Being
a single adult can be a difficult time of your life if you are not walking
in a personal relationship with Jesus.
Some of us may find ourselves dealing with feelings of unhappiness,
loneliness, and depression, most of it stemming from the fact that you are
alone or perhaps some catastrophic change has come to your life. Perhaps
this is the first time that you have been alone in years and you are
experiencing hurt feelings, low self esteem and loneliness. You may find
that you are in a bad relationship and feeling a deep sense of hopelessness.
The
most important thing to do at this point is to give your life to Christ,
repent of your sins, and get into the right relationship with Jesus. It does
not do much good to try to make sense of why you are alone, or why you are
in a bad relationship. What is vitally important is that we repent of doing
the wrong things, because then we can live our whole life from that point on
not looking back to those things that are behind us.
Philippians
3:13,14. No dear brothers and
sisters. I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies
on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies
ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which
God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.
It
is important that you put yourself in right relationship to the Lord and
that you embrace whatever situation you find yourself in, even if this
situation is living the single life. You are in this position, and what is
important is that you accept where you are. We get into these positions by
our own wrong doing, someone else exercised a decision to put you there
(i.e. your former partner), or this is where God has placed you. You can
rejoice if God is the one that placed you to be in this situation, for He
has purpose for where you are at! On
the other hand, if this is a situation of your making, and you have repented
and surrendered your life to Jesus, God is going to work with you where you
are at and that too is a reason to praise the Lord! I am convinced that true
joy can only come from being rightly related to Christ! If you are, then you
are on the greatest adventure in life. You can rejoice wherever you find
yourself, for you know that God is working for you. He is moving
tomorrow’s mountains and making your paths straight.
If
you are feeling a sense of emptiness, it is not another person you are
looking for that can fill that need. It results from a lack of relationship
that we need to have with God, for we can find contentment in no other. No
human can make you happy, and no person can bring you contentment. If you
are not content now, you will not be content with a significant other
because you are looking for this contentment outside of God. If you are
looking to find this in another person, you will never find it there. The
only true satisfaction you will ever experience in your life is Christ. It
is only when you are content with just yourself and God, that you are then
ready for someone else in your life.
1
Peter 1 :8,9. You love Him even
though you have never seen Him. Though you do not see Him, you trust Him;
and even now you are happy with a glorious, inexpressible joy. Your reward
for trusting Him will be the salvation of your souls.
No
matter what my situation is, it can only be enhanced by my total surrender
to God. He is then free to move in me, to make me the perfect mate. It is so
simple, if we do not surrender to God, then we will not be made into that
perfect mate and He cannot place us into the life of the one He wants you to
be with. God will not place you in someone else’s life when you are not
ready. When two separate individuals that have been ordained to be together
and are surrendered to God, He begins to mold each one for the other. When
His work is complete and the timing is right, He will arrange the meeting.
If
you are in a relationship that is not marriage, then let this thought be
with you, “Am I in God’s will?” You have heard it said, “test the
spirits to see if they are of God”, we must also test the relationship.
We do this by exposing the relationship to the light of the Word of
God. To do this, you must be totally honest with yourself. You have to make
the relationship fit the bible, not make the bible fit the relationship. If
after you test it and you find that it is not lining up with the Word, then
you know it is not of God.
For
example, we know that entering into a relationship with someone who is
already married is wrong and it will not have God’s blessing. In addition,
sex for the single person outside of marriage is wrong according to the
Word, yet the secular world claims that sex is something you “do”. It is
spoken of as an “event”, rather than an act of intimacy that God
created.
Romans
13:11,12,13,14. Another reason
for right living is that you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake
up, for the coming of our salvation is nearer now than when we first
believed. The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here.
So don’t live in darkness. Get rid of your evil deeds. Shed them like
dirty clothes. Clothe yourself with the armor of right living, as those who
live in the light. We should be decent and true in everything we do, so that
everyone can approve of our behavior. Don’t participate in wild parties
and getting drunk, or in adultery and immoral living, or in fighting and
jealousy. But let the Lord Jesus Christ take control of you, and don’t
think of ways to indulge your evil desires.
God
has designed sex to take place inside a relationship called “marriage”.
Thousands of married people go through the motions of sex but experience no
intimacy. Their intimacy has been damaged through affairs or pornography or
other ungodly ways. When Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:18 that “he who
commits sexual immorality sins against his own body, what he is saying is
“you are hurting yourself”. Sin will only degrade and humiliate a
person.
