I started yesterday on this topic. Will continue this morning.
2. For man, work came before marriage And the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. (Genesis 2:15 KJV)
God gave Adam work before ever giving him a wife. God’s order is not coincidental. It is a deliberate order that is meant to communicate wisdom that work is the first thing to get before getting a wife. Speaking in tongues alone will not feed your wife; you’ve got to work. If you are jobless, you can create work for yourself.
To be without work is to resign yourself to fate. While you are busy waiting for that dream job, find work to do. Volunteer somewhere, and that might even get you a job!
Without work, your wife will not likely show-up! Don’t let your life stop because you haven’t gotten that job. There is a creativity packaged inside you that needs to be discovered. Joblessness is an opportunity to discover work; the gifts of God embedded in you that will bring you to your wealthy place. Discover your gifts, develop them, and simply deploy them.
3. There is a difference between aloneness and loneliness And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. (Genesis 2:18 KJV)
Man was alone, but not lonely. When you are lonely, you are not ready for marriage yet. When you are alone, you are ready!
Marriage or courtship will not cure loneliness. If you don’t agree, ask some married people ‘is it possible to be married and be lonely?” They will give you a resounding Yes!
Many wives see their husbands daily and yet very lonely! So, as a single, you need to understand that loneliness cannot be eliminated by marriage or by sex. You increase the emptiness by trying to fill it with sex. Only Jesus can fill that emptiness.
Signs of loneliness in your life are an indication that there is still a void to be filled by your maker. It is an indication that you need to pay attention to your spiritual life and you need to go on a journey of identity discovery in the scriptures! Don’t ignore it, rather go on a spiritual adventure through reading, studying, and meditating on God’s word. You will come up stronger and better and ready to face life!
God’s word has solutions to all problems on earth and in heaven. Nothing else will be done or given to men that will improve upon God’s word. It is the complete counsel of God.
You can find a husband in God’s Word.
You can locate your wife in God’s Word. The scriptures teach us how to have a good home and family life.
The scriptures contain the wisdom required to rule in this world’s affairs. People seek love, husbands, wives, and relationships in all the wrong places.
Online dating sites are not the best place to go! Nightclubs and gatherings are not the locations to look for meaningful connections. Where shall I go, pastor? Go to God’s Word! Your response is waiting for you there.
When you are perplexed, God’s word is available to help you deal with it and fill your heart with light, which will dispel all confusion. When you are depressed, God’s word is available to destroy your depression and replace it with the joy of the Holy Spirit.
When you are hurt, wounded, and offended, God’s word is there to heal every wound and give you recompense of all deeds.
When you are filled with unforgiving tendencies, God’s word is there to give you the inner strength to do the godly and the needful.
This morning, what can Singles and Married Couples learn from Adam and Eve?
1. Man was made from the breath of God. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7 KJV)
You will never be able to achieve much in your marital endeavors without God. God is the source of your life; He will also be the sustenance of your relationships and marriage.
You will never be able to achieve much without Him. There is no point wasting your time by ignoring Him or by kicking against His instructions. The earlier you flow with God and not with man, the better!
The earlier you learn to converse with Him on a personal basis and quit looking for some prophet, the better. Most of the so-called prophets are prophets for profit; they will collect your money and tell you lies.
You are the prophet of your own life, so develop a deliberate relationship with God and take charge of your destiny!
I will be writing to the couples first and lastly to singles.
Pro 21:19 (KJV) It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.
The role of a wife is to give her husband a conducive atmosphere in the home.
A woman can turn a house into a home.
She can make the house serene or too hot to stay in.
When you find your husband coming home late, avoiding conversations with you, and preferring to hang out than hang in with you, you need to be careful that you are not doing anything to resent him.
The scripture says contentions, nagging, anger, uncooperative attitudes, tantrums, and such can make a man relocate!
He would avoid spending time with the lady because he knows all he will get is nagging and complaints.
When a man is confused or doesn’t know the decision to take yet, he keeps quiet.
That is why you discuss some things with him and then he says nothing. As in nothing!
He probably needs to think it through.
A lady makes it worse by nagging and holding him by the neck to say something by force.
However, the last thing that will come out of a man’s mouth is to say “I am confused!” Every man is egocentric!
When he is confused, he keeps quiet!
Give him time to sort, process, and decide, and don’t unwittingly drive him away.
