Tag: Spiritual Encouragement for Christian Singles

Emotional Stability April 18, 2024April 16, 2024

Don’t Let Anger Control You

Ephesians 4:26-27(NLT)
“And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 for anger gives a foothold to the devil.”

Grace and her sister have had a contentious relationship since they were young. Fighting weekly was the norm for them. Their parents saw it as sibling rivalry and did nothing to help them get along. Now that they’re adults, nothing has changed. Holidays, birthday celebrations, weddings, dinners with their parents, no matter the occasion, because of their deep-seated anger, these two sisters ignore each other and hardly ever speak.

Anger is a strong feeling of displeasure, disapproval, and hostility. It is a mistake to think that once the situation or event that caused us to feel anger is over that it will go away. Sometimes, the anger doesn’t go away. Instead, it remains in our souls and increases its grip on us in the background. It can be a strong sense of powerlessness that causes us to lash out whenever we feel threatened. For many of us, it’s the go-to emotion that we use to cover up other pain and hurt. Our minds tell us that holding on to the anger with resentment or a grudge seems easier or more beneficial than to forgive. Grace and her sister took that approach. They never learned to address their anger through the love of Jesus Christ, and because they didn’t, they lived beneath their privilege.

As we look back over our childhoods, some of us might remember that there were a lot of passively angry people within our everyday environment. They used profanity and didn’t have a whole lot of compassion for the feelings and well-being of others. Some of us who saw this picked up those habits without giving it much thought. We took on this anger and used it in our words, attitudes, and manner of dealing with even those relationships that are dearest to us.

My nephew told me about a Christian woman that is a notoriously good baker. One Saturday, he went to a bake sale where she was selling her homemade cookies. The place was packed. People were getting antsy, and the baker was feeling pressured. They had been waiting in line for her cookies, and when it looked as though they would soon be sold out, things got a little disorderly. They began to yell out their orders rather than waiting their turn. My nephew noticed that the baker’s son had become agitated by everything, and when he yanked on her apron to get her attention, she spoke to him in a manner that was harsh, angry, and profane.

Many of us have seen mothers do this in public and not thought anything of it, but we should think of what it does to the child’s heart. God commands us in Ephesians 4:29(NLT), “Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.” The habit patterns of anger can be very easily passed on to us, and when they are, God commands us to root them out of our hearts.

Proverbs 14:12(NLT) says, “There is a path before each person that seems right,
but it ends in death.” We think we have it all figured out, but the truth is, we can only see as far as our eyes allow us, and that is very limited. God sees the entire scope of our lives, so we must always trust His leadership and guidance, because only He can make our path clear and straight. There will always be things that will come against us and try to hinder or hold us back, but we must not respond in anger, because anger will set us further back. It will separate us from God’s blessings if we do not deal with in through His love.

Proverbs 14:17(NLT) tells us, “Short-tempered people do foolish things.” Many of us have witnessed this firsthand. People can appear to be very calm and non-reactionary. They look as though they’ve got it all together, but underneath all that exterior is a rage that seeps out at the most unassuming times. They are angry at the world but cover it up with a smile. This isn’t what God wants for us. He doesn’t want us to be fake. He wants us to exercise self-control that comes from trusting Him with all our hearts.

Anger should not be dominant or dormant in a loving person. As a child of God, you can’t hide behind it, because anger will never remain hidden. It must be nailed to the cross and left there. We must relinquish it and put on more of the love of Christ in its place.

Psalm 4:4(NLT) commands, “Don’t sin by letting anger control you. Think about it overnight and remain silent.” Life will respond to what we give it, and it knows when anger is ruling the roost. It will show up in a way that keeps people at bay. Anger will keep a future husband circling around us but never making contact, because we haven’t created a soft place for his love to land. Let’s not do this to ourselves. Proverbs 14:22(NLT) says, “If you plan to do good, you will receive unfailing love and faithfulness.” So, plan to root out any anger and rage that is in your heart, so you can both give and receive the kind of unfailing love and faithfulness that God wants you to have. ■

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.

Spiritually preparing for marriage April 11, 2024February 16, 2024

A Restored Home

Proverbs 21:9(NIV)
“Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.”

