QUESTION TO SANCTIFIED PEOPLE:

I have been dating this man for sometime now. He is a church goer. He is now asking for sex and says that I am boring and that he thinks he should just find someone else he can sleep with. He also says I should move out of my parent's house and live on my own. I am afraid of breaking up with him because I am in my early thirties and time is running out for me.

ANSWER:

Let's condense this question to what's worrying you.

"I am afraid of breaking up with him because I am in my early thirties and time is running out for me."

That's the problem. You're in a relationship that doesn't please God nor give Him glory because you feel that you're not getting any younger and you're still single. You have a spirit of fear, desperation, and a spirit of deceit that's lying to you and whispering to you things that are not true.

I will tell you the truth that I myself came to know and had to repent for idolising marriage. This is the truth:

The best state to be in, even bibilically, IS TO BE SINGLE.

When God calls you into marriage, that becomes another "state" that God has called you into and you should pray about it and enter into it in holiness and purity.

Ask yourself, why do you want to get married?

Your answer will almost always boil down to culture or societal expectations. Are these cultural and societal things of God? The desperation to get married is not pleasing before God. It becomes something you want so badly so that you feel better. That is described as a lust. God did not create you empty so that only a man fills up your voids. Only God can fill up the voids in your heart and soul.

This is the truth about marriage: God allows you to get married/ calls you into marriage when you have come to a place in your life whereby this significant other will be an important component to the assignment and purpose that God created you for. Sometimes, believe it or not, God prefers some of the things He has for you to do, for you to do them while single.

For as long as God has not provided you a spouse, this is what you're to do in your single state:

"He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord—how he may please the Lord..." 1 Corinthians 7:32

"But as God has distributed to each one, as the Lord has called each one, so let him walk..." 1 Corinthians 7:17

God has distributed to you singlehood for now. That is infact a gift from Him. There is nothing wrong with being single. Infact the Apostle Paul said it's the best state to be in because he was free of hindrances and cares of this world and one serves God better while single.

In your single state, this should be how you walk: You should give deep concern to the things of God and how your walk and purpose and assignment can please God. How does your walk please God in your singlehood? Start establishing your prayer life and intimacy with God, start doing deliverance, stop willful sins, get into fasting, start preaching the word of God and win souls to Christ, start praying for others, and for starters BREAK UP WITH THAT MAN. Get away from him and break all unGodly soul ties you have with him. He is not adding any value in your life and he's not your God ordained husband. Spouses ordained by God do not come via a spirit of fornication.

There're these very important aspects to consider also;

I highly recommend doing deliverance from the spirits of sexual perversion and other spirits binding you because you have to know this:

You may be withholding your season and calling to marriage by not walking according to God's commands. The top most spirits that withhold people from getting married and also destroy marriages are spirits of sexual perversion and also ungoldly soul ties. Of course also, treating a marriage and a man like idols can withhold you. God should take first place in your life. Whatever it is that may be withholding you, you can get deliverance and be set free from it.

In the end when you think about marriage, you will want to enter into it with a God ordained husband that God will have provided you with. If you pray for God to provide you with a husband, it will not be out of fear or desperation, but out of a Godly desire to enter into marriage for His glory. You do not need to date to get into marriage, but to court.

Remember, getting closer to God isn't for the purpose that we get whatever we want, fleece Him and treat Him like a "giving machine". We draw close to Him because He is Sovereign, He is God, He is Holy, He is worthy to receive praise and to be worshipped.

As for moving out of your parent's house, I recommend that you do move out. It will be good for you. Do it wisely. Its not to get an apartment so that this foolish man will make it his new second home.

*Not all questions asked are published to this page. Privacy is maintained. Questions published on permission for the edification of the Body of Christ.*

THE TURTLEDOVES GIVERS

It amazes me  how God loves to use juxtapose. Placing two ideas or situations together to create a contrasting effect. He hides and covers His most precious things. Sometimes, you may look at a person and think that he/she is in the worst of positions in life but because this person is very prayerful, God is actually in control of the  person's situation, working something beautiful. In my life, I have come to see and know that God uses humility type of situations and people. Those who choose to humble themselves before God, those who choose to be covered and hidden by God. Seeking fame is vain. 

I always picture the Israelites waiting for their Messiah in those days when Jesus was born. They thought He would be great, a powerful ruler, an earthly king. But there was another type of people waiting for the Saviour, the true Messiah. People like Simeon and Anna. Simple people, both old, hidden in God, Spirit filled. They recognised that the child that Mary and Joseph were coming to present was the Christ, the Saviour of