too long. That can never be. God is perfect and His timing is impeccable but rest assured that He is not withholding your blessing. He is not making you wait year after year for it. Some of us are stuck in wait-mode longer than we’d like because we’ve decided to go at our own pace when it comes to conforming to the image of Christ.

Being 100% honest, we’d have to admit that many of us spend more time on social media and dating sites than we do reading God’s Word. We want to be entertained and not instructed, and that’s a problem because in order for our faith to increase, we must hear and perceive the Word of God. Romans 10:17 plainly tells us that faith comes by hearing God’s Word. Jesus Christ commands us in Matthew 6:19-20 not to lay up treasures on the earth, but to lay them up in heaven, where they can be stored. These treasures, if they are worthy, are what we’re putting away in God’s storehouse, therefore, the glory of them are on full display before Him. Our treasures are the tally sheet for how we walk in Christ and for what we are doing for the Kingdom. Our treasures represent what is in our hearts, for Jesus declared in Matthew 6:21(KJV) “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” What does God see when He looks at what you’re treasuring? What does it tell Him about your heart?

In Matthew 12:25(NLT), Jesus Christ said “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart.” He then went on to say that on judgment day, we must give an account of everything we’ve done on this earth. Some of our accounts are in really bad shape right now. We haven’t stored up enough treasure in heaven, we haven’t put the Kingdom of God in first place, and we haven’t made our relationship with Him our number one priority. Instead, we’ve done our own thing. We can’t lie to God. We can’t make excuses, because He sees everything we do, and He knows everything there is to know about our hearts. God is not looking at us and shaking His finger with disapproval. He’s rooting for us, saying, “Come on, daughter. Get in my Word so you can understand who you are in Christ and what you should be doing to bear fruit in his powerful name!”

Hebrews 2:1(NLT) teaches us, “So we must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard, or we may drift away from it.” We should never make this mistake; we can never forget the truth that we’ve heard, nor can we drift away from it for the sake of human companionship. As spiritually mature men and women in Christ, experience has taught us what happens when we allow ourselves to drift away from God’s Word. We lose our spiritual zeal and become distracted. The intimacy in our relationship with God weans, and if we continue down that road for too long, we begin to sabotage our blessings. The price of this is much too high to pay.

We have an adversary that would like nothing more than to keep us from walking in the victory of Christ. For this reason, we must never take our eyes off God and His love for us. Psalm 91:1(NLT) affirms, “Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” To live in God’s shelter and find rest in His shadow, you and I must stay close to Him through His Word. It’s our responsibility to saturate our mind and heart with His love and live in Godliness.

He’s giving us opportunity after opportunity, chance after chance, to get busy fulfilling our call. He doesn’t want us to leave this earth without making the impact we are destined to make in Christ. Romans 8:19(NLT) tells us, “For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are.” We need to recognize that everything around us; relationships, people, circumstances, environments, and conditions are waiting on us to rise up and produce what Christ gave his life for us to bring forth. So, we are not really in wait-mode. God is waiting on us to rise up and take our rightful place. How can we rush the delivery of the blessing when we have refused to produce fruit? Don’t try to follow what someone else has done or is doing. Walk in the Spirit for yourself and do what God has called YOU to do, so that you bring Him glory and receive what He has for you.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“God Is Waiting on You”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2023. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

April 26, 2023
Can He Find You?

A good friend of mine is a very attractive guy. He has a good job, dresses very nicely and receives tons of attention from women. I think he knows that he’s handsome, but not in an egotistical way. Although he’s quite a bit younger than me, I find his demeanor beyond his years. He has a very quiet nature and has wanted to meet someone to settle down with for quite some time. We’ve had a few conversations about this, and if I’m being honest, I have to say that I’m kind of shocked by his situation. Given his sweet personality, I find it hard to believe that with all the attention he gets, he hasn’t come close to finding the right woman. One of the things that his situation brings out is that many men today are flooded with options, but there are so few women who make themselves stand out from the rest. So, it’s possible a good man wouldn’t recognize the right woman if she were standing right in front of him.

