Find A Christian Man

Tag: featured

  • What Did Jesus Accomplish?

    What Did Jesus Accomplish?

    When Jesus died on the cross, His death was not simply the tragic ending of His life on earth. He willingly gave His life for us. Jesus said in John 10:18 (NLT), “No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.” Jesus knew why He had come and what He had come to do.Through His death, He accomplished something we could never have accomplished for ourselves. Sin had separated us from God, and we could not remove that separation by being good enough, doing enough good things, or trying harder. Jesus made a way for us to be forgiven and brought back into a relationship with God. This is what our Heavenly Father wanted. He loves us and wanted us to have a relationship with Him. And that relationship does not begin with how much we love God, but with how much He loves us.

    Jesus Paid the Price for Our Sin

    Sin has consequences, and the Bible tells us in Romans 6:23 (NLT), “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” We deserved the consequences of our sin, but Jesus took our place. He had never sinned, yet He willingly suffered and died for those of us who had. 1 Peter 2:24 (NLT) says, “He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right.”

    Because of what Jesus did on the cross, we do not have to carry the guilt of our sin for the rest of our lives. When we put our faith in Jesus, trusting in His death and resurrection and what He accomplished for us, God forgives us. Our past does not have to keep us separated from Him. This doesn’t mean that our choices no longer matter or that we can deliberately continue living however we please. It means that Jesus paid a price we could never pay, and through Him we can be forgiven and given a new beginning.

    Jesus Made a Way for Us to Come Back to God

    One of the most important things Jesus accomplished was making a way for us to have a relationship with God. Romans 5:1 (NLT) says, “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.” We don’t have to spend our lives wondering whether we can somehow become good enough for God to accept us. We come to Him through Jesus and place our faith in what Christ has already done for us.

    This changes more than where we will spend eternity. Through Jesus, we can know God now. We can pray and know that He hears us. We can learn His Word, receive His help, and begin living the life He created us to live. Jesus didn’t die simply so our sins could be erased from our record in heaven. He made it possible for us to come back home to God, to know Him, and live in relationship with Him.

    Jesus Rose From the Dead

    Jesus died and was buried, but He did not stay in that grave! On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead.

    1 Corinthians 15:3–4 (NLT) says, “Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.”

    Now, let that sink in for a moment.

    Jesus is alive!

    The resurrection is not simply what happened after Jesus died. It is at the very heart of what we believe as Christians. Yes, Jesus died for our sins, but death did not have the final word. The grave could not hold Him! And because Jesus lives, our hope is not based on someone who simply lived a good life and died a long time ago. Our hope is in a risen Savior who is alive right now.

    We don’t serve a dead Savior. We serve a living Christ! And because He lives, we can have hope when life hurts, strength when we feel weak, forgiveness when we have failed, and the assurance that death is not the end for those who belong to Him.

    Jesus came, Jesus died, Jesus rose—and Jesus is still alive!

    That is the good news of the Gospel.

    Because Jesus rose from the dead, death is not the end for those who belong to Him! Think about what that means. The grave does not get the final word. Jesus offers us new life now and eternal life with God.

    His death paid the price for our sins, but His resurrection showed us that sin and death had been defeated! Jesus accomplished what we could never accomplish for ourselves. He made a way for us to be forgiven, restored, and brought back into a right relationship with God.

    But here is where we have to slow down for a moment.

    Knowing what Jesus did for us is wonderful, but what do we do with it? What good is knowing that Jesus made a way if we never receive what He came to give us?

    Jesus has made the way for us to be saved. But we still have a response to make.

    So this brings us to another important question:

    How do we receive what Jesus has made possible for us?

    Continue Learning About Jesus Christ

    What Did Jesus Accomplish? | What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ? | What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?

    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.

    “What Did Jesus Accomplish?”, written by Sokie for https://findchristianman.com Copyright©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

  • What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?

    What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?

    Receiving Jesus Christ is the beginning of a new life with Him. But what happens after we receive Him?

    This is where our walk with Jesus really begins. Jesus didn’t call us simply to believe in Him and then go right back to living life the way we always have. He called us to follow Him. In Matthew 16:24 (NLT), Jesus said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”

    Now, let’s slow down and think about what Jesus was saying.

    When we decide to follow Jesus, we are making a decision to no longer make ourselves the center of our lives. We have to be willing to give up our own way when our way doesn’t agree with God’s way. That’s not always easy.

