CHARACTER (Part 1)

Message by Pastor Kunle Osunkunle

(The President of Singles' Fellowship, The Fountain of Life Church)

Sometimes, the reason why you don’t move ahead or possess some things in life may be due to the kind of characters you have. Every man desires to bear glory. But glory has a weight and when you have character, you will have a way of bearing the load of glory. Many marriages have failed because of poor or bad characters.

Some of the good and godly characters

Character is like a foundation; therefore, it is good to start to build good and godly character early enough in life.

Some of us need to learn patience, sincerity, honesty, self-caution, respect, etc. Some people have lost opportunities because at some point in their lives, they lack good characters and had refused to build on it.

Character is like an aroma or perfume that either attracts or repels people.

Your reputation will always precede you because you are constantly being watched by people around you. Character contributes to beauty and fortifies a woman as her youth fades. Good characters can make a great deal as to make a woman more beauty as well as a man more handsome.

Character is personal; it impacts and affects people around you. Nobody gets you angered, you simply decide to use anger as a response to their communication with you. Love is a true test of character. If you don’t love people, you will have poor character. It is a foundation to success in life.

Research has shown that positive attitudes reflect in cheerful smiles, boost immune system and improve on or ensure good health.

People with bad characters are usually selfish. Many people concentrate and take time to shop, beautify and celebrate their outward appearance/outlook (fruits) while they neglect the seeds and the characters on the inward man.

Take time to build good characters and celebrate your seeds that are on the inside of you.

2Peter 1:4-10 (The Message)

When opportunities comes to you and the right partner comes to you too, if you don’t have the right and good characters, and they are not growing in you; you will lose them and become short-sighted in the long run.

If you can build faith, self-control, perseverance, virtue (high moral standards with no compromise), love and knowledge of God’s words, then you can build godly characters. Self-control is the ability to hold oneself in most difficult situations.

Whatever you compromise to get, you will lose it without any effort.

The purpose of Christianity is not to just encounter difficulties, but to produce characters adequate enough to meet the needs even in difficult times.

Christianity doesn’t make us hidden as to avoid crises or troubles, it makes us great enough to live and overcome daily.

There are some things you can’t get until you build godly characters.

Colossians 3:12-17 (The Message)

Character is needed if you want to reach your full potentials in life. It is a stable and distinctive attitudes that has been coded to respond to situations. It is what you do on the reflex or default (when you don’t have to think about it).

HOW TO DEVELOP GOOD AND GODLY CHARACTERS

Mark 7:21-23 (The Message)

What is in your heart forms your character. Your environment, media, books, etc are what form our characters.

1.    Study the Word of God and acquire divine instructions:  You need to be instructed of the Lord through His Words and be always totally obedient to His instructions. Exposure to God’s words build good and godly characters in us. When you get into God’s Word, you will learn more of God’s characters. When you wear God like a perfume, no man can reject you because no man can reject Jesus. Anything you look at the longest is what you will become. Look more on the word of God, the word of liberty, the you will always respond to situations based on God’s Words.

2.   Commitment to God:  Good and godly characters are only formed when you are committed to God. God must take first place in your life and all endeavours. Proverbs 11:5-6; 2Corinthians 5:20. Our attitude should always be as God’s Ambassadors. Don’t marry someone who is not first committed to God, else such can be committed to someone else in the long ways. Good character is the best form of insurance in life.

Characters determine how you will respond to situations all times.

We need to understand that we are citizen of Heaven and start to behave like God. Always pause and ask yourself “What will Jesus do?”

If you want to change your character, it is not about subtracting or taking away something, but adding to your life.

Perseverance:  This is suffering without becoming upset. To continue in an action in spite of failure or little success and discouragement.

2 Corinthians 3:18; John 17: (The Message).

Building character gives us strength and wisdom to face and overcome challenges. Begin to build character strength today.

May the Lord help you as you decide on this.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LOVE AND INFATUATION (PART 2)

Message by Pastor Kunle Osunkunle

(President, The Singles Fellowship, The Fountain of Life Church)

3. Infatuation always “looks on” and this makes it superficial; but true love “looks through” and is sacrificial. 1 Samuel 9:2; 1 Samuel 16:6-7. Many people just make decisions based on what they see. Eyes can’t just decide, you need to search out what his or her heart is made off. You can achieve this by the help of the Holy Spirit through God’s Words. Jeremiah 17:9-10. Like Prophet Samuel, you may know where you are going, but can you recognize what you want and that God has prepared for you? Because a man or a woman’s inside is important to God, it must be important to us as well. While infatuation looks on the surface, love through a man or a woman.

