Tag: the Mind of Christ

The other day, I woke up early to go pick up a new table that I’d been wanting for a while. Since it was Saturday, I figured if I got up early enough I could beat the weekend traffic to the stores. Got on the road and was making good time until I saw flashing lights on the highway. The police were informing travelers that the exit I needed to take had been closed. I would need to use an alternate route, and planned on getting off the next exit to re-route myself. What I didn’t’ realize was that traffic would come to a complete halt before I could even reach this exit. It frustrated me to no end that I was being blocked from what I wanted to do, and that what would have taken me 20 minutes, took me two-hours instead.

Unexpected delays in life can be very frustrating, but sometimes those delays are purposeful and for our good in the long run. There are times when we become so used to doing things on our own that we don’t think to slow down and ask God if we’re doing it His way. It’s not because we don’t care, but things slip by us when we’re not paying attention.

In Matthew 11:30 (KJV), Jesus Christ tells us, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” These are beautiful words from the Master’s lips, and we can become so taken by the compassion he has expressed that we neglect the practicality of the lesson he’s taught. Love’s path is smooth. It is not bumpy as many would have us to believe. It seems bumpy and uneasy because bumpy and uneasy is often the approach most of us employ in our own lives.

There are lots of individuals who don’t know what it is to struggle, but there are lots more who do. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, hustling back and forth constantly, and trying to squeeze as much out of meager resources as possible is common place for many of us. We become so used to the grind that we begin to think that God moves like we move. Heavenly Father tells us in Isaiah 55:8 (NLT), “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.”

Heavenly Father is the God of love, light, liberty, and life. He moves effortlessly, with great ease. We need to fall in alignment with how He moves, not the other way around. Sometimes, we want things that look like the best, but actually isn’t GOD’s best. We also can become too impetuous and make a move without prioritizing the things of God in the right order. When our condition is one of moving outside of His divine will and timing, He will correct us. Proverbs 3:11-12(NLT) tells us, “11 My child, don’t reject the LORD’s discipline, and don’t be upset when he corrects you. 12 For the LORD corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights.”

God doesn’t require a lot, only that we keep Him first and love Him with all of our hearts, all of our minds, and all of our souls! It’s His good pleasure to take care of us, and we need to trust this. He wants us to have a good life and have the best of everything, but like any loving parent, He corrects those He loves. Sometimes this correction reroutes us. This is done to bring attention to the reality that we’re veering away from the path we’re supposed to be on. We will never know the extent to which He keeps us from harming ourselves through blockers and wake-up calls, and we should thank Him continually for loving us enough to correct and redirect us.

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.

“When God Reroutes You”, written by FACM, Finding A Christian Man.Com ©2018.  All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

The process of going from single to happily engaged, and then walking down the aisle, can provoke a series of emotional highs and lows. It will require you to acknowledge whether you’re prepared to leave the peace and tranquility of single life to the oneness and complexities that come with partnership. Ecclesiastes 4:9 (NLT) tells us, “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.” So this good news is a sound basis for assessing the possibilities for what lies ahead, but there’s also another very important aspect that this verse reveals. When it comes to choosing, we can’t forget that the goal according to Ecclesiastes 4:9 is that we choose someone that will not hold us back or stifle our aspirations to make the most of ourselves, but will in fact help us to succeed.

Let’s be honest, the population of single women continues to grow, and to a lot of them, it might look as though the number of single Christian men continues to dwindle. I would argue that it isn’t that they are dwindling, but that our vision is limited. Opportunities are revealed where preparation has finished its course. We think that because we don’t see a thing, that it isn’t there. This isn’t always true.

Everything that exists comes from God. He is the Creator of all, and everything belongs to Him. Ephesians 1:3 (NLT) declares, “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.” The Creator of everything has blessed us with ALL spiritual blessings because of our union with Christ. Just because you and I are not able to see ALL spiritual blessings with our physical eyes, it doesn’t mean that they are not ours to claim and activate. God has given them to us. Even though we may not necessarily see them, we are commanded by God to trust what He says in His Word and take them by faith.

2Corinthians 5:7(NLT) tells us that we should walk by faith and not by sight. We can’t depend on our physical eyes to see all the blessings that God has in store for us. Many of them remain in the embodiment of faith, and will come into full view in the season of manifestation. It is a season that is ushered in by our continued commitment to trust Heavenly Father even when conditions and circumstances seem dim. The perception that good men are dwindling is not an accurate one. If we continue in this line of thinking, it means that we have limited what we choose to believe about God’s provision. We will always see less in the areas where our vision is small.