Proverbs 18:22(NKJV) says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the LORD.” The number of discussions, explanations, and opinions about this verse are endless. It’s led to a series of subjects covered in many Christian retreats for singles, and the question about whether God is okay with a woman pursuing a man is always a debate starter. The light that Jesus Christ sheds on the practice of debating scripture is clear in Matthew 22:23. This verse tells us that he was approached by some Sadducees, and they posed a question about the resurrection, wanting to know how it applied to Mosaic Law. They expected to find some flaw in the truth he taught, and they also expected that Jesus Christ would not be able to exceed their level of intellect and understanding. How wrong they were. Jesus Christ told them in Matthew 22:29(NLT), “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God.”

Theologians and Biblical scholars have helped us to understand God’s Word tremendously, but many of them have educated themselves to the point of losing the simplicity of God’s truth. Our Heavenly Father’s power and favor are unequaled. He has made no mistake in His Word about His standard of what constitutes a good wife or about the favor upon the man who has undertaken to find her. Rest assured when a man seeks God and desires a good wife, he will be blessed to find her, but both the man and the woman have equally important roles in this equation.

The responsibility of a good woman is to make sure she can be recognized as such. She can have all the makings of a good wife, but if she doesn’t look like one, her potential husband might be looking her straight in the eye and not recognize she’s ‘wifey.’ If we don’t look like a Godly treasure, we may not be recognized as one. There’s a very real temptation to try to imitate, dress like, and conform to what we see on social media and television. God tells us in Romans 12:2(NIV), “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” As believers, we simply cannot do what we see others doing. This doesn’t mean that our style or pizazz has to be less, but we should see it as a privilege to look like we love God. It’s not a burden, but a supreme blessing to honor Him in all that we do.

Colossians 3:17(NLT) tells us, “And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.” Our walk with God through the example of Jesus Christ is a supreme privilege and honor. Everything we do, every choice and decision we make each day is one that either honors our commitment to God through the example of Christ or takes away from it. Colossians 3:18(NLT) goes on to tell us, “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord.” How we submit to God shows Him whether we are prepared to submit to our husbands. We have to begin now putting ourselves in check, because some of our habit patterns have to die to see other parts of us thrive. Our prayers to Heavenly Father should include our desire to understand what He is requiring of us. And when we see in His Word that we need to make some adjustments or corrections, we need to make them, and He will reward us for doing so.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Can He Find You?”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

March 12, 2023
The WE Project

Psalm 127:1(NLT)
“Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the Lord protects a city, guarding it with sentries will do no good.”

Over the years, I’ve seen and enjoyed the many wonderful blessings that the Lord has given me. He’s brought people into my life to bless me, and I’ve also watched people walk out of my life. Sometimes, certain people chose to leave, and it was painful to watch and experience, but I realized that it was also a very necessary thing. Like everyone else’s, my life is a work in progress. It’s a project that I’m working with the Lord to perfect. When I try to take the lead and make decisions and choices on my own, things don’t work out. But I’ve learned, and sometimes learned the hard way, that when I allow the Lord to lead, guide, and direct me, I’m never disappointed with the results. If I meet someone new, rather than assuming they are a blessing, I surrender it to the Lord. I pray to be guided by Him and allow Him the space to confirm that they are indeed a blessing. And if they aren’t, I thank God and ask Him to keep them moving along their merry way.

It’s challenging for some of us to do this. We’re wired to desire companionship, and when we meet someone new that seems to be nice, we prematurely assume he’s the one we’ve been waiting for. This isn’t always the case. Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we can avoid costly mistakes. Our Heavenly Father is not slack in any way and nothing slips by Him. Isaiah 45:15 declares that He works in mysterious ways. He opens some doors, and He keeps other doors closed for good. We should be incredibly thankful for how He guides us. If we seek Him, God will close the door before we become invested in relationships that are sent by the devil to cause great harm. Sometimes, it’s not immediately apparent to us what is happening, but if we will just be patient and give things time, God will make them plain and steer us in the right direction.

The psalmist said in Psalm 138:8(NLT), “The LORD will work out his plans for my life—for your faithful love, O LORD, endures forever. Don’t abandon me, for you made me.” This verse is so beautiful, and it should instill such confidence in us regarding God’s careful watch over His children. We are in partnership with Heavenly Father. We are in Christ, and Christ is in us. Our lives are a “WE” project that is orchestrated and led by God. It’s the Father and us, working together to achieve His purpose. Philippians 2:13(NLT) declares, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” He is at work within, and He’s communicating with our human spirit through His Holy Spirit. The information He communicates is all about leading us in the direction of the best that we can receive.

