We can all remember our school days when we were faced with exams. We spent all day in school-and still we panicked when it came to test time. Why? Perhaps it’s because our time in the classroom was only one part of the learning process. The other part was time at home engaging with the material through homework, weight loss worksheets, sildenafil and flashcards-all designed to prepare us for exams and to make sure we had a grasp of the material and were headed in the right direction. The exam brought panic because it was the culmination of all of our hard work and the measure of our direction and mastery of the material. These exams and tests were for our benefit. They measured our growth, highlighted our strengths and weaknesses, and guided us to the paths we should take. The same is true of our spiritual lives…
We must examine ourselves with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and always be ready to be tested. Always being ready for exams is foundational to a positive life in Christ.
Read more about spiritual tests
Each of us has adopted a worldview whether we realize it or not. Principles and precepts shape the way we view the world around us. The lens we look through will determine how we perceive all that we see. If the prescription isn’t correct, order nothing will be clearly in focus.
Have you thought about which lens you are looking through? For years, we did not actively think about it ourselves.
Click here to read the full article
Christian men and women in the dating world are met with so much wrong thinking in their relationships. It’s my hope to help you identify certain destructive lies in your thinking before it is too late.
LIE #1: She’s flirting with me because she thinks I’m great.
LIE #3: Her lack of faith won’t pull me down.
LIE #5: If she knew who I really am, ask she wouldn’t want me.
LIE #7:Â When I marry her, hair
my lust problem will be solved.
LIE #9: Her past is her past—I don’t need to know.
Visit Crosswalk to read the all nine lies.
Do you agree with these? Are there others that you would add?
Sitting across the table from my beautiful friend in the quaint coffee shop, prescription
my worry mounted. She was sharing details about her new whirlwind relationship that had begun a couple months earlier.
“I finally met that guy I’ve been talking to on the Internet. After calling and text messaging constantly for the last two months, medicine
we decided to take it the next level—so we met half way last weekend. It was amazing. He’s perfect for me! He is so kind, smart, funny, dynamic … he is too good to be true!â€
Exactly! I thought to myself.
LIE #2:Â If it feels right, it is right.
LIE #3: I can overlook a few character problems (a.k.a. red flags)—no one is perfect.
LIE #4:Â I really know him after spending so much time talking to him.
LIE #6:Â Coincidences are a sign from God.
LIE #7: It’s normal for him to pressure me for sex. That’s just how men are.
LIE #9:Â When I find a man and get married, I will finally feel happy and complete.
Read more about these and the other lies here (full article).
It would be very interesting to hear from both our brothers and sisters in Christ. Do you agree with these? Are there others that you would add?
Authentic Christian Living team
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The world is full of lonely people, and somewhere along the line, many women have bought into the idea that ‘if I just find the right man, everything will be wonderful’. Women are inundated with unrealistic expectations of what a good mate ‘looks like’. Turn on the television, watch a movie, read a romance novel…men like these do not exist, and when they appear to exist, it is usually a good ‘con job’ to get the goods.
Sadly, the church has done a poor job of teaching young women what a Godly man looks like. Some churches discourage any relationship outside the church so the pickin’s can be slim and very destructive that way as well. Women need to know that MARRIAGE…even with a wonderful person, is difficult. COMMITMENT, as God requires in marriage, is EVEN MORE DIFFICULT.
The problem here is not the man (even though he is problematic as a mate), the problem here is how the woman is perceiving relationships. Counsel her well, but know that such counsel often falls on deaf ears and sometimes even costs a friendship.
When we are completely at peace and content in our relationship with God, and in the company of ourselves, we may have something to GIVE a relationship…sans that, we are all damaged goods someone else is going to have to deal with down the road.
How I wish I would have had friends that were open enough to tell me the truth about the lies I believed in my younger years.
I was not married until 45 years old, and participated in a lot of singles’ departments in a lot of churches. My experience is that the church and singles’ leaders do not emphasize relationship building the way they should. They either emphasize seeing the opposite sex as a “potential” or they teach that if you’re not married by the age of 30, you have the “gift of singleness”. I was lucky in that I had married friends who taught that in order to be a good wife, I would have to learn to be a good wife. I was also taught that it is OK to make a list of what I wanted in a mate. I made my list, of 22 characteristics, and decided which were “negotiable” and which were “non-negotiable”. Incidentally, I was ridiculed by the church leaders.
Next, I looked at what that man deserved in a wife, and worked to become that woman; the woman I believe God created me to be. As I grew, I attracted a different kind of man; one that met my qualifications. I am now married to a man who meets 17 of my 22 qualifications.
I would also like to say that in my experience, the church is doing a disservice to older single adults in that most of the ministers hired to work with this group are either more interested in the younger singles (fresh out of college) or just looking for a stepping stone to a “more important” position within the church. Very few seem to understand that single adults are just that…adults who are not married. They are adults who have been rejected by everyone they have ever been close to, whether they are never married or divorced. They are adults who have responsible jobs (one of my best friends is a project manager for a major corporation; another is a CPA for a major corporation), they run homes (especially the single parents), they have the same issues as married adults…they just don’t have a partner with whom to share anything. This does not serve them, nor does it help them to grow in Christ or into complete adults.
Teach single adults, both women and men, to have relationships. Teach them that it is OK to decide what they want, and what they are and are not willing to compromise on. Teach them that the most important thing is to see themselves as God sees them…a beautiful, valuable, wonderful creation of a Master Craftsman. Once they (both men and women) give themselves value, they will be able to choose wisely.