    There will be times when what we want is different from what God wants. There will be times when our feelings tell us one thing, our desires tell us another, and God’s Word tells us something completely different. Following Jesus means learning to say, “Lord, I want Your way more than I want my way.”

    That doesn’t mean we become perfect overnight. It doesn’t mean we never question, struggle, get frustrated, or make mistakes. We are learning. We are growing. We are being changed.

    But here’s the beautiful thing: our direction begins to change.

    Instead of asking only, “What do I want?” we begin asking, “What does God want?” Instead of automatically doing what feels right to us, we begin learning to seek God’s wisdom. Instead of allowing our feelings, desires, past experiences, or the culture around us to determine how we live, we begin allowing God’s Word to shape our choices.

    That’s what it means to follow Jesus.

    Jesus becomes more than someone we believe in. He becomes the One we are learning to build our lives around—the One we trust, obey, and follow in every part of our lives.

    And here’s something important: following Jesus is a journey.

    We don’t wake up one morning and suddenly have everything figured out. We learn to follow Him one step at a time. Sometimes we take a step forward. Sometimes we stumble. Sometimes we realize we’ve been trying to lead instead of follow, and we have to turn ourselves back toward Him. But we keep following.

    Because following Jesus isn’t about becoming perfect before we can belong to Him. It’s about belonging to Him and allowing Him to teach us how to live.

    Following Jesus Means Learning His Way

    Before we came to Christ, we were accustomed to making our own decisions about how we wanted to live. We had our own ideas about what was right, what was wrong, what would make us happy, and what we wanted for our lives. Following Jesus means we begin allowing His Word to teach us a different way. There will be times when what Jesus teaches agrees with what we already think, and there will be times when it doesn’t. That’s where following Him becomes real.

    Following Him means we don’t change His Word to agree with us. We allow His Word to change us.

    Jesus said in John 14:15 (NLT), “If you love me, obey my commandments.”

    Obedience isn’t how we earn Jesus’ love, and it isn’t how we earn salvation. Jesus doesn’t love us because we obey Him. We obey Him because we belong to Him and love Him.

    As we follow Jesus, we begin learning to trust that His way is better than ours—even when we don’t understand it, and even when His way isn’t the way we would have chosen.

    Sometimes obedience will be easy. There will be things God asks us to do that make perfect sense to us. But other times, obedience will stretch us.

    It may mean letting go of something we really want.

    It may mean forgiving someone we would rather stay angry with.

    It may mean changing a behavior we’ve become comfortable with.

    It may mean walking away from something we know isn’t good for us.

    It may mean saying no to ourselves when everything in us wants to say yes.

    And sometimes, it may simply mean trusting God when we don’t understand what He is doing.

    That’s part of following Jesus. We don’t obey only when His instructions make sense to us or when they fit what we already want to do. We are learning to trust the One who knows more than we do.

    Obedience is one of the ways our trust in Jesus becomes visible in the way we live.

    Following Jesus Means Staying Close to Him

    We cannot follow Jesus well while rarely spending time with Him. Jesus used a simple picture to help His disciples understand this. In John 15:5 (NLT), He said, “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.” A branch cannot produce anything if it is disconnected from the vine. In the same way, we need Jesus every day.

    We stay close to Him by spending time in God’s Word, praying, listening for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, worshiping God, and learning to recognize His voice through Scripture. These things aren’t religious chores we check off a list so God will be pleased with us. They help us know Him better. As we spend time with Jesus, we begin to understand His heart, recognize what pleases Him, and notice areas of our lives that need to change.

    Following Jesus Means Allowing Him to Change Us

    Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean everything about us changes overnight. We bring years of habits, attitudes, fears, wounds, wrong thinking, selfishness, and ways of responding to life with us.

    Some things God may change quickly. Other things He will work on in us over time.

    Philippians 2:13 (NLT) says, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”

    I love that this verse reminds us that God is working in us. We don’t have to change ourselves by our own strength. As we follow Jesus, He works in us, showing us what needs to change and giving us the desire and the strength to do what pleases Him.

    That’s why we shouldn’t become discouraged when our Heavenly Father begins showing us things about ourselves that need to change.

    Sometimes we may think, “Lord, I thought I was further along than this.”