Philippians 2:13 doesn’t mean that God is inside controlling us like puppets. He’s giving us direction and guidance, but it is up to us to follow it. He tells us to renew our minds to His Word, to read and study it so it becomes a part of us. We do this in order to get our minds and hearts on board with the direction we have received from Him. In the WE Project of our lives, we must be fully surrendered to God through Jesus Christ. Our faith must be such that “if God says it, then it is the absolute best for my life!” because He never makes a mistake and everything that He does is perfect.

There have been times when I didn’t trust God as I should. I had a plan in mind and set out to make it happen. I plowed ahead with a big dose of stubbornness and ended up making mistakes that could have been avoided. These mistakes and missteps allowed me to see that I don’t have all the answers. I can’t see the big picture that God sees, so there’s no way I can know the pitfalls and plots that satan will try to use to set me up and set me back. But trusting God is forever in my best interest. It’s our Father in Heaven that holds everything all together. Don’t get me wrong, we can make plans, but we must seek God before we execute them. When we seek Him for direction, through a nudge, Word, dream, or vision, we will receive what we need to change or stay the course.

When I’m trying to make it a project of ‘me’ instead of ‘WE’, or trying to make things happen out of my own strength and not inviting God’s wisdom, I find myself working harder and not smarter; I end up wasting time. So, these days, when I’m confused or feel insecure about the way I’m proceeding in life, I stop and ask God if He is pleased with what I’m doing. I take time to examine if I have removed Jesus Christ from the driver’s seat. What a blessing to know that every time we ask Heavenly Father what to do or how to proceed in life, He answers us so sweetly by offering to guide us through His love.

Jesus Christ teaches us in John 15:5(NLT), “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” As single women desiring marriage, we must realize that when we try to take matters into our own hands and make things happen, they will not turn out the way we expect. Sometimes the result is that we will have taken several steps backward instead of forward. Things will turn into nothing when we don’t allow Jesus Christ to steer our lives. God is sure to finish the ‘WE Project’ that He started in us through Jesus Christ. We must never doubt this. Total re-programing of our thoughts and attitudes in order to let God take the lead in everything we do; this is what’s required. We must immerse ourselves in our oneness with Him through Jesus Christ. He has heard our prayers, and He will cause all things to work together for our benefit according to His perfect and divine timing. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“The WE Project”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

March 5, 2023
God’s Will Is for Two to Become One

1 Corinthians 7:3-5(NLT)

“3 The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. 4 The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife.

5 Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

There’s no need to tiptoe around it. The question that is on the minds of many single women that desire marriage is when it will happen. Part of encouraging one another towards the goal of marrying well is to speak the truth in love. There are some subjects that believers have been known to tiptoe around, and one of them is physical intimacy in the marital relationship. It’s a deeply private issue, but also a very necessary and natural discussion to have, especially before you get married. God said in Genesis 2:24(NKJV), “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” We need to have a serious conversation with God about becoming one with the man that He desires to walk with us through life. The habits we’ve developed, and the expectations and incorrect beliefs we have around God’s plan for becoming one, will need to be addressed before we take that walk down the aisle.

Quite frankly, for many singles, the habits they’ve developed when it comes to satisfying the flesh are ones that were adopted from society. It’s so far from God’s Word that people don’t even believe they can be married to one person for life anymore. They assume divorce is inevitable, and that on a whim people are free to fall out of love as quickly as they fall in love. This isn’t the ‘becoming one’ that God had in mind. His grace is sufficient toward us, and He forgives our shortcomings, but we can never place ourselves or our own personal agendas above God’s standard.

Our faith towards marriage can’t be built on what society says, because that’s not faith. Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. It comes by the truth, so if we abdicate God’s standard, we no longer have the truth, and a person cannot have faith if they don’t believe and trust the truth. God’s Word is the only solid foundation that exists, and if we try to build a marriage without it, we’re in trouble.

One of the things we’re witnessing is that there is a tremendous amount of people who believe that God will reward them when they haven’t walked according to His Word. We can’t pretend to be committed to God; we must really be committed to Him. We have to love Him with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. So, if we are truly honoring God’s standard of becoming one with the man we will marry, we must repent from becoming one with men that we didn’t marry.

To repent is to have a change of heart and mind. It’s to completely change the way we’re thinking and believing about something so that our thoughts, feelings, and actions line up with the example of Jesus Christ.