So why don’t we give God something to work with? We can begin by changing our attitudes to line up with the blessing He wants to give us. He has made it clear that He is pleased when two people work together to succeed. If we ask, He will certainly help us to cross paths with a man that is the right fit. He is the man that will extend to you the kind of partnership that moves you forward and upward in God’s divine plan and purpose for your life.

There is no lack whatsoever in God. Many of us have a ready-made-up heart and mind about what we want and need. We make this assessment with limited knowledge. We don’t see what God sees, and we don’t know what He knows. If we want to make good decisions and choices, we must be willing to spend intimate time with God in prayer, and study His Word more. We need His wisdom. Proverbs 4:5-7(NLT) says, “5 Get wisdom; develop good judgment. 6 Don’t forget my words or turn away from them. Don’t turn your back on wisdom, for she will protect you. Love her, and she will guard you. 7 Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do! And whatever else you do, develop good judgment.”

In the past, our plans haven’t worked out. Our way of thinking did not yield the results we sought. Now is the time to seek God for counsel, to inquire and confront where we might have gone wrong, and what we can do to partner successfully. We shouldn’t continue the practices that are not helping. A change in our minds and hearts is needed. Give God the wiggle room He requires to help you change the way you think, to empty out the negative and replace it with faith and love. Then, you will be able to transition out of being single with wisdom and grace.■

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.

 “Give God Something to Work With”, findingchristianman.com©2017.  All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

 

 

A virtuous woman is a woman of great moral character. She has integrity, and her love for God through the Lord Jesus Christ is always apparent, and it is reflected in the decisions and choices she makes every day. Proverbs 31:10 (KJV) is probably the most well-known scripture regarding a virtuous woman. In this verse, King Lemuel asked, “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.” Now, if you gathered a number of Christian women together in one place and asked those who considered themselves virtuous to raise their hands, I think it’s a pretty good bet to say that most of them would have one hand in the air. We must keep in mind that this scripture stands out in our minds because it conveys that a virtuous woman is not so easy to find. In fact, in our day and time, it is increasingly challenging to find such a woman. This is one of the reasons why God is calling on Christian women everywhere to raise up our standards.

No one can argue against the fact that we’ve allowed the standard that God brings forth in Proverbs 31 to fall. We’re hearing a lot about valuing ourselves. It includes a commitment to not be tricked into lowering our standards when it comes to the men we date. This is a good thing, but we can never escape or neglect the responsibility and accountability that is baked into the premise of expecting the best. If you expect the best, you’ve got to present the best; and presenting the best has nothing to do with the externalities of designer threads and kicks.

Expecting a man to bring his “A” game, when your game isn’t tight will translate to the definition of insanity. It’s not realistic—doesn’t make sense. It isn’t possible to live, dress, act, and behave like the majority of other women and then expect that we’re this rare-as-rubies kind of special that draws an extraordinary brother in. That’s not going to work, and the Father has made no bones about it. There must be a Christ-kind of integrity that flows through our everyday presentation. It’s not spoken, but communicated by the heart we have for God. The more committed you are to His standard, the greater impression it makes and the stronger it’s reach will be to the man that is ordained to be your husband.

There are certain characteristics that men have by nature. God created them to operate a certain kind of way, and nothing that a woman can do will change this. It rings true for women as well. There are things that we come equipped with. Our flawed thinking, feeling, and acting has crossed wires incorrectly and interfered with the way God designed unity and attraction factors to work, and this is why we are witnessing what seems at times to be an epidemic of singledom. God wants us to know that it isn’t a problem without a fix.

A fierce woman is a noble one. She has cultivated within herself honorable personal qualities of high moral principles and ideals. She may not be perfect, but her number one priority is to please God and her every intention is to walk by the example of Christ. If we didn’t have this capacity baked in our makeup as Daughters of Zion, then God wouldn’t have instructed men to look for it. He instructed men to seek this kind of woman because He’s made it available through the Lord Jesus Christ for us to BE this kind of woman.

There’s a saying that tells us when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Said another way, when the woman is ready, the man shows up. It works every time. We doubt this because many of us are not committed to the work that we must do to get our souls right with Jesus. We’re not letting the Spirit work in us the way he desires. It must be settled in our minds that a person cannot profit from zero effort. Life doesn’t operate that way. Where there is little effort, there is little profit.

When a ruby rock is cut, it is polished to the point that the star within it shines through. We don’t have to be perfect to partner, but there must be an understanding on our parts that the ruby within needs refinement, so that the light of Christ shines brighter in our lives. His example is the solution for not being single longer than we’d like to.

Jesus Christ said in John 14:12 (NLT), “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.” Through him, we’ve been uniquely qualified to love, care, share, support, nurture, calm, sooth, and minister in a way that activates unity in our relationships. We’ve all seen this with the virtuous women we’ve been privilege to have in our lives. We’ve received more than many of them could have hoped to, and our standard of Godliness must be greater and shine brighter, as we strive to be the virtuous women Heavenly Father has called us 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.