    But seeing those things doesn’t necessarily mean we’re failing at following Jesus. Sometimes it means we’re finally close enough to Him to recognize what doesn’t look like Him.

    That’s growth.

    When God shows us something that needs to change, we don’t need to hide it, make excuses for it, or beat ourselves up over it. We bring it to God. We ask Him to help us. We obey what He shows us, and we keep growing.

    There may be things God has already changed in you that you don’t struggle with anymore. And there may be other things He is still working on.

    That’s okay. Keep following.

    Following Jesus is not about pretending we have everything together. It is about allowing Him to keep working in us, one area at a time, until our lives begin to look more and more like the One we are following.

    Following Jesus Is a Daily Decision

    There will be days when following Jesus feels wonderful and days when it costs us something. There will be prayers that are answered the way we hoped and others that aren’t. There will be seasons when we understand what God is doing and seasons when we don’t. Following Jesus means we continue trusting Him through all of it—not because life always turns out the way we want, but because we have learned that He is worthy of our trust.

    Jesus didn’t promise that following Him would always be easy. He promised something much better: He would be with us. We don’t have to figure out this new life by ourselves. The Holy Spirit helps us, God’s Word teaches us, and Jesus continues leading us as we learn to walk with Him.

    Receiving Jesus is where the relationship begins. Following Him is how we learn to live that relationship every day. We will stumble. We will still need forgiveness. We will have much to learn. But we keep coming back to Him, keep listening, keep obeying, and keep allowing Him to change us. That is what it means to follow Jesus Christ.

    Continue Learning About Jesus Christ

    What Did Jesus Accomplish? | What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ? | What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?

    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.

    “What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?”, written by Sokie for https://findchristianman.com Copyright©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

  • What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ?

    What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ?

    Jesus has made the way for us to be saved, but we still have a response to make. We can know who Jesus is, understand why He came, and even believe that He died and rose again, but knowing these things is not the same as personally putting our faith in Him. God does not force us to receive the salvation Jesus made possible. He invites us to come to Him, believe, turn away from our sin, and place our trust in Jesus Christ.

    Receiving Jesus Begins With Faith

    Romans 10:9 (NLT) says, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Notice that this Scripture doesn’t simply tell us to believe that Jesus lived. Believing in Jesus means more than accepting that He was a real person who walked this earth. It means putting our trust in Him.

    We are trusting that Jesus is who He says He is. We are trusting that He really did die for our sins, that He really did rise from the dead, and that what He did for us is enough to make us right with God. And this is where we have to let go of something many of us have spent our lives trying to do: trying to make ourselves good enough for God.

    We cannot save ourselves by being good. We cannot earn salvation through good deeds. Going to church, serving others, giving money, knowing Scripture, or doing religious things cannot erase our sin and make us right with God. Salvation begins when we stop depending on ourselves and start depending on Jesus.

    It isn’t about what we can do for God. It’s about trusting what God has already done for us through Jesus Christ.

    Faith also means recognizing that we need to be saved. That can be difficult because most of us would rather think of ourselves as pretty good people. We may compare ourselves to people who have done things we consider the absolute worse and decide that we aren’t so bad. But salvation isn’t based on how we compare with other people. Romans 3:23 (NLT) tells us, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” Every one of us needs the Savior, and receiving Jesus begins with admitting that we cannot save ourselves.

    We Turn From Sin and Turn Toward God

    The Bible also talks about repentance. That word can sound religious or complicated, but the basic meaning really isn’t difficult to understand. To repent means that something changes in the way we see our sin. We stop making excuses for it. We stop trying to convince ourselves that what God calls wrong isn’t really that bad. We stop defending what He tells us is wrong. Instead, we agree with Him about our sin and turn toward Him.

    That’s what repentance is. It’s a change of heart and mind that leads to a change in direction.

    Repentance doesn’t mean we suddenly become perfect. It means we stop running from God and start turning toward Him. We acknowledge that we have sinned, we agree with what God says about it, and we become willing to let Him change us.

    Acts 3:19 (NLT) says, “Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away.”

    Notice those words: “repent…and turn to God.”

    God isn’t asking us to clean ourselves up before we come to Him. He is asking us to turn toward Him—to acknowledge our sin, trust Him to forgive us through Jesus Christ, and allow Him to begin changing us from the inside out.