Our Heavenly Father ordained that a husband and wife become one before Him. You and I have no other choice but to conclude that He did this because it was very important to His plan. When we step outside the boundaries of what He has ordained, repentance is critically necessary. Heavenly Father wants to give us the blessing we greatly desire, but He cannot reward us if our hearts are too stubborn and arrogant to recognize we need to repent. He wants to help us lay up treasures so that we don’t allow the enemy to continue to steal from us. There must be within us a Godly sorrow for not doing as the Father commanded, for it is in this deep place of remorse for our actions against His Will that we can also accept His forgiveness.

Whether married or waiting to meet our husbands, we must not allow satan to tempt us with a lack of self-control. Our desire to please God must be greater than our desire for any other thing, because this speaks to our commitment to Him. Throughout God’s Word, He continually reminds His people to be holy and committed so He can bless them. He’s very willing to aid us and has placed His Spirit within the born-again believer to guide, teach, and comfort us. We must be settled and clear in our minds and hearts that physical intimacy was sanctioned by God for marriage. This is His standard, and nothing is comparable to God’s perfection. He never changes and He always tells us what pleases Him, and what pleases God is always best.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“God’s Will Is for Two to Become One”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

February 26, 2023
God Made the Woman Just Right for the Man

Genesis 2:18(NLT)
“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.””

This verse in Genesis 2:18 is incredibly easy to understand, but as with many verses like it, we have the privilege of taking it apart to digest all its yumminess. As women of God that are praying to marry, we can’t afford to let the impact of what God has revealed to slip by us. God created Adam first, and this was not a coincidence or a random occurrence. God does everything with a purpose, and certainly the first human being that He created was prolific, deliberate, and specifically ordained for God’s sovereign Will and Plan. From this, you and I must conclude that Eve’s purpose, while very important to God, was not the same as Adam’s. There was no mistake or mishap in God’s planning. Eve was made to be a helper who was just right for Adam, but we’ve gotten so twisted around by the world’s agenda that we’re rejecting the truth, and many of us are in jeopardy of missing out on God’s blessing.

A helper, as the word is used in Genesis 2:18, is translated as ‘one who helps’. This is a very beautiful distinction, because it is the same position and designation that our Heavenly Father assumes towards us. He helps us, and it is because we desperately need His help. The psalmist said about Heavenly Father in Psalm 121:1 (NKJV), “I will lift up my eyes to the hills—From whence comes my help?” In Hosea 13:9(NKJV), God said to His people, “O Israel, you are destroyed, But your help is from Me.” In Deuteronomy 33:26(NLT), Moses said about our Creator, “There is no one like the God of Israel. He rides across the heavens to help you, across the skies in majestic splendor.” Oh, how blessed we should be and feel as women to have been chosen for a such a distinction as this, to be a “help meet”, a helper to God’s man.

Instead of understanding this extreme honor and appreciating the privilege that God intended, we have turned ‘helper’ into almost a bad word. And because many of us have overlooked God’s brilliance, intention, and plan for this role, we have failed to produce the faith necessary to carry it out. We place a great deal of emphasis on God giving us a man that is just right for us, instead of recognizing that we have been given the designation to be just right for the man. It’s a flip in the script that cannot be missed.

God is a God of order. He doesn’t miss a beat. In Ephesians 2:10(NLT), Heavenly Father tells us, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Both the man and the woman are God’s masterpieces. He made the woman a helper, and it can be nothing other than glorious, for everything the Father does is glorious. He planned good things for us to do, and helping the man is a huge part of God’s plan. We simply cannot afford to misconstrue any part of God’s masterful intention here.

Looking for a wife is not a man’s first order of business. The first responsibility for the man is to solidify and strengthen his relationship with God. It is to establish intimacy with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. As women, we are so consumed and concerned with what the man is or isn’t, that we’re not even bothered about what kind of relationship he has with God. We just want him to be right for us and check off all the boxes on our lists. As long as he’ll go along with our program, whether he prays or not is the furthest thing from many of our minds. It’s a real surprise for some women to discover that this attitude and mindset will work against you rather than for you.

God’s intention is that the man fulfills his purpose. Helping him do so is a part of our purpose as ambassadors for Christ and daughters of the Most High God. It’s an extremely humbling thing to recognize that the quest to be a wife can’t revolve around us and what we want, but it must be submitted to God and what He wants. What God wants is always and forever the best for all concerned.