There’s a saying that many husbands have heard and repeated, “happy wife, happy life!” By this, they are conveying a submission to the will and happiness of their wives. They understand the value of having peace in the home, and many of them are willing to make great concessions for their wives’ benefit in order to maintain that peace. They see the reward as far exceeding the cost. This can be a very beautiful thing, but sometimes, after years together, this attitude in the man wains. He becomes disappointed in his heart because his sacrifice, however small or great it may be, seems to be overlooked and unappreciated.

The wisdom of Proverbs 21:9 talks about a man who finds himself in the unfortunate position of having to live with a wife that is quarrelsome and never satisfied. There’s no room for him in the marriage when this is the case. His contributions may be heartfelt and well intentioned, but if they are received by a wife who fails to demonstrate and convey her gratitude, the relationship may be irreparably injured. None of us should want this to happen, but in many marriages, it does. We must be ever so careful.

Our beliefs about marriage and about the anointing from God that flows in a marriage must come into alignment with God’s truth. Because of misinformation, many couples have allowed the enemy to sow discord in their unions. As women of God who desire marriage or marital restoration, we must understand that no weapon formed against God’s institution will prosper when we are faithful and obedient to live by His Word.

1Peter 3:7(NLT) says, “In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together.” This is the Will of God for the husband. If God says it can be done, we had best believe, it can be done. No questions asked. As a woman of faith reading 1Peter 3:7, we must know that there is a response from us that God requires to this standard for the man. It is to reciprocate with thankfulness to God by honoring our husbands with understanding and kindness as well.

God created both the man and the woman to respond to each other in a way that builds and edifies them and their union. This is not subject to speculation or assumptions. It is the way God has set things up, and His way works with a mathematical precision. As a woman, you can win your husband’s heart through the love of Christ, and that is not up for debate. You can allow God to order your steps in His Word to such a degree that the unity in your marriage is holy, preserved, and maintained through His grace. God’s Word cannot fail, and His promises will come to pass through our faith in Him. Our Heavenly Father is faithful to preserve our marriages when we are faithful to seek Him first and put Christ in his rightful place as the head of our marital unions.

There is also no question that the enemy will plot against the unity of our marriages. When this happens, we must be clear that we cannot fight spiritual warfare with weapons of the flesh. God can and will restore a marriage that has collapsed if one of the spouses is willing to stand strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. A husband might say, “I can’t do anything right. No matter what I do, it’s not good enough. My marriage is sucking the life right out of me.” If a wife hears this and does not go deeply in prayer and search her own heart, she has the wrong attitude about marriage and is not standing strong in the Lord. If she does not humble herself before God and embrace the reality that she must change, she is not taking the sword of the Spirit, but allowing a further opening for the enemy to disrupt the marriage.

Ephesians 6:18(NLT) says, “Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.” This is a requirement for believers and their marriages. You must be spiritually prepared with God’s whole armor, so you’ll have a marriage that is built on the solid foundation of Christ. Pray and ask God to give you the right words to speak to your husband as well as the right words to pray effectively for your marriage and/or the restoration of it. Renew your mind and allow God to transform you. Let the work of the Spirit begin in you and witness how the love of God in your heart ministers to your husband and causes him to change.■

Emotional Stability April 4, 2024February 16, 2024

The Winning Position

A dear friend called me up recently and was very excited to tell me about her news. A co-worker encouraged her to sign-up on a dating app, and after contemplating it for several weeks, she finally did it. Single for the last ten years, she figured she’d give it another shot. It wasn’t long before she caught the eye of someone, and they began to have conversations. She kept me posted on their progress, and I thought that he sounded like a really nice guy. They finally decided to meet in person, but to my surprise, she was very nervous and hesitant. Although his conversations were nice, she said to me, “I’m really not attracted to his profile picture.” She didn’t think he’d be her type but went to meet him on the off chance that she’d be pleasantly surprised.

These are the kinds of hit-or-miss situations that single people indulge when they do not understand the degree to which God will lead and guide them when they seek Him. Some dating apps have worked out for some singles, there’s no question about that, but as born-again believers, we need to be sure to obtain a greenlight from Heavenly Father that a dating app is the way to go.