When
someone has sex but with no intention of giving himself wholly to the other
person, they create an emotional barrier between their body and soul. This
emotional separation of sex from intimacy is a reality, and it turns it into
just a thing rather then an act of intimacy. This will come back to haunt
that man or woman after they decide to marry. Depending on the number of
sexual relationships previous to marriage, this wall is difficult to tear
down. Suddenly sex inside the walls of marriage is no more fulfilling than
it was before and is only an event rather then love. The longer one is
involved in ungodly sexual practices, the higher the walls become and the
higher the price we have to pay, for we reap what we sow. The emptiness and
guilt from sexual activities outside of marriage are warning signs that
something is missing.
There
is a plan that God has for us all, and we all can access this plan and be
happy individuals. A relationship is kind of like grace, in that we don’t
focus on the works, but on the relationship. When we commit our lives
totally to Him, we by nature do good works to please Him because we love Him
and we want to please Him. When we submit ourselves to another person, in
the same way the good works (endearing acts towards one another) will be
natural. If you have to force the works, then it is not in your heart, and
if it is not in your heart, then you are either out of God’s will in the
relationship or you are not submitted to the relationship.
If you are not submitting to God, then you are out of relationship
with Him. If it is not in your heart, you have a break down of the
relationship. No matter how good it may look or feel, when we go outside the
will of God, it will only produce sorrow in your life.
God
loves you so much and He wants you to have joy, peace, contentment and love
in your life. He wants you to have the desires of your heart. If you cannot
identify with the truth of His Word, then you have a faulty understanding of
who God is. Why not trust God to be all those things in your life? The
sooner you surrender yourself to His work, the sooner He can begin to move
in your life. But as long as you want to control your own life, you will go
from one failed relationship to another.
I
was divorced and living on my own for over ten years. I was so glad to be
out of the marriage with one that did not walk with God. When he decided to
go apart from the Lord, our marriage was a very dark period of loneliness
and without the intimacy that we as humans need sometimes. It was very hard
for me, but I learned to turn inward and not expect any nurturing from my
ex-husband. I had only the Lord to share my hurt and desires with. After
the divorce I made a promise that I would not get involved in another
relationship unless the Lord brought Him to me directly!
I
spent those years learning more of the Lord and growing in the areas in
which God brought to me. I learned to trust in Him only and to depend on Him
for strength and companionship. Yes, I did have moments when I allowed
myself to feel lonely, but I learned to take it right to the Lord and let
Him deal with it, because I knew that I was not strong enough to do it on my
own.
Maturing
in the Lord for me did not come without its share of trials. I soon came to
know what kind of partner my soul would desire in order for me to live in my
Father’s Will. I knew if I ever fell in love again, I wanted that marriage
to be attended to by God Himself, a marriage
“made in heaven”. He would send a Christian man that would never separate me
from my God, a person that would be in love with Jesus too and be excited to
watch my Christian growth and to share our lives in Christ. I did not want
to bring excess baggage or “brick walls” into this new relationship. I
wanted it to be one that shares the love of God and that includes intimacy
the way He intended it to be. It was so important for me to have that God,
man, woman relationship and I did not want anything to destroy what God has
prepared for me, so I knew I had to wait on Him! The following is a quote
that I really like, but I do not know its author.
"Joy
is love enjoying
Peace
is love resting
Patience
(or longsuffering) is love waiting
Kindness
is love reacting
Goodness
is love choosing
Faithfulness
is love keeping its word
Gentleness
is love being able to empathize
Self-control
is love being in charge"
This
kind of love is not something we can work up on our own; it is an outflow of
the Holy Spirit! Before we can
be truly intimate with another person, we must be truly intimate with God.
We are created with a need for intimacy, and the only fulfillment of that on
the spiritual level can come from God. It is that need for intimacy with God
that produces an internal compass that points us in the direction of our
Creator. We were designed to be in love with Him and to experience His
intimacy in our lives.
When
we try to have a relationship without this spiritual need for intimacy being
filled by God, we try to get that need satisfied from a person. The problem
that arises is that another human cannot fulfill that spiritual need. This
can produce confusion and hurt with your human relationships because you
cannot understand why you feel so unsatisfied. Intimacy must come from God
first to fill that void that was created to receive Jesus. Once this void is
filled, we are better able to relate humanly because we are intimately
satisfied in our spirits. Oswald Chambers puts it this way:
"When
once we get intimate with Jesus we are never lonely, we never need sympathy,
we can pour out all the time without being pathetic. The saint who is
intimate with Jesus will never leave impressions of himself, but only the
impression that Jesus is having in an unhindered way, because the last abyss
of his nature has been satisfied by Him. The only impression left by such a
life is that of the strong calm sanity that Our Lord gives to those who are
intimate with Him."