“Are You Expecting Him to Bring His “A” Game?”, written by FACM, Finding A Christian Man.Com ©2017.  All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Moses taught the Children of Israel in Deuteronomy 6:3-4 (NLT), “3 Listen closely, Israel, and be careful to obey. Then all will go well with you, and you will have many children in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you. 4 “Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.”  This is God’s commandment, and it has not changed. Heavenly Father tells us in Numbers 23:19 that He does not change His mind, His nature, or the way that He operates. At times, we make the mistake of allowing this truth to slip to the back of our minds.

God is a sure thing. His Word is unbreakable and unshakeable. He is faithful to it beyond our comprehension. So when He tells us to do something, or that something is required of us in order to sustain and maintain our relationship with Him, then our complete allegiance is necessary. In the Old Testament, Moses made it clear that the way we’re supposed to love God is the highest and greatest degree achievable; it is total, and it requires our whole being. In Matthew 22:37 (NLT), when Jesus Christ was asked what is the greatest commandment, he reiterated God’s commandment and replied, “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.”

With all that we are, we are to love God. Lip service is not going to cut it. There must be an acute flavor of goodness that wreaks of His love in everything that we do and touch. God’s love transforms darkness to light and brings harmony, and we are the royal ambassadors of it. This level of living is not a fantasy; it is our reality as God’s divine offspring. We are supernaturally endowed with power on high to live and influence this way. Our only responsibility is to trust that we can do it through Christ.

Our souls belong to God, but when we become born again, our souls are not made whole. We often confuse these three and think they are the same, but the Holy Spirit, the human spirit, and the human soul are all very different. They are not the same. The Holy Spirit is a part of the Godhead, and God gives him to us as a gift to lead, guide, teach, comfort, and direct us as we navigate the earth’s terrain and train to become like Christ. We are made in the image of the Godhead, and are therefore three-part beings; spirit, soul, and body. Because of the work of Christ on the Cross of Calvary, we become a completely new creation. This is because our human spirits, which were dead to God before we accepted Jesus Christ as Lord, are recreated through Christ. Becoming born-again means that our human-spirits become alive to God.

God created humanity and all other living creatures in such a way that seed produces after its own kind. This seed is given through the father parent, and not the mother. In order for a human to be reproduced, the seed of a biological father is required. God set this pattern, and He is faithful to it. So it stands to reason that in order for us to be His spiritual and eternal children, we have to have His seed. His seed is higher than the physical, corruptible seed. His seed is spiritual, and it cannot be destroyed.

1Peter 1:23 (NLT) tells us, “For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.”  Through the Holy Spirit that indwells us, we have God’s seed. He, the gift of Holy Spirit, lives inside our human spirit. Because of Christ, our newly recreated human spirit is a clean place for the Spirit to hang out, but the soul is another story. The soul is transformed as we put on the Word of God in our hearts and minds. And the degree to which we put on the Word and WALK in it proves the depth of our obedience and allegiance to God. Our soul work testifies of our love for Him. So the degree to which we put off sin and put on the love of Christ proves our love for Heavenly Father.

God will not do this work for us, because He will never violate our free-will. He has told us in Ephesians 4:24 and Colossians 3:10 to put on the new man. This means we are to make sure the old man ways vacate the premises. These old ways are those mean and nasty attitudes, negative thoughts and behaviors, and bad judgment we had before we accepted Christ. They’ve gotta go so we can walk in the newness Christ offers, and put on his love in our minds and hearts. Again, God wants all of us. He tells us in Romans 12:1 that our whole being is to be presented as a living sacrifice to Him, but a lot of us sisters are holding the most private part of ourselves back, and we’re trying to be undercover about it.

Some of us are involved in a kind of undercover action, and we’ve tricked ourselves into thinking God neglects, overlooks, or doesn’t see it. It’s this covert business of sexual promiscuity, where some sisters are robbing God of the love He deserves from the depths of their souls. Some of the sisters that we’ve counseled in this area are hardened in their resolve to continue to sex outside of the union of marriage, and they have not seen this as a violation of God’s commandment to love Him with their souls, but indeed it is.

In Romans 6:6, God tells us not to serve sin. In 1Corinthians 6:18 (NLT), He tells us “Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.” You want the kind of man that will deserve a woman who does not have a fragmented soul, a soul that is cut off and chipped away because of multiple sexual partners. We lovingly beg you sisters, let the Lord into your heart in every way. Give Him the time and space to heal your soul by abstaining from sexual sin. Let God love you to life, and don’t continue to fall for the enemy’s plot to trick you to death. ■

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.

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