He commands us in 2Corinthians 6:14(NLT), “14 Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness?” Our Heavenly Father does not lie. His Word is true, righteous, and holy, and His Word never fails. This scripture in 2Corinthians 6:14 has nothing to do with a person’s physical appearance; it’s not talking about looks. It’s talking about spiritual realities. It is speaking to the spiritual identity of a human being, whether they are born of God’s Spirit or if they are a child of satan and do not belong to God at all. If they do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and reject him, they are unbelievers, and God tells us not to partner with them.

1John 1:5(NLT) says, “This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.” God is ALL light, and He desires His light and love to cover everything that we do, and this is especially true of our unions. He would not tell us not to partner with darkness and then turn around and help us to do so. He wants us to seek Him and follow His direction. If He tells us to move, then we move. If He doesn’t tell us to move, then we don’t. We stay put and remain diligent to pray, and to read and study His Word, so that we continually go higher in Christ.

God is not hard of hearing, neither is He negligent in any way. He alone is the One who establishes the path to all blessings. He tells us in Proverbs 3:5-6(NLT), “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” God is not slow or slack to fulfill His promises. Our responsibility as His sons and daughters is to seek Him. Jesus Christ commands us in Matthew 6:33(NLT), “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”

Be assured that hit-or-miss is not the Father’s way. When we meet men that do not meet our expectations, the inevitability of hurting someone’s feelings is always present. Even if their egos are slightly bruised, this is an offense we have caused that will ultimately come back to us. It isn’t worth it to leave a poor witness like this.

Your life is extremely valuable to our Heavenly Father. He wants to keep you protected and safe, and He doesn’t want you taking a chance on anyone that might harm you in any way. God gave His only begotten Son as a sacrifice for our sins so that you could always be in a winning position in life. We have the victory of Jesus Christ, but we must do our part. We must be wise about the decisions and choices we make, and most importantly, we must seek God in every aspect of our existences. He tells us in James 1:5(NLT), “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” When it comes to dating and finding the person who He has ordained to walk with us through life, this is exactly what we must do. We must ask the Father and have faith that He will lead, guide, and direct us on the right path.■

Spiritually preparing for marriage March 28, 2024February 16, 2024

Making Room for the Blessing

Admitting that our lives have become cluttered is not something we want to face; but admitting that our souls are equally cluttered is a definite hands-off for most of us. We’ve heard a bunch of brilliant teachings on faith and prayer, and we’ve gone through enough of life’s ups and downs to know that the hand of God is on us, yet there’s something down deep that we just can’t get to. Jesus Christ has given us his joy. This means we’re supposed to experience a joy that fills our every longing and satisfies our every thirst, however, we’re not there. We’re not there in our souls and we feel the bigness of that absence in every aspect of our existences. Truthfully, we’ve been feeling the absence of the ‘uniquely special’ for a long time. We have to be real about that. The reality that Jesus is our everything is not connecting with us way down deep, and because it isn’t, we’re frustrated, sad, and need something to change in a hurry.

A blatantly honest question we must ask ourselves is whether there’s some clutter down deep that is weighing so heavily on our souls that we’ve never really come up for air. The stress of being single in a very cold and uncaring world; the pain of loss and heartbreak; the sting of disappointment after disappointment; anxiety, sadness, health challenges, and other chronic stresses; these are just a few of the heavies we’ve endured, and the leftovers are still with us. Some of us have much more than these. It’s not just one or two things, but multiple residuals from emotionally painful experiences are weighing us down.

Although we’d like to believe that these just melted away after the trauma subsided, that just isn’t the case. If we had a window into our own souls, many of us would be shocked. We would not see the middle or end of it for all the clutter that would block our view. We understand all too well that life is busy, and that we have a call to fulfill and a purpose to perform. We just couldn’t be bothered to slow down, examine, analyze, and comb through. There was no time between working, worshiping, caring for others, and trying to put a smile on our faces. So, the clutter kept silently growing and taking up space, to the point where, as bad as we want newness, there’s no room for it.