    So we can be confident about something important: repentance does not mean we have to fix everything about ourselves before we can come to Jesus. That’s not what God is asking us to do. Think about it. If we could make ourselves right with God before coming to Him, we wouldn’t need a Savior in the first place.

    We come to Jesus as we are. We come with our sin, our struggles, our failures, and all the things in our lives that still need to change. But we come with a heart that is willing to turn away from living life our own way and begin learning to live God’s way.

    That doesn’t mean we will never struggle again. We will. It doesn’t mean we will get everything right. We won’t. We will still need God’s grace, God’s Word, and the Holy Spirit to help us change and grow.

    But something has changed inside of us.

    We no longer want a life that leaves God out of it.

    We Receive Jesus Christ

    John 1:12 (NLT) says, “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.”

    Notice those words: “believed him and accepted him.”

    Receiving Jesus is personal. Salvation is not something we inherit from our family. We aren’t saved because our parents believed in Jesus. We aren’t saved simply because we grew up going to church, learned Bible stories as children, attended Sunday school, or were baptized when we were young. And we aren’t saved simply because we call ourselves Christians. Those things may be part of our lives. They may have introduced us to Jesus and helped us learn about Him. But there comes a point when we have to personally respond to what we have heard and learned about Jesus.

    Your mother can’t make that decision for you. Your father can’t make it for you. Your pastor can’t make it for you. Your church membership can’t make it for you.

    You have to receive Jesus for yourself.

    This doesn’t mean that salvation is something we accomplish on our own. Quite the opposite. Jesus has already done what we could never do for ourselves. He died for our sins, rose from the dead, and made a way for us to be reconciled to God. But we must personally respond to Him by believing in Him, trusting Him, and receiving what He has done for us.

    You can grow up surrounded by faith and still need to make your own decision about Jesus.

    You can know the Scriptures and still need to surrender your life to Him.

    You can sit in church every Sunday and still need to personally answer the question: “What am I going to do with Jesus?”

    Being around Christianity is not the same thing as belonging to Christ. At some point, faith has to become your faith. Your relationship with Jesus has to become your relationship with Him. And that is where receiving Jesus becomes personal. He has made the way. Now we have to respond.

    When we receive Jesus, we are receiving Him not only as the One who saves us from our sins, but as Lord of our lives. That means we are no longer saying, This is my life and I’ll decide how I want to live it. We are placing our lives into His hands and beginning to learn what it means to trust Him, obey Him, and follow Him. We won’t understand everything about following Jesus on the day we receive Him. We don’t have to. This is the beginning of a new life with Him.

    God Makes Us His Own

    Something wonderful happens when we put our faith in Jesus Christ. God forgives our sins and gives us new life. We are no longer separated from Him. We belong to Him. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT) says, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

    That doesn’t mean we wake up the next morning with every problem gone, every bad habit broken, and every part of us completely changed. Receiving Jesus is the beginning, not the end, of what God wants to do in our lives. We begin learning His Word. We learn to pray. We learn to recognize what needs to change in us. And through the Holy Spirit, God begins helping us become more like Jesus.

    You do not have to become good enough before you come to Christ. You come because you recognize that you need Him. Jesus has already done what was necessary to make salvation possible. We receive that gift by placing our faith in Him, turning to God, and surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ. And once we have received Him, another part of the journey begins: learning what it means to follow Jesus every day.

    Continue Learning About Jesus Christ

    What Did Jesus Accomplish? | What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ? | What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?

    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.

    “What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ?”, written by Sokie for https://findchristianman.com Copyright©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

  • How Far Is Too Far? Let’s Talk About Boundaries

    How Far Is Too Far? Let’s Talk About Boundaries

    We Might As Well Talk About It

    So, how far is too far?

    You knew we were going to have to get here eventually.

    Because Christians can get very creative with this particular question. We know what the Bible says about sex outside of marriage, so then comes the negotiation. Okay, but what about this? What about that? How much kissing? Where can we touch? Can I stay over if nothing happens? What if we’re engaged? What if we’re practically married? And somewhere in there I think we have to admit that sometimes we’re not really asking God where the boundary is. We’re asking Him how close we can get to it without Him calling foul. That’s a different question. And I don’t think that’s how people who genuinely want to honor God should approach this. 1Corinthians 6:18 says, “Flee sexual immorality.” Flee. Not investigate it. Not sit beside it and see how everybody feels. Flee. God created sexual desire, so there is nothing dirty about being strongly attracted to somebody. Thank God you’re attracted to the person you’re considering marrying. But just because a desire is good doesn’t mean it gets to have whatever it wants whenever it wants it.