We are so busy with talking about what cheaters men are. You hear it all time, women saying that they’re no good ones left, and that women are doomed to be single all their lives. This is the mindset of someone that doesn’t know God’s agenda for the woman and isn’t prepared to submit to it. We’re not going to draw ourselves closer to God’s blessing by standing in opposition to it. That will never work. God’s man is a treasure, and he can be all that God desires him to be. Yes, many of them fall short, but so do we. You must have a totally different attitude and mindset about men, and change the way you speak about them, because if you can’t speak about the blessing the way God ordained it, you won’t see it and you can’t have it.

If you are a Christian woman, and you love the Lord, you know that the God you serve is a Rewarder to those who diligently seek Him. When we are serious about being all that God has called us to be, we don’t rely on our own assumptions about our preparedness. The ministry of a wife is service to God. We reverence the husband because of our reverence to God through Jesus Christ. If we are not sure in any respect that we are prepared to serve in the ministry of a spouse and to devote ourselves completely to it, we should be asking God what we need to do to get prepared. Our hearts should be to please Him as we seek to be the wife He desires us to be. If we humble ourselves before God, with an attitude that is flexible when it comes to changing some of our habits and thoughts, we will see things we’ve never seen before. We’ll view the ministry of a wife that God has placed in our hands with greater appreciation and responsibility, and we’ll assume it with the grace and dedication to service that God requires.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“God Made the Woman Just Right for the Man”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

January 30, 2023
We Have A Job to Do!

James 1:21-24(NLT)
“21 So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls. 22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. 23 For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.”

You and I have a job to do! And it’s going to require more out of you than your comfort zone may allow, but – when the job is finished, your soul will be saved. God has given us specific instructions. He tells us to get rid of the filth and evil in our lives, and make no mistake, God says what He means, and He means what He says. Not only must we remove the cancerous evil from our souls, but we must humbly accept the Word that God has planted in our hearts. This is plain and simple instruction. All of us have some stuff we’re holding on to that is blocking our blessings and keeping us from being who God has called us to be. Our spirits are perfect through our new birth transformation, but the soul is another story. It’s the soul that keeps us from receiving the blessings we desire most.

We all have some cleaning up to do in our lives. It is essential that we commit to this work so that our souls will accept the Word that God has planted in us through His Holy Spirit. The Word is there, deep inside our human spirits, but our souls have a different agenda. The soul wants to keep holding on to the things we used to do before Jesus Christ became the head of our lives. These are the things that the devil is using to intercept our blessings, and this is one of the reasons why we get close to what we want, but it slips away. It’s stolen from us because some of our old habit patterns provide just the opening that satan uses to come into our lives and rob us.

God warns us in James 1:23 not to be the kind of person that listens to His Word and doesn’t do what it says, because we’re only fooling ourselves when we do this. Our circumstances and situations will always be the proof in the pudding. They will always show us exactly where our heads and hearts are. They will show us whether we’re just giving lip service to God, or whether we genuinely and sincerely aim to please Him with our whole lives.

Hebrews 12:1(NLT) tells us, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us 0strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” Some of us are carrying weight from previous hurtful relationships, and we have never taken the time to ask the Father if the weight of deep pain we’ve gone through is slowing us down and tripping us up.

Sometimes, the hurt we’ve experienced causes us to go for the jugular in disagreements. We go from zero to sixty when something is said or done that hits our sore spot. When we’ve gone through situations where our partners indulge infidelity, many of us shutdown our hearts. We don’t let anyone get too close, and we put on a façade, never allowing new people to see who we really are. Then, there are women that have made the man they are involved with their everything. In Matthew 6:33, Jesus Christ commands us to seek God first in all that we do. Our relationships with God must be our number one priority, but many women conduct themselves in direct opposite to the commandment of Christ. In their past relationships, they focused all their energy on the man, and ignored their relationship with Heavenly Father. This is a sin that they’ve never repented from.

The fear of experiencing the pain of loneliness is what drives many of us to undermine our own spiritual well-being. We don’t stop to think that God is the One who holds everything together, and without His blessing, nothing will work the way it should. He’s the One that we should be seeking, because He takes care of us. Our Heavenly Father sees everything, and He sees what we can’t see in our past, present, and future. He knows when we are not walking by faith but yielding to fear. He doesn’t punish us, He helps us.