Declutter

Now there’s a word, ‘declutter’. The formal definition is to remove unnecessary items from a crowded space. Sounds easy enough. We know how to do it in our homes and other spaces, but when it comes to the soul, many of us consider it an absurd notion. We might think that this bit was handled when we were saved. The truth is that our human spirits were recreated when we became born-again, but our souls were not. 2Corinthians 5:17(NLT) tells us, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” This is what happens when we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. We become a new person because our spirit is recreated and made brand new, but the soul is the business of our free-will. God will not come inside our minds and hearts and start throwing out all the bad thoughts, attitudes, and feelings. Through Christ, He has recreated our human spirits. He made them brand new and placed His Holy Spirit inside them. With all that power inside us, He commands us in Ephesians 4:23 to get busy renewing our minds and making them line up with our new spiritual reality in Christ.

This is our responsibility as followers of Christ, and most of us do this work of renewing our minds and changing our hearts gradually and sometimes it’s slower than life demands. God is extremely patient with us. He doesn’t rush us, but He expects that we will tend to the matters of the soul. He has designed life to cooperate with us when we do, but life has a way of sounding its alarm when we don’t.

The alarm

Many of us have been praying for quite some time to receive a particular blessing that is very dear to our hearts. We might be thinking that God is causing a delay, but that isn’t true. Life is sounding the alarm about what is in our souls. Our minds are not at peace, we’re not listening to the Father and releasing the things He’s told us to, and all this clutter is a result of our lack of faith in His ability and willingness to bless us. We have to come to grips with the reality that mentally, emotionally, and physically, we have not made room for the blessing we seek.

In Hebrews 12:1(NLT), through the Apostle Paul, God commands us to “strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.” In Ephesians 4:24(NLT), He tells us to “Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.” God is not going to do what He tells us to do. He commands us to be obedient and to do the things He says in His Word. We are to strip off the things that hold us back and put on the things that propel us forward and higher. This decluttering of our souls is not a suggestion. It’s not something we can negotiate with God about. The work of the soul is something every believer must do.

The questions

Some of us have never asked the Lord, “What is holding me back?” or “What must I do to show You I’m ready for what you have in store?” We can become so closed off in our routines that we are walking in circles, not recognizing that the journey of releasing and surrendering must begin. It has too. It’s a journey we all must take. Some of our behaviors—the way we think, our attitudes about life—must change, and it is a healthy and necessary process to pray about this, seek the Lord continually, and be led by His Holy Spirit to deal with some internal blockers.

We’re challenged because our lives are so busy, and the luxury of actually sitting with ourselves and looking at ourselves through the lens of God’s Word is one that many of us have neglected. Whether it’s fear of hurt and heartbreak, addictions, obsessions, negative attitudes, deep sadness, or any other thing that boxes us in, all of these can weigh us down and keep us separated from what we desire. Trust with all your heart that if God tells you to release something, indeed you can release it. So, let nothing keep you from the change the Lord desires you to make. Begin the journey and let Him lead you through it. ■

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.

Encouragement and Inspiration, Uncategorized March 14, 2024February 16, 2024

Renewing Your Mind towards Happiness

Happiness is a state of well-being that yields contentment in our lives. It’s defined as delight, enjoyment, exhilaration, joy, and satisfaction. We all desire happiness and have a sense of what it is, but for many of us, it’s illusive. We can’t find the inner path to it. This is why renewing our minds towards happiness is perhaps one of the most challenging areas of our Christian lives. We think it’s a feeling thing when real happiness is a mind thing. We have been trained by society to be emotional creatures and to depend on our emotions to tell us how to be. This puts us at the mercy of conditions and circumstances, and God never intended that. If conditions or circumstances are optimal or the same, we feel okay, but if our environment is suddenly flooded with situations of upset and uncertainty, some of us will train ourselves to be stuck in sadness a lifetime. We need to know that this is a cycle that can and should be broken.

Adam and Eve were wired to be happy. They had no knowledge of evil before they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Before sin entered the picture, all they knew was good, and things were good all the time. There was no such notion of depression, sadness, lack, or loneliness. All they experienced was bliss. This shows us God’s intention and Will for His children. Jesus Christ said in John 10:10 that he came to the earth so that we could live not just an abundant life, but a more than abundant life. This means an abundant life mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

Philippians 4:19(NKJV) declares, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” God has taken care of our needs, and His promise is to continually do so, but when we look at our personal situations, often we do not bring the promise of the Father to take care of our needs to the forefront of our minds. Instead, we see ourselves as lacking in some area of our lives. This perception of lack or loneliness can drive us to deep sadness. It’s not about someone taking something from us. In many cases, it’s not about us not having good health, food to eat or shelter over our heads. Often the sadness is about our perceived lack or deficit of something that we believe will bring us happiness.