4. Infatuation is almost effortless, but true love involves hard work. Infatuation is always selfish, but love compromises for good in a godly manner.
5. Infatuation is only about emotions, but love is first about an act of will then feelings, which are just the easy part of love work.
6. Love is a choice – an important decision. While love chooses the whole package of the intended having observed him/her in different seasons of life, infatuation just look for just one desirable characteristic and quickly decide. Love appraises someone in different seasons and gets to know his or her whole package, understands the totality of the person. It won’t appraise just a few characteristics of the person but the whole.
7. Infatuation is obsessive and unhealthy (makes you sick and desperate), but love always makes you whole, cheerful and fulfilled. 2 Samuel 13:1-19. Love can’t make you sick, only infatuation does. When you say you are love sick, you aren’t in love, but simply infatuated. Watch what you meditate on frequently; whatever you meditate on becomes bigger.

“What your thoughts, they become you words;

  Watch your words, they become your actions;

  Watch your actions, they become your habits;

  Watch you habits, they become your characters;

  Watch your characters, they become you.”

8. Infatuation is dominated by anxiety, fear and insecurity, and makes you feel incomplete. 1 John 4:18 (MSG). It often has high sex content because it is mostly about attraction. But, true love cast out all fears and gives you real faith, sense of security, wholeness/completeness and reverence for God. God designs us in such a way that, when we are in a relationship, our emotional and physical parts merge. When you have fear or you are insecure, you will always ask for reassurance. But with love, there is security because there is a growing trust. Infatuation will always make you to be at you best at all times, thereby living a false life. So, when you are infatuated, you want everything to be perfect without any correction and you aren’t yourself because of fear. Therefore, you don’t have room for change and personal development. So note, you are infatuated when you feeling perfect in a relationship, selfish, unnecessarily jealous and not trustworthy.
9. Infatuation is about flattery, lies and insincerity. But in true love, there is perfect truth. Though, truth may be bitter, but love speaks truth with the sense of correcting one another. Proverbs 7:21. Infatuation can cost you your life, because, it tells you so much lies and deceptions. Often times, people try to entice you to themselves by flattering you and being unusually kind with almost faultless gestures.
10. In infatuation, you fall in love so quickly and perhaps die; but in true love, you grow in love as you observe him/her in different seasons of life. Growing in love takes time. So, you need to learn to give love proper time to grow.

I want you to ensure that you take good time to observe your intended partner in different seasons of life before you decide on love. I pray that you will make the right decisions in Jesus’ name.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LOVE AND INFATUATION (PART 1)

Message by Pastor Kunle Osunkunle

(President, The Singles Fellowship, The Fountain of Life Church)

How come Samson did not discern Delilah? The story of Samson talked about him going somewhere, seeing a girl and telling his parents he wants to marry the girl. He really didn’t know anything about the girl, but he just wanted to marry the girl.

How come Jonathan was able to discern David, even though he was his father’s arch enemy? This implies that there are some things that don’t look or seem like it, but if you probe a little deeper, you would see it clearly.

When God looks at a man, He doesn’t just look at the outside, He looks not on a man alone, but He looks through him. We also need to come to a place where we can look through people, and that only happens when your spirit is sharp. When your spirit is sharp you can discern them. You make your decisions and your decisions make you.

The Bible defines discernment to mean; to stand, to consider, to investigate, to examine, to scrutinize and to ask questions.

Discernment is defined as to detect, to perceive with the eyes of the mind and to perceive the distinctions. Therefore there is a need to discern, detect (that is, pay attention) and to be observant when you are making a decision especially in relationships.

You will need to discern, define and think about things deeply in order to righly decide based on what the Bible says; not based on reasoning, but  based on what the Spirit of God says.

The things that enhance your discernment are the acquisition of knowledge and the capacity to feed on the word of God.