    Please Don’t Wait Until 11:47 P.M. to Discover Your Boundaries

    You need to know your boundaries before you need your boundaries. Please don’t wait until the lights are low, you’re alone, you’ve been kissing for twenty minutes, and everybody’s breathing has changed to suddenly announce, “We should probably talk about what we’re comfortable with.” Friend, that meeting should have been held several hours ago. Maybe several weeks ago. You already know more about yourself than you sometimes want to admit. If long kissing sessions make it very difficult for you to stop, then stop having long kissing sessions. If being in his bedroom is a problem, you don’t need forty days of prayer about whether you should keep going into his bedroom. If spending the night keeps turning into almost, stop spending the night.

    And let’s include the phone while we’re here. Sexting is sexual. Sending intimate pictures is sexual. Having explicit conversations and then congratulating yourselves because nobody physically touched anybody is playing games with yourself. Romans 13:14 tells us to “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” Sometimes maturity is not needing God to send a lightning bolt. Just keep it real. Because you already know exactly what keeps happening.

    And women, we don’t get to put all of this on him. I know we talk a lot about whether a man will respect your boundaries, and we absolutely should. But you need boundaries too. He is not the designated keeper of everybody’s self-control simply because he’s the man. 1Thessalonians 4 tells believers to control their own bodies in holiness and honor. Your body. Your choices. Your responsibility before God. His body. His choices. His responsibility before God. Now, if you tell a man, “I’m not comfortable doing that,” and he keeps pouting, negotiating, getting irritated, or trying again every time the opportunity comes up, don’t dismiss it as he just wants me so badly. No ma’am. Pay attention.

    You just learned something important: how he responds when you tell him no. Does he respect your boundary, or does he keep pushing until he hopes you’ll give in? Because a man’s response to your conviction tells you something about his character. That is relationship information. Put it in the file.

    And Please Don’t Confuse Being Wanted With Being Loved

    This one can get us. A man can want you desperately and still not love you well. Those are not the same thing. Sexual desire can be intense, flattering, intoxicating, and very convincing. It can make you feel chosen. It can make a relationship feel much deeper than it actually is. And sometimes we read a man’s inability to keep his hands off us as evidence of how powerful the relationship must be. It’s possible. Or maybe he really, really likes touching you. Let’s not make it more spiritual than it is.

    And the reverse is true too. If a Christian man pulls back, establishes a boundary, or says, “We need to stop,” don’t immediately decide he isn’t attracted to you. He may be extremely attracted to you. Self-control only means something when there is actually something you want. Galatians 5:22–23 calls self-control fruit of the Spirit. There is something beautiful about a man or woman being able to say, “Yes, I want you. And because I belong to Christ, wanting you is not enough reason for me to do whatever I feel like doing with you.”

    So where exactly is the line? I can’t give you a chart. The Bible doesn’t tell us that a seven-second kiss is holy and a twelve-second kiss requires repentance. And I am very glad it doesn’t, because we would have turned that into foolishness by Tuesday.

    What Scripture gives us is better: flee sexual immorality, walk by the Spirit, practice self-control, pursue holiness, and honor God with your body. So maybe instead of constantly asking, “Can we do this?” we need to ask, “What is this doing to us?”

    Does it make self-control harder? Is it repeatedly taking you right to the edge and daring you to stop? Are you creating sexual appetites every Friday night that you have no righteous way to satisfy? Are you honoring each other, or are you helping each other rationalize how close you can get without technically crossing the line?

    Because that matters. The question isn’t simply whether an act is technically allowed. The question is whether what you’re doing is helping you practice holiness or making holiness harder to practice.

    Attraction is good. Desire is real. And boundaries aren’t punishment for having either one. They’re what wisdom looks like when two people can honestly say, “We want each other. We love Jesus. And we’re not foolish enough to pretend those two realities don’t require us to make some decisions.”