One of the toughest jobs that we may endure is understanding how to recognize the specific thing(s) that hinder our walk with God. This is why He’s given us His Holy Spirit and placed him in the inner sanctum of our beings. We’ve got work to do! As future wives and/or mothers, we are to be conduits of God’s love, and this means that we can’t allow ourselves to be buffeted by satan and all the fear he tries to bring into our lives. We must trust Hebrews 11:6, that God is a Rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. He rewards us when we put Him first, study and obey His Word, and release the things that hold us back. We should forgive ourselves for past mistakes, but our first order of business is to confront this stuff, seek God’s forgiveness, and get on with the business of growing and maturing in Christ.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“We Have a Job to Do!”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

January 16, 2023
Be Patient and Keep on Believing God

Matthew 6:26 (NLT)
“Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?”

There are two very important practices to spiritually preparing to partner that a believer can’t afford to neglect. The first is practicing the fruit of patience. The fruit of the Spirit belong to him, the Holy Spirit, and his fruit are produced through us. Anything that belongs to the Spirit is holy, perfect, and pure. Therefore, you and I have no other choice but to conclude that the outcome of exhibiting patience is going to be powerful, and it is going to be to our liking. Knowing this piece of truth adds to our faith and wisdom. So, patience should be looked upon as an extreme blessing and not a chore.

Impatience is a lack of patience. It is an intolerance or irritability of delays. In many cases, it reflects our refusal to increase our believing towards faith. When it comes to finding the right person, many women are impatient with the wait. If you were to peel back the layers of their impatience, you might find they are worried and anxious that God is not going to give them the desires of their hearts. So, doubt is the root cause of their impatience. God’s remedy for this can be found in Philippians 4:6(NLT), where He tells us, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.”

Philippians 4:6 is God’s tool for building our confidence. It is a ‘new nature’ attitude and mentality, one where we shift out of doubt and into believing God, no matter how circumstances appear. This is a workout for our faith muscle, and it is a mandatory exercise, one that God will not allow us to skip. Understanding this is critical to growing in spiritual maturity and preparation. It’s the reason why I advised a young woman to use caution regarding someone she had recently met.

When I inquired how they’d met, she told me that it was through a mutual acquaintance. They started talking over social media, and she suggested they continue their conversations via text and offered him her phone number. She asked my advice regarding how she should proceed. She’s wanted to meet a compatible mate for a long time, and I shared my delight that she had met someone. I also cautioned her to give herself time and only respond to what he does. She said, “But what if he doesn’t reach out anymore?” I advised, “Wait for his response. It’s the only way you’ll know what you’re working with. If he doesn’t respond, you’ll know it’s not for you.”

The beauty of ‘wait’ is the maturation of our believing. The world’s standard is, “Grrl! You better make that move!” but that isn’t God’s standard. His way is “Be still and know that I am God.” When we practice the fruit of patience, God will not allow us to miss a blessing. We must have faith that the right man will always respond. It’s destiny at work!

The second practice is that of knowing what to do during the wait. The antsy-ness or impatience we experience during the wait is typically because we don’t know what to do with our time. It doesn’t occur to many people that God is our Creator, and that He meant for us to spend all our available time in fellowship, worship, and praying to Him through Christ. This is absolutely God’s expectation. Jesus Christ told us in John 14:6 that he is the way, the truth, and the life! He is the only way to get to the Father, and his way is to be in continual fellowship with God and to have an intimate relationship with Him.

When a woman yearns for a relationship with a man, she must be super careful that her longing is not weightier than her willingness to give God her time. For instance, if a person refuses to make reading the Bible, praying, and seeking to put on more of the example of Christ a meaningful part of their daily practices, they can’t expect to boost their believing towards marriage. That would be an unreasonable expectation. It’s not a workable strategy. God’s Will and Word is that we put on more of Christ, because when we walk in Christ as fully as we can, blessings will chase us down. Jesus Christ told us this in Matthew 6:33(NLT), “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”

Jesus Christ said in Matthew 6:26 (NLT), “Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?” God is our Sufficiency. He is the Source of all blessings, and He will take care of our needs. He loves us and gave His only begotten Son to die for our sins. This lets us know that we are worthy of love. When you are confident in who you are in Christ, your actions will align with God’s Will. We must shift our focus off what hasn’t manifested yet and put it on the reality that God has already provided the husband. Our responsibility is to be patient, and to keep on believing and trusting God, no matter the wait.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Be Patient and Keep on Believing God”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

January 9, 2023