Happiness from within
We’ve heard it from self-help gurus and many Christian leaders, teachers, and counselors of godly wisdom that we should never place ourselves in a position where our happiness is derived solely from external realities. God’s Word teaches us that our happiness should come from that place within us that has been recreated and made brand new by Jesus Christ. 2Corinthians 5:17(NLT) tells us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” This is our reality in Christ, and we must renew our minds to it.

If we are dependent on external forces, external situations, and external relationships with other people to make us whole, there will never be a consistency or a balance in our emotional and mental lives. Our dependency on circumstances and conditions will drive us to instability. That is not what God wants and we shouldn’t want that either. So, sometimes it isn’t our present situation that brings up the emotion of sadness, but the lack of something we don’t have or memories of things that happened in the past that we fear will happen again.

The past
Our painful pasts are probably the greatest deterrents to our happiness in the present. The mind will revert back to what it is used to if it is not stimulated to change. Renewing our minds is God’s perfect and supreme strategy for disconnecting from our past and embracing what He has in store for our lives.

Our fear is that since our Heavenly Father allowed us to endure the circumstances of our past, He will allow it to be on repeat. Our minds search for a guarantee that this will not happen, and since faith is something we cannot see, some of us grab the low hanging fruit of doubt. With this way of thinking, we are imprisoned by our pasts. It can be a vicious cycle because we greatly desire newness, but we’re not facing the truth about all the guardrails we’ve put up to block it. We don’t know how get out of our own way. We’re afraid to embrace joy because of the loss we have experienced in the past.

Joy is here

Joy isn’t far from us, it’s in us, and that truth must be firmly believed in order to be the children of light that God has called us to be. Our greatest work in renewing our minds toward happiness is comprehending on the deepest level that happiness and joy cannot come from outside our own being. We live from the inside out, but for many of us, that is a level of responsibility and accountability that is ignored. We should be happy in Christ, but so many believers are not. They do not enjoy being saved, do not fully believe they’ve been rescued from darkness, and are living a life of waiting for the next satanic attack.

Happiness in Christ will press us into a place where brutal honesty is necessary. We might have to admit that we have no idea how to pursue joy within our own selves. The notion of celebrating our unique individuality is to us a foreign concept, and we cannot imagine enjoying ourselves in Christ with reckless abandon. We haven’t allowed ourselves the luxury of celebrating in Christ because of the burdens of sadness we feel tied to.

Our minds must be expanded above and beyond the boundaries of where they are today. Right now, even though joy is in you through Jesus Christ, you may not know enough about it to cause it to manifest. Behind the face that we put on for family and friends should be a life that we love, and if we are in Christ, this life is always in reach for us because of the hope of Christ that is in us through the Holy Spirit!

In Luke 14:28(NLT), Jesus Christ said, “But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it?” This truth about the practice of counting the cost is one that stretches across the board, weaving through every crevice of life. Everything, from the smallest, most insignificant detail to the greatest, most significant detail of life will cost us something. It doesn’t matter if it’s shinning our own shoes or picking daisies, it is an exercise that is going to cost us time and energy, so it had better be worth it to us. So, the question that you and I must ask ourselves is what has an un-renewed mind towards happiness cost us. What is the price we have paid for allowing our minds and emotions to betray us because we believe the wrong things about God’s love?

The reality is that we must choose our faith in God over our fear and dread of facing tomorrow. We might see that as a struggle, but that’s not because it is. It’s because our minds and emotions are telling us that we’re too tired, too weak, and undeserving to be happy. That’s not the truth. Over and over again, you must tell yourself what God says and not what your emotions say. You must surrender. Hold up the white flag to heaven and let God do in your life what only He can. You might feel that there’s no new place to go, nothing exciting and real to hold on to, but there is, and you’ll find it if you embark upon the journey of letting God guide you to it. ■

Lonely Christian Woman.Com