In life, wanting to love or be loved is normal. In actual fact, this is further reinforced by the books, magazines, movies, etc we have read and watched; and based on these we have started to build our fantasies on the man or woman we want to marry.

Some people have magazine husbands and wives. While some already have the picture of the man or woman they desire, failing to realize that those pictures have been made to look perfect using  computer picture editing programmes like ‘Adobe Photoshop’ and now are waiting to marry ‘Photo shopped’ men or women.

Of course when someone you feel is attractive or someone that somewhat fit the portriat notices you, you begin to feel good. This is simply fantasy that you assume has met reality.

It is perfectly normal for you to be attracted to somebody or for someone to be attracted to you. At the point when your heart is pounding, your knees are wobbling that it seems you have butterflies in your stomach because someone is attracted to you; the challenge comes when you define these ‘pleasant’ feelings to love.

Some people have said that love is like a fire, it just consumes you. People then run into problems and chaos because they make quick and permanent decisions based on just these feelings without given enough time, effort and commitment to prove it to be love.

The only reason you keep a vow or promise with someone is if you’ve given time, effort or commitment into that relationship.

Most people are quick to say ‘I love you’ because they are quickly blinded by uncontrolled feelings or emotions.  You just met a girl in two weeks, and you look at her lovely eyes and become dumbfounded, the next thing you say is ‘I love you’ and often times, the lady too will reply, ‘Oh, that’s the sweetest thing I’ve heard’. But once that feeling is gone, if you have not developed and built a relationship, if we have not learnt friendship, you are left with nothing. That’s the reason a number of people keep falling in and out of love. This result also to serial relationships, simply because we make quick and permanent decisions, based on the feelings we have at that moment.

This is a classic case of infatuation. Love is not as quick as that, it doesn’t come or go suddenly. It isn’t love at first sight; it is attraction at first sight that takes it slow and gradual. It is a process, a process of discovery and getting knowledge.

 True love is like a cornerstone. It has even be tried and tested. Also, like a sure foundation, it has to be tested all over again. Isaiah 28:16

Yes, you are sure. Most of us see someone and we say the Holy Spirit has told us; whereas, it is your eyes, your ears that have told you. You feel it is fantasy meeting reality. You need to slow down and really learn the love process. I’m not saying attraction is not good; of a truth, when you meet someone irresistible (pretty or handsome), something attracts you to him or her. That is simply attraction and not love. Therefore, you shouldn’t take attraction for love. Love is more than just an attraction. Haste always makes mistakes. Proverbs 19:2 (NLT). You need to increase your discerning capability. And you need knowledge to enhance this. Proverbs 19:2 (The Message).

A lot of people today are falling into sins including fornicating, because they have been hastily misrepresented love and defines it to be infatuation.

Pastor Bimbo Odukoya said in her book, 165 QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE MARRIAGE, that the inability to differentiate between love and infatuation exposes one to the danger of making a costly mistake when choosing a life partner. So you need to be able to discern and differentiate if what you feel is really love or infatuation.

THE WORD OF GOD

When you pay attention to instruction and to the word of God, you will show discernment and your lips will express what you’ve learnt. If you have learnt the right things, your lips will express them in your discussions with others -”For the lips of an immoral woman as sweet as honey and her mouth smoother than oil, but in the end, she is as bitter as poison, as dangerous as a double edged sword, her feet go down to death and her steps lead to the grave”. Proverbs 5:1-5 (NLT).

There are so many things in a relationship that when you are began it with infatuation and not true love, you will like them. They are somewhat enjoyable. You like what you are hear and what you feel. These things are supposed to go through a process. They have to be tested so that in the end you don’t end up being consumed. Most people are being consumed and are making mistakes because they are not discerning and patient enough to go through the process.

WHAT IS INFATUATION?

The dictionary meaning (Webster’s collegiate dictionary) says, ‘To make foolish, to affect with folly, deprive of sound judgment’. It also means to inspire with a foolish and extravagant passion. This implies that infatuation will deprive you of sound judgment, that is, you won’t be able to think right when you need to detect, distinguish and think through. If you are infatuated how you can think through? You will surely start to act foolishly.

WordNet online dictionary says, ‘It is a foolish and extravagant passion, temporary love and object of extravagant short lived passion’. Just like lightning, it comes and goes. Infatuation is an emotional response based on fantasy.

