Find A Christian Man

Tag: devotions for singles

  • “Anger Labels You A Fool”

    “Anger Labels You A Fool”

    Ecclesiastes 7:9 (NLT)
    “Control your temper, for anger labels you a fool.”

    Relationships can be very delicate, particularly while they are in the beginning stages. It is a time when you want the person of your affection to see you in the most positive light. Many of us think very highly of ourselves. We think we’ve got it all figured out, and therefore, we want the significant person in our lives to believe this as well. The truth is that there are a great many things we haven’t figured out. There is a side to us that we haven’t yet explored.

    One of the reasons why relationships blow up is because many of us sabotage them through our own fears, and our issues with self-control and lack of trust. We explode in ways that we never imagined we would. It could be because we are insecure or jealous. It could also be because we feel trapped, but we haven’t yet admitted it to ourselves. It could be any one of several internal factors that can cause us to work against ourselves in a relationship. This is why we desperately need the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is also why we should know ourselves well enough to be able to confront and admit our trouble spots.

    The optimum situation for any two people who come together in a relationship is for them to have allowed themselves the time to mature in Christ. They need to know a bit about their strengths and weaknesses. God instructs us to be wise. Being wise is allowing God’s Word to instruct us. This is particularly true for the areas where we’re not as strong as we’d like to be or should be.

    Wisdom dictates that we become very careful observers of ourselves. In a conversation or interaction, most of us can sense when a potential for something to strike our chords the wrong way is mounting. You can feel the reaction boiling up within you. The worse thing in the world is to allow yourself to explode in anger. God warns us in Ecclesiastes 7:9 (NLT), “Control your temper, for anger labels you a fool.”

    A fool is a person that acts unwisely, and uncontrolled anger makes a fool out of us. It undermines our authority in Christ, and causes us to move in reverse rather than forwardly. It can ruin a relationship and be very devastating to our lives. God’s wisdom will preserve us and help us to make sound decisions and choices. Proverbs 2:10-15 The Message (MSG) tells us, “Lady Wisdom will be your close friend, and Brother Knowledge your pleasant companion. Good Sense will scout ahead for danger, Insight will keep an eye out for you. They’ll keep you from making wrong turns,”. As we walk in the Spirit, this is what the discipline of Godliness will do for us. So be sure to pray that God helps you to work the fruit of self-control deep in your soul. Then, when you’re with the person you will ultimately marry, you can have confidence in your ability through Christ to strengthen and preserve your relationship.■

    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.

     ““Anger Labels You A Fool””, written by FACM, Finding A Christian Man.Com ©2017.  All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

  • You Are More than Enough

    You Are More than Enough

    “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
    James 1:2-4(NLT)

    Like many women across the globe, I have faced the hurt from a broken heart, and I know that when you’re hurting in that way, all you want is a remedy to make the pain go away. I’ve known this passage in James 1:2-4 for quite some time, but when I was going through this situation of heartache, I couldn’t imagine being joyful in the midst of my troubles.

    This passage encourages us to take a different approach to pain. God doesn’t tell us not to feel the hurt, but He commands that we take our focus off what has transpired and put it on what He will do for us in the final outcome.

    We can’t change the past, no matter how much we might want to. The absolute best thing that we can do for ourselves is to leave the past IN the past. Verse 3 is letting us know unequivocally that our faith is going to be tested. Be clear that God isn’t testing our faith, because He already knows what we’re made of. The enemy is the one doing the testing, because he wants to see how far we are willing to step outside our commitment to God.

    We know that the enemy meant to cause us harm, but our Great God will take what the enemy means for bad and turn it around for our good. Through our pain and heartache, we learn endurance. We learn to be patient and wait on God as He not only teaches us how to be strong, but also turns our situations around in the process.

    James 1:3 also encourages us to ‘let it grow…” In other words, God is telling us that we have a choice. We don’t have to grow in Christ, but it is to our overwhelming advantage to do so. When faced with adversity, God has given us a way to handle it. He’s telling us to let it be a steppingstone to higher spiritual heights. We do this by having faith in Him and making a deeper commitment to spiritually grow, but we don’t have to do this. As a matter of fact, many women don’t.

    Rather than looking up, they’ll look down and see the broken relationship that has hit the ground and broken into a million pieces. Instead of growing in endurance and rededicating themselves to Christ, they will use their time and emotional resources very unwisely by trying to pick up those broken pieces on the ground.

    This is almost always a waste. James 1:4 tells us that when we’ve grown and matured to full development, we’ll be complete in Christ. We will have gleaned a fuller understanding of God, a closer relationship with Him, and a better appreciation for our own worth and value. When you get to this place, you clearly see that truly you don’t need anything or anyone to make you more than what you are. You’ll understand that through Christ you are more than enough, and you are prepared to receive someone who will truly appreciate it.

    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.

    “You Are More Than Enough” written for FindChristianMan.com for the Glory of God through the Lord Jesus Christ! copyright © 2019. All rights reserved.

  • A Tender, Responsive Heart

    A Tender, Responsive Heart

    “And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart.” Ezekiel 11:19  (NLT)

    I know of a young woman in her twenties who, when asked about dating, constantly says that she wears her feelings on her sleeve. When it comes to dating men, she admits that she’s afraid of letting them get too close because of her fear that they will eventually break her heart.

    There is always going to be a risk involved with choosing to love someone, and this risk is one of not knowing whether the other person will disappoint or hurt you deeply. We will often want God to protect us in such a way that we never get our hearts broken, but if you’ll take some time to really think about it, you’ll see that this is not a realistic expectation.

    Human beings are not perfect. We come with deeply embedded dysfunctions and funkiness. Sometimes you don’t actually get to see this reflected in someone’s personality until you’re around them for an extended period of time. It is also possible that you can sense the real essence of a person within a matter of minutes. In either case, as singles desiring to be married, we’ll sometimes ignore these things, and doing so might lead to a hurtful situation down the road.

    God doesn’t want us to get hurt, but life brings with it both joy and pain. One of the ways that God equips us for the pain is to follow His instruction in Proverbs 4:23. It warns, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.’ Like the young woman I mentioned, many of us have tender hearts, but that doesn’t mean that our hearts have to be weak. No one had a more tender heart than Jesus Christ, but we also know that there wasn’t, or has ever been, a more strong-hearted individual on the face of this planet.

    His heart was tender with compassion, and was full with God’s love. He never allowed himself to become obsessed with people or things. The friends of Jesus Christ and people he should have been able to count on disappointed him more than any of us can imagine, but he never allowed emotions of discontent to overrule his allegiance to the things of God. His faith was not shaken by emotions, situations, or people. This is the way we must operate as well. As single Christian women, nothing can ever be more important than pleasing and loving God. That’s how we guard our hearts, and it is how we remain stable and confident in Christ regardless of the disappointment and hurt we might experience.♦

    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.

    “A Tender, Responsive Heart” written for findchristianman.com© 2018. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.