    “How Far Is Too Far? Let’s Talk About Boundaries”, written by Alex for https://findchristianman.com, Copyright©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

  • Chemistry Is Not the Same as Confirmation

    Chemistry Is Not the Same as Confirmation

    Chemistry can be powerful. You meet someone, you enjoy being around them, you can talk for hours, and there is an attraction that feels natural. You may feel like you have known them forever. There is nothing wrong with having chemistry with someone, but we have to be careful about what we allow those feelings to tell us. Chemistry can tell you that you are attracted to someone. It can tell you that you enjoy their personality and feel comfortable around them. But chemistry cannot tell you whether someone has the character to build a Christ-centered marriage with you. Feelings can be real and still not tell the whole story. This is one reason we cannot allow how we feel about someone to become our only way of deciding whether we should marry them. We also need to seek God and allow Him to show us whether the relationship we desire is one He wants for our lives.

    Sometimes we can become so caught up in how someone makes us feel that we stop paying attention to what God may be showing us. We may see the good qualities, the attraction, the attention, and the excitement of being with them, while overlooking things that should concern us. Maybe their relationship with God is inconsistent. Maybe they don’t respect boundaries. Maybe they are controlling, dishonest, or emotionally unhealthy. We can notice these things and still make excuses because the chemistry is strong.

    Paul prayed in Philippians 1:9–10 (NLT), “I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return.” Love does not require us to ignore what we see. As we grow in Christ, we should also grow in our ability to discern what really matters.

    Marriage is not built on chemistry alone. There will be days when you don’t feel butterflies. There will be disagreements, disappointments, responsibilities, and difficult seasons. What carries a marriage through those moments is not simply how strongly two people are attracted to each other. Character, commitment, faith, wisdom, and the ability to love according to God’s Word matter.

    Proverbs 3:5 (NLT) says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.” That applies to relationships too. We can be convinced that we know what is best because of how we feel, but God sees what we cannot see. Sometimes we are asking God to confirm what we have already decided instead of asking Him to lead us. If we really want God’s Will for our lives and relationships, we have to be willing to let Him show us something we may not want to see. That means slowing down enough to pray, pay attention, and allow God to lead instead of rushing because the relationship feels good.

    First Samuel 16:7 (NLT) reminds us that “people judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” We can see what someone wants us to see, but God sees the heart. He sees their character when nobody is watching. He sees how they handle temptation, how they treat people who cannot do anything for them, how they respond when they are angry, and whether their private life matches their public faith. This is why you cannot make a marriage decision based only on what someone says or how they make you feel. Take the time to watch their life. Listen to what they say but pay attention to what they consistently do. A person can say all the right things and still not have the character needed for marriage. So we may not be able to see the heart the way God does, but over time, what is in the heart will show up in the fruit a person produces.

    This doesn’t mean you are looking for a perfect person. There isn’t one. But there is a difference between recognizing someone’s weaknesses and repeatedly overlooking patterns that reveal dishonesty, lack of self-control, disrespect, spiritual indifference, or unwillingness to change.

    Ask God for confirmation, but also make sure you understand what confirmation actually looks like. Confirmation is not always a feeling of excitement or the fact that everything seems to fall into place. An open door does not automatically mean God opened it. Even circumstances we think are greenlights have to be weighed carefully. Everything falling into place does not automatically mean God is giving His approval.

    When we strongly want something, it can be easy to interpret ordinary events as signs from God. We bumped into each other again. He called right after I prayed. We both like the same Scripture. My friend said we’d make a cute couple. Everything keeps lining up. Whatever we believe is confirmation should agree with God’s Word and never require us to excuse sin, ignore wisdom, or overlook what God has already allowed us to see. Often confirmation comes through wisdom, Scripture, godly counsel, circumstances, and what God reveals about a person’s character over time.

    1Thessalonians 5:21 (NLT) tells us, “Test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good.” We should be willing to test what we are feeling instead of automatically trusting every emotion. Ask yourself: Am I becoming more obedient to Christ in this relationship, or am I compromising things I once believed mattered? Do I have peace because I have sought God, or because I am getting what I want? Can we pray together? Do we agree about the kind of marriage we want to build? Is this person willing to submit their life to Christ? Are there things I am ignoring because I don’t want to lose the relationship?