You have had a fantasy of a particular guy or lady and some day that fantasy just passes by, your fantasy has come through and you have an emotional response to it. Emotions are ‘e-motions’ always changing. You can’t make a decision based on emotions.

So, where do these feelings come from? Is it the devil? No. God put those feelings in you. Feelings are not bad in itself, it is how you use them. Failure to understand the purpose of a thing means that it would be abused, so God put those feelings there to be initiators not deciders of love.

Some people have walked so much in lust that they chase anything in skirts, usually it is when your fantasy comes around you that you are supposed to notice. So it is supposed to be an initiator and not a decider.

Note again that, attraction in itself is not bad, it is what you do with it that determines if you will fall into sin or not. Biological science has proven that emotions or feelings are caused by a chemical reaction in the body. This releases some hormones into the brain.

How does infatuation start?

Usually when you have fantasies and dreams gotten or formed by some magazines, Hollywood movies and not the word of God, what usually happen is that you will begin to concentrate only on what you have seen and heard.

PROCESSES OF LOVE

1. EYE TO BODY CONTACT: It often starts in form of eye to body contact. Something registers your interest there and you start to think about your life together with that person, that is, fantasize.
2. EYE TO EYE CONTACT: If you keep on for so long, eye to eye contact results. This is when two people look at each other, eye just meets eye for a second and you take it off immediately. Then wait for about two seconds to see if the person is still looking or not and because both of you are thinking the same way, your eyes meet again. Some people stop there and start to dream and fantasize and end up dreaming about so and so. It is not God telling you anything, your thoughts are. Some others say this lady is disturbing me in my dreams. It is not the lady, but your fantasies. Take a step, walk up to her and say hello. It doesn’t mean anything would happen. When people are infatuated usually they take one quality and celebrate it, usually physical appearance. However, when they start to see the flaws and weaknesses they walk away.
3. VOICE TO VOICE CONTACT: The next is voice-voice contact. That is where you kick off a discussion, you start to feel good talking to a person and the feelings make you happy and happiness isn’t a sin. Conversations continue, phone numbers are exchanged and you begin to talk. When you are talking, you need to ensure that you are really talking on the things that matter – relevant issues of life. The quality of what you discuss at this point is very important. It can take the relationship to the next level or deter it and end there.

In such a relationship, the first six months are the “HONEYMOON STAGE” where nothing he/she does is wrong until you enter the “REALITY STAGE”. Don’t take any lasting decisions during the honeymoon stage. Most people take lasting decisions during that stage which is usually detrimental

Also, when you are talking, your hands can possibly touch each other just for a little. When that happens, something in you changes, infatuation eventually would turn physical. Before you know it, if you are not careful, one day both of you will be looking into each other’s eyes when you are alone and results to kissing. Both of you must have been thinking about kissing at one point or the other, until the situation presents itself. As you go further, infatuation eventually becomes physical. AND IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL SEX IS AT YOUR DOORSTEP.

Most people especially Christians don’t plan to have sex when in a relationship, but there are things that get you up to that position/point where the only thing that seems reasonable to do is to have sex. Therefore, you need to understand your body chemistry/make up and that the way God has made us is that, when you are in a relationship, our physical and emotional self merge.

When you mistakenly cross over to sex, your discussions and bonding stop; because you have gone to “non-verbal bonding” which means problems you are supposed to be solving and quality discussions you are to have stop totally. You do everything with sex - solve problems with sex, fight with sex. Most times, it ends in a break-up. But, if eventually both get married to each other, then at some point you begin to think he/she has changed. He/she didn’t change, what has happened is that you didn’t find out, you were infatuated and you short-circuited the process of love.

This is the main reason that God has told us not to have sex before marriage because it hinders good communication, discussions and discernment.

MORE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LOVE AND INFATUATION

1 Corinthians 13:4-8; 1 John 4:7-8.

1.  Love takes God into all its plans. It is the essence of God, so if you say you love a person, you take God into consideration for everything you do for that person. The problem with most of us is that if you have not experienced love you cannot know what you are looking for. If your heart hasn’t experienced the love of God, you cannot know what you are looking for. You will only look based on your misconceptions and assumptions about love.