We
must remember that Jesus knows what we are experiencing. He took upon
Himself the weakness of flesh. He knows what it is like to be lonely, to
have sexual desire, to feel abandoned, to feel isolated and misunderstood.
Hebrews states that "He was tempted in all ways, yet without sin."
That means He knows exactly how you feel and He knows exactly how to bring
fulfillment to your life.
When
we fill the void in us with Jesus Christ, He makes us part of His body,
which is made up of others like we are. This creates a mystical union with
other humans that are also indwelt with the King of Heaven, and this in
itself is a wonderful remedy to loneliness. We have instant relationship due
to the common thread of the Spirit in us. The bonds that we share with one
another by that indwelling Spirit are capable of satisfying the need for
human contact.
The
world has painted a picture that we have to be married if we are single, or
at the very least that we should be in relationship with the opposite sex.
We are taught by the world, that to be single and to be alone is abnormal.
So what we see pursuing us, if we are single, are all kinds of well meaning
people trying to bring us into society’s idea of normality so that their
association with us will not be tainted, or at the very least they feel they
are doing a good work. This is simply a lie. The thing about a lie is that
when we believe it, it produces itself in our lives.
For
instance, the lie that states a person cannot be alone without experiencing
intimate loneliness and a deep craving to be with someone; when that is
believed, that is what it will produce in our lives. We will manifest a deep
craving and loneliness because that is what we believed. Another lie is that
humans cannot exist without a sexual relationship, or if they do, they are
abnormal. When people accept society’s rules of normality, they think that
to be normal you must be engaged in sexual activity. So they do so and
consequently reap the hardships of their sin. These thoughts are nothing
more than strongholds.
2
Corinthians 10:4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in
God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high
thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every
thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
In
order for people to be free of the bondages of loneliness and sexual
activity, they must dispel the thoughts in their mind that they have
accepted as truth. The weapons of our warfare are statements of truth. We
know this because we see that a stronghold is an imagination, a thought that
goes contrary to the knowledge of God. We know that God's knowledge is
absolute truth; therefore, it would stand to reason then that truth is the
weapon and the stronghold is a lie that has been accepted as truth. When we
dispel these lies and accept the truth, we tear down the stronghold. This is
what is known as the “renewing of your mind.” Anytime we believe and act
upon a lie, we are exhibiting a stronghold. When we are exposed to the
truth, which we accept and then produce correct behavior based on the truth,
we have renewed our mind and the stronghold is broken.
Romans
12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God.
Our
transformation from society’s pressures to be lonely, engaged in sexual
activity and to always be in a relationship with the opposite sex, comes
from the renewing of our minds. When we dispel untruths in these areas, we
are set free to be engaged in doing the will of God. You cannot fulfill the
will of God if you believe a lie. The “lie” will transform your behavior
into that which is against God's will for you. The “truth” will
transform you into doing the will of God. This is why Jesus said, "The
truth will set you free."
Colossians
3:8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice,
blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another,
since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the
new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who
created him,
This
is the proof that our behavior is tied to knowledge. From these verses, we
can conclude that being "renewed in knowledge" will produce in us
correct behavior. So we do not need another person to fulfill our needs,
only Jesus. We do not need to feel lonely if we are by ourselves for we have
Jesus. We do not need to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage.
These things will be manageable when we allow the truth of God to renew our
minds and tear down the strongholds that are producing in us bad behavior
and emotional instability.
The
question that remains, “How do we enter the process of renewing our
minds?” Smith Wigglesworth tells the story of a young Russian that
came to England. He did not know the language, but learned it quickly and
was very much used and blessed of God; and as the wonderful manifestations
of the power of God were seen, they pressed upon him to know the secret of
his power, but he felt it was so sacred between him and God he should not
tell it, so they pressed him so much he finally said to them: “First God
called me, and His presence was so precious, that I said to God at every
call I would obey Him, and I yielded, and yielded, and yielded, until I
realized that I was simply clothed with another
power all together, and I realized that God took me, tongue,
thoughts, and everything, and I was not myself
but it was Christ working through me.”
The
process of renewing your mind starts with yielding yourself to Christ.
God has a specific design for your life and in order to get you to
the place where you are fulfilling God's design, requires surrendering your
will to His. Through your surrender, God will make you into the mate that He
has called you to be, if that is His will for you. You need not worry that
you will not be happy, for being the person God created you to be creates an
environment where you are completely happy. It is when this process has
succeeded in your life, that you are ready for a relationship. Until then,
enjoy the wonderful, intimate, precious relationship that you have with
God!
©
1988-2002 All
Rights Reserved Five Fold Ministries