    Chemistry may get your attention, but it cannot give you confirmation. Attraction may bring two people together, but it cannot sustain a marriage by itself. You need more than butterflies. You need a relationship that can stand on truth, character, faith, and a shared desire to honor God. Don’t be so afraid of losing a relationship that you stop listening to God. If you are asking Him to prepare you for a Christ-centered marriage, then allow Him to lead you—even when His answer doesn’t match what your feelings are telling 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.‘

    “Chemistry Is Not the Same as Confirmation”, written by Alex for https://findchristianman.com, Copyright©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

  • He Says He’s a Christian, But Is There Fruit?

    He Says He’s a Christian, But Is There Fruit?

    A Profession of Faith Matters, but Jesus Told Us to Look at the Fruit

    A man telling you that he is a Christian should matter to you. If you belong to Jesus Christ, you should want a man who belongs to Him too. But somewhere along the way, we can make the mistake of treating the words “I’m a Christian” as though they answer every other question we need to ask. They don’t. A man may attend church, know Scripture, pray with you, serve in ministry, and know how to have a spiritual conversation. Those things are good, but Jesus gave us something deeper to look for. Luke 6:44 (NKJV) says, “For every tree is known by its own fruit.” Jesus did not tell us to determine what kind of tree we are looking at by what the tree says about itself. Eventually, what is inside is going to produce something we can see. So when a man tells you that he loves Jesus, listen to him. But then give yourself enough time to see what that relationship with Jesus is producing in his life.

    Fruit Shows Up in the Way He Lives

    Fruit takes time to observe, and sometimes you learn the most about a person’s character when things are not going his way. How does he treat people when there is nothing in it for him? What happens when he is disappointed, inconvenienced, corrected, or told no? Can he admit when he is wrong, or does every disagreement somehow become somebody else’s fault? Does he keep his word? How does he handle money? Does he respect your boundaries when they interfere with what he wants? Is he teachable? Can he forgive? Does he exercise self-control?

    Galatians 5:22–23(NLT) says, “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” We are not looking for a man who demonstrates every one of these perfectly every day. None of us does. We are looking for evidence that the Holy Spirit is doing something in him—that when his flesh wants one thing and God requires another, there is evidence that he is learning to submit himself to God.

    Be Careful About Explaining Away What You See

    This is where discernment can become difficult, because once we really like someone, we can start helping him explain away his own fruit. We call a pattern of anger “stress.” We call controlling behavior “protective.” We call inconsistency “he’s just busy.” We call sexual pressure “chemistry.” We call spiritual passivity “he’s still growing.” And yes, people do get stressed, people are busy, and every Christian is still growing. One bad response does not tell you everything there is to know about a man’s character. But neither should you keep giving a different explanation for the same behavior every time it appears. There is a difference between extending grace to an imperfect person and refusing to accept what repeated behavior is showing you. Matthew 7:20 (NKJV) says, “Therefore by their fruits you will know them.” Sometimes the hardest part of discernment isn’t figuring out what you’re seeing. It is being willing to accept what you’re seeing when you hoped the relationship would become something more.

    Look for Patterns, Not Perfection

    A godly man can have a bad day. He can say the wrong thing, make a poor decision, struggle in an area of his life, or need time to mature. The question is what happens when his failure is brought into the light. Does he repent? Does he make excuses? Does he receive correction, or does he resent anyone who challenges him? Does he want to grow, or does he simply want you to become more comfortable with behavior that should concern you? One of the clearest signs of spiritual maturity is not that a person never gets anything wrong, but that he can be confronted with truth and allow that truth to change him. A man who is following Christ should be becoming more like Christ. Not overnight, and not without struggle, but there should be movement. James 1:22 (NKJV) says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Knowing what the Bible says and allowing the Bible to govern your life are two different things.

    Before you begin imagining what kind of husband he might be, pay attention to the man he already is. You are not trying to determine whether he is flawless, and you are certainly not being called to sit in judgment over another person’s salvation. You are discerning whether the life in front of you is consistent with what he says he believes. Is there humility? Integrity? Repentance? Self-control? Faithfulness? Does he obey God when obedience costs him something? Does his relationship with Jesus Christ affect the way he treats you and other people? Give fruit enough time to grow where you can see it, and don’t allow attraction, loneliness, potential, or the desire to be married to make you afraid to examine what is actually there. If he says he is a Christian, don’t stop there. Look for the fruit.

    Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

    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.

    “He Says He’s a Christian, But Is There Fruit?”, written by Alex for https://findchristianman.com, Copyright©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!