The state of your heart is important. If you have the knowledge of God, you will compel your feelings and thoughts with it. When you’ve acquired knowledge, you will be able to detect, define and logically discriminate when necessary.

2.  Love has a priority to maintain a closer work with God. Its desire is to please God above pleasing a man or a woman (mortars). The more you walk with God, the more you walk in love. Then God will begin to reveal Himself to you the more. As this happens, love grows more in your heart.

Unlike love, infatuation wants to please the person rather than please God. Infatuation is selfish, while love isn’t. Love doesn’t want to take from you, it wants to protect you. Infatuation wants to take from you and doesn’t want to give back. Love takes time to grow, while infatuation is fast and always in haste. It comes like a speeding bullet and like a bomb. It makes a distraction, and then it is gone. It comes suddenly and sometimes without warning.

Remember the Bible says that love is patient. It is willing to start small and willing to grow. Infatuation is like a weed.

In conclusion, you really need to slow down, get to know the person, because love is a process, and learn through thick and thin. See him/her in various seasons through the years, how he/she behaves in various situations before you make your decisions. The knowledge you’ve acquired when you begin to define, detect and logically discriminate will help you make right and godly decisions.

I pray that you will make the right decisions in Jesus’ name.

Watch out for Part 2…

A TALK SHOW tagged “Where is my Prince Charming?”

Moderator: Pastor Kunle Osunkunle (President, Single and Married Fellowship)

Discussant: Pastor Segun Williams, Pastor Mrs. Mary, Sister Bolaji and Bro. Akinyemi Bolaji.

Every Single man and woman always looks forward to getting into relationship and getting married. Therefore, immense pressure begins to set in within and without. Pressure from parents, siblings, peers, friends, colleagues and community where you live. You then begin to look up to when your Prince Charming or Cinderella will show up and start a relationship.

Waiting now becomes a germane issue. If you ask someone in such a situation, the usual response is “I’m waiting.” Perhaps, each time you attend a wedding occasion, you are told that you are the next groom or bride.

In fact, your parents, friends, siblings, and peers will give you disgusting suggestions and ideas or pieces of irritating advice.

The questions here are “How do you wait for the right man or woman?” “What are you supposed to do while waiting?”

This discussion attempts to answer these critical questions.

Many Single people live as if Single life is a time for mourning. You need to enjoy your Single life while waiting on God for the right and best suitor.

One important thing you should do is to watch your wrong attitudes that are liable to push away good people from your life. You can change with the help of the Holy Spirit.

QUESTION 1: “What can I do to be date-able and how can I attract my Prince charming?”

SPEAKER 1:  Pastor Mary explained using her personal experiences. She got married at 42 years old.

It is true that intense pressure will come to the extent that you will almost forget to celebrate your birth date. This perhaps could begin from your family members who will stand to suggest things to you as if to add to God in your life. But the question remains, “Are you waiting on the Lord or you are waiting just for the brother or sister to come?” You have got to be focused. This was what she did that helped her. She knew that her attitudes had to change. You need to do this so that when he or she comes, he or she will be able to see who you really are.

SPEAKER 2:  Brother Bolaji Akinyemi emphasized that there is a phase in life that we should get married. More so, you should have an idea of what you want because several things will come your way at this phase of your life.

SPEAKER 3:  Sister Bolaji added that she is now quite over 30 years and her family concluded that she should go and get pregnant with probably a widower or even a married man; but she should ensure that the man’s wife does not know. God later assured her that He will grant her a godly man as her husband. If He could provide her a car and an apartment when she needed them, why would she think that God will not get her a husband?

SPEAKER 4:  Brother Segun Williams put it like this. At this time, you will receive pieces of advice because of the misconception people have about marriage. Some think the reason to marry is because their parents are disturbing them then they should marry or simply because age is catching up with them. Why do some people get married early while some marry late? In fact, some people don’t help the situation as they prolong the single phase through their attitudes. Just like the Israelites who stayed in the land of captivity for 430 years instead of 400 years and also wandered in the wilderness for 40 years instead of 40 days and 40 nights. Instead of waiting, some people get engaged in murmuring and complaining. Enjoy where you are on your way to where you are going.