For singles, work on your anger. Anger can make men run away! Guys are logical, so in each of your anger episodes, they are thinking about what will happen after the wedding and making up their minds.
That could, on a few occasions, be the reason why some guys just disappear after promising a wedding! They got scared!
I am not asking you to pretend.
I am asking you to work on it.
Read books on anger management.
Read scriptures that talk about anger.
Some of them will humble you.
For example,
Ecc 7:9 (MSG) Don’t be quick to fly off the handle. Anger boomerangs. You can spot a fool by the lumps on his head.
Anger can end relationships
Anger can scatter relationships
Anger can divide a God-ordained relationship!
Gen 49:7 (KJV) Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.
The Message Translation is apt.
Gen 49:7 (MSG) A curse on their uncontrolled anger, on their indiscriminate wrath. I’ll throw them out with the trash; I’ll shred and scatter them like confetti throughout Israel.
Your God-ordained love affair not be shredded!
Your courtship or marriage will not end in the trash!
There are those moments when the eyes are red, and the tears flow endlessly and you just couldn’t be consoled enough.
For the singles, it could be those times of rejection, when the one you love walks away or you are the one who needed to walk away. Either way, the walking away is not always a pleasant experience.
It could be those times you suddenly feel betrayed when you discover that the one you have been loving with all your life is loving another!
It could be those time when you feel neglected and it seems nobody is looking you way.
For the married, it could be those times when all your expectations have been disappointed and what you see in marriage is far from what you think it should be.
It could be those times when you feel misunderstood and your spouse isn’t lifting a finger to understand your feelings.
It could be those times when you are so deeply hurt that it reaches to the bone and marrows, when the one you love most has broken your trust, caught red handed frolicking with the opposite sex.
Or it could just be any of the days when there are no stars and the moody mushy thing envelopes you and you don’t want to talk to anybody including GOD.
It could be times of going through mid life crisis, when all the cruises are gone and all left are crashes.
In any of those sad unhappy times, what do you do?
Sing. Rejoice. Dance. Jubilate!
What?
Isa 54:1 (KJV) Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD.
That is what you do. Do opposite of what your flesh wants. And then, in an incredible turn of events, you will see God’s intervention and justice system in that situation and you will have victory and rejoice at the last.
Do not grumble. Do not get bitter. Do not fight back.
Leave all the fights to God.
Rom 12:19 (MSG) Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”
And when you do this, get ready to rejoice, because there is a REJOICING after the rejoicing.
This morning, I want to talk to all sisters, ladies, women, and to all guys and men who have ladies in their lives as siblings, wives, or otherwise.
The lady always ends up as the one who is hurt, used, and disadvantaged
She ought to be wiser!
When a relationship breaks or doesn’t work out, who gets hurt the most?
The guy or the lady?
When there is a disappointment concerning the wedding, who cries endlessly for days?
The guy or the lady?
When there is pre-marital sex, who is afraid of getting pregnant?
The guy or the lady?
When pregnancy is anticipated, who starts drowning in pills like a fowl?
The guy or the lady?
Who goes for all kinds of tests in the hospital?
The guy or the lady?
Who goes through the pain of abortion in the event of that?
The guy or the lady?
Who goes through the psychological trauma of murdering a life the most?
The guy or the lady?
Who combines psychological trauma with emotional pain and then with physical discomfort?
The guy or the lady?
If there were complications in the abortion process, whose body was affected?
The guy or the lady?
If a complication arises and life is threatened, who loses her life?
The guy or the lady?
If the womb is affected, who won’t be able to conceive eventually?
The guy or the lady?
If the decision is to have the baby, whose tummy protrudes?
The guy or the lady?
Who goes through the seeming stigma of carrying an unwanted pregnancy?
The guy or the lady?
Who goes through all the morning sickness?
The guy or the lady?
Whose body adjusts to the different trimesters with accompanying inconveniences?
The guy or the lady?
Who goes through labour pain, at that moment when a lady goes through enough pain that would drown any man and make a grown-up man cry like a baby?
The guy or the lady?
Hours or days before childbirth, who goes through the cramping, the tightening, the pounding, the stabbing, the back pain, the waves, the pressure, the pushing, and the exhaustion?
The guy or the lady?
Who becomes a “single mother?”
The guy or the lady?
Who does the breast-feeding afterward?
The guy or the lady?
I can go on and on….but wait a moment..
Who ought to be wiser? The guy or the lady?
But really, who seems to be unwise? The guy or the lady?