In addition to these, it is important to note that our individual divine assignments differ; as a result, individual waiting period differs as well as the preparation period. You should stop been desperate and discover who you are. Discover yourself and make yourself a good man or woman; so that the good man or woman comes, he or she will find you prepared and as a good thing to desire. Ensure that you stay around people that will encourage you in the time of waiting.

It is a challenge to live as a Christian, because you cannot do things any how just like the unbelievers. Ensure you listen to God and not people, and you must begin to think with your mind and allow God to speak you.

QUESTION 2:  “Am in a relationship where my partner doesn’t want me to complain. If I complain, he says that I am nagging, what should I do?

SPEAKER 1:  You need to call for a meeting where both of you will sit down to discuss on it. Talk about it and if he is not willing for you to voice out, you may be in a wrong relationship. Then, it is best to call it a quit. A man that will not hear the opinion of his partner will not make a good husband and vice versa.

SPEAKER 2: You need to discover how to communicate with him; by then, if he is still not going to hear your opinion, there is a serious fundamental problem. A woman should not nag, but if she does, it simply implies that she is saying something he is not listening to.

Women are born naturally to be talkers. Therefore, men should learn to be good listener and be patient enough so as to understand them and be good communicators. Consequently, women should learn to be considerate when discussing and understand men’s creation as well.

More so, men should help the women on how to present issues as such that will not offend their creation. You need to be mindful of the time to present your issues to your partner as well.

Summary:

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW AND DO WHILE WAITING

1. You need to be very fervent in prayers. First of all, you need to know that you are to wait on God not on a man or woman as you look forward to starting a relationship and marriage. As you wait on God, don’t be afraid or doubtful.
2. Change your attitude.
3. Be focused on God and not on the intended Prince Charming or Cinderella. Trust alone in God.
4. Avoid being desperate. A decision taken in desperation will cause you to act desperately and desperate actions are always bitter and regretful actions.
5. Develop friendship. God will bring a lot of people around you; make sure you build right friendship with people since you cannot marry an enemy but a friend.
6. You need to develop high sensitivity in the spirit through the help of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, you need to build a strong and intimate relationship first with God. You can only find a good and godly, virtuous woman (wife) by the help and favor of God. Proverbs 18:22.
7. Serve God. The fact that you need favor as to find a desirable wife or husband should make you serve God. But it has to be a deliberate act.
8. Speak to God always about your need. If you can ask God for food, shelter, money, job, clothing and other material possessions because you believe He can provide them; you should believe as well that He is able to give you a wife or husband. He will grant you favor. Matthew 7:7-11.
9. Discover the reason why you need to get married. You need to answer the question on why you want to get married. Different people get married for different reasons; you cannot afford to get married for the wrong reasons.
10.  Get a vision for marriage. You need to have a vision for your desired marriage and have plans. This is part of the indispensable preparations you need to do before you get into a relationship and get married.
11.  Build and develop yourself into a good and desirable man or woman. A good man or woman will attract a good woman or man respectively. Then, people can desire you and become inestimable like an expensive jewel.
12.  Get busy. Waiting period is not a time for idleness as to play around or be engaged with worthless activities that can jeopardize your visions and dreams. Add eventfully to your life.
13.  Get to know. It is also a time to learn all necessary things and get useful information you need; especially about your opposite sex, knowledge about yourself and your intended partner.

To be continued…watch out for the next post!

Join us @ Single and Married Fellowship at The Fountain of Life Church, Ilupeju, Lagos State, Nigeria every Monday by 6:00pm prompt.

A TALK SHOW: WHERE IS MY PRINCE CHARMING?

WAOH! THE LAST MEETING WAS QUIET INCISIVE...

GUESS WHAT, IT CONTINUES ON MONDAY, 7TH MARCH, 2011

PLAN TO ATTEND 

AND COME WITH YOUR REAL QUESTIONS...

SEE YOU THERE!!!

THE GIFT OF SINGLENESS (Part 2)

Message by Pastor Kunle Osunkunle

The reason why you were born is not to get married. God has a purpose for you. Therefore, chasing marriage as if it is the only thing you have got to do is not it. If the purpose for which you were born is to marry, then Jesus Christ did not fulfill purpose.

Singleness (your single state) is a gift that must be celebrated. Singleness is a time of growth. It is a time of self discovery, spiritual discovery and service. It is a time to sit under God to discover who God has made you. It is a time to concentrate on the content and not the container in order to have an inestimable or valuable content.

My intention for presenting this to you is to ensure that you understand this gift called singleness; you understand your wholeness and uniqueness as a single, so that you can make a right decision about when to get married and who to marry. It’s also important that you enjoy where you are on your way to where you are going.

Seven Gifts of God To Man (A Trail from Dr. Myles Munroe)

Genesis 1:26; 2:15-25

1. Spiritual Nature and Character:

This is the first gift to be considered as a single man or woman is not marriage or   relationship. You need to know that you are created in God’s image and likeness. The first thing to be concerned about as a single man or woman is your spiritual nature and character. What you need is to first find yourself, not to find a wife or seek for a relationship. There are so many people who are confused about who they are. The only thing they know about themselves is the name they bear and probably where they hail from. You need to find yourself and be secured in the knowledge of who you are. You need to have a healthy self-esteem and self-image. The only way to go about this is to find it in God. You need to be confident in who God has made you. This confidence can only be drawn from God.

Some people are not confident because they are poor or perhaps don’t have a car or jobless. It’s true that sin has demoralized men, but you need to come back to God and take your confidence in Him.

Never take your confidence from what you possess like money, car, social status or educational status/qualification. Some derive their confidence from these things. As singles, we need to start to take our image from God. It is natural to always look up to things like material possession in order to be confident. But, we need to begin to consciously look up to God alone.

Some even say that I don’t have this and that so I cannot relate. No! It is not about what you have or don’t have; it is about God and who you are on the inside. God created you; let Him express the person on the inside of you. After all, Adam never had clothes on him when God created him and he was not ashamed. He was joyful because the glory of God was upon him.

The challenge is that people who don’t have self-worth or self-esteem, who haven’t derived their confidence from God eventually become liabilities to whoever they marry. (No one wants someone who will always want to take away from him or her, but someone who will add to his or her life.) Such marriage will lose trust and faithfulness, because you will always be defensive. When you marry someone with an unhealthy or poor self-worth or self-esteem, such will live his or her life trying to become someone else usually by attaching themselves with the identity of another. He or she tries to become someone else.

Everyone is unique. You can take the confidence for your uniqueness only from God. You need to become like God. Marriage is at its best when two God-like people get married.

Romans 12:2.

A man is truly changed when he has fully changed the way he thinks. You need to get into the word of God in order to know God and be able to change the way you think about yourself. That’s why single state is a time to be highly devoted to studying God’s word. Then you become like God and anyone who sees you will see God in you. You will begin to attract only God-like people.

2Corinthians 3:18 (THE MESSAGE, AMPLIFIED)

The more you look into the word of God, the more you become more like Him which is what you need to do in your single state. When you become more like Him, it is easier for you to love, forgive, give, be humble and not keep records of wrong. These are things you will be tested with in relationship. In marriage, you will in one way or the other offend each other; if you have not learn in God how to forgive and be patient, how will you be able to forgive and resolve conflicts? You learn patience, longsuffering and other spiritual characters needed to build a healthy relationship and marriage in God. Therefore, it is important that you get your image from God and not from the society, environment, Hollywood, tradition or culture.

Single state is the time to become more like God so that the man or the woman coming into your life for relationship can see unadulterated love in you.

2. Likeness:

Genesis 1:26.

Likeness means to be like Him. The purpose for which God made us in His likeness is so that we can function like Him.

“A person without self-control is like a city without fence (a city with broken-down walls).” Proverbs 25:28.

Anyone who doesn’t know who he or she is becomes a fair game for someone else to mould into another image. Until you become whole, you will always be dependent on other people for self-worth.

Amore so, you need to work on your appearance, your speech, and general outlook. Man looks and sees the outward; only God looks on the inside.

Proverbs 18:21-22. To have a very good, attractive and pleasant likeness, one of the things you need to work on is your MOUTH. Get you tongue sorted out before you go into a relationship. Learn how to speak confidently for yourself so as not to depend on others for approvals. Learn how to speak the right things at the right time. Your tongue should minister grace and be like a tree of life to people.

3. God’s  Presence:

The Radiance of God's Presence

Before Adam needed the presence of another creation, he enjoyed the presence of the Creator. The first Presence that you need in your life is not that of a boyfriend or a girlfriend; but the Presence of God. Imagine someone who just got saved say about 3 months ago and is just getting to know God now wants to go into a relationship. Such is still a babe and will only carry his or her old characters, how he used to live and what he or she knows into the relationship. He or she is not yet matured in the Spirit and has not learned more about God’s nature; and His likeness is not yet fully formed in him or her.

You need to use your prospective marriage life (single state) to know more and more of God. Your intending spouse should find you in Eden, that is, God’s Presence.

The glory of God’s Presence is a defense. Because Adam and Eve were in God’s Presence in Eden; though they were naked, but they never knew and were not ashamed. God’s glory covered them. The glory ensured they were not self-conscious and selfish. It was not about what they wore or didn’t wear, not about lust or flesh; they only saw God’s glory in each other’s lives. Flesh was not their focal point; it was the glory of God.

Anyone who wants to marry you should meet you in God’s Presence and be able to see His glory in your life. He or she should not be concerned about your body as it were or how he or she wants to sleep with you, kiss you or touch you. Such is not seeing God’s glory in you, but is only concerned about flesh.

As a single man or woman preparing for relationship and marriage, what you need to do is to function in God’s Presence. When you have God’s Presence overshadowing you, you will be joyous and whoever sees you will see happy countenance on you. Some people when you see them, it is as if they are carrying the problem of the whole world.

4. Work:

You need to be hardworking and diligent in whatever you do. As a young person, someone who is ready to get married, you cannot be lazy. You must have dreams and goals that you are working towards. You must not be like someone who lives with “no future ambition” (NFA) or as if the “future is far away” (FIFA). You must have goals, pre-determined goals that you are working towards. You must be diligent at work and diligent in seeking God. At this stage of your life, you have got a lot of time, you need to use it accountably and be diligent. Though, you say you don’t have work, you are not gainfully employed; the issue is what can you do? What are your gifts and talents? What do you do best with your hands? You need to creatively be engaged.

5. Cultivation of Garden:

“To cultivate” means “to bring out” or “to nurture”. If you have not nurtured yourself, you cannot nurture somebody else. You need to first of all bring out the best in you so as to be able to bring out the best in somebody else. Do people enjoy being around you? You need to be able to cultivate yourself in order to cultivate someone else and make him or her better and not bitter.

Before starting a relationship, you need to first of all consider this, are you a weed that will constantly choke the relationship or a rich fertilizer that will help cultivate and nurture it? Fertilizer improves the quality of what you are planting and also increases the yield. But a weed stifles quality. Fertilizer gives 100% without expecting anything in return. Weed does vice versa and rather compete and reduces. It is a parasite that always wants to take without giving or contributing.

So you need to find out, if you o into relationship, will you cultivate and improve your partner or reduce him or her by being a parasite?

Cultivation takes time. It requires persistence, patience and focus.

6. Protection:

You need to develop the capacity to defend and protect the interests and lives of those under your care. You need to be able to safeguard people’s dignity, interests and confidence no matter what. You cannot afford to be a tale bearer that always gossips.

People who come to you to gossip about someone will surely gossip about you too. Tale bearer causes crisis.

As a lady, you need to ask, the man you want to start a relationship with or marry, can he protect you or is he always asking you for sex? Any man who asks you for sex only wants to steal from you. He doesn’t love you, but lust after you. You should let such man go. Why should you accommodate someone who wants to steal from you? When a man loves a woman, he will always want to protect her and give her such joy and comfort. Not otherwise. Love doesn’t take away, but lust does.

7. The Word of God:

The Word of God

It’s only in the word of God that any relationship can maximize its full potentials. This is because marriage and relationship are concepts out of the heart of God. Therefore, for you to get the best out of it, do not play with the word of God. That is where you will get your image and the likeness that He wants you to get. That is where you will get the real life and build strength of character which will sustain your relationship and marriage.

When you have developed these things, you are right for relationship and marriage. Now you can begin to function like God because you have His likeness. People can now trust you, that is, you can win people’s trust.

I pray that as singles, you will be celebrated uniquely in Jesus’ name. You are bold and confident singles going somewhere to happen. You will marry rightly in Jesus’ name.

I look forward to hearing from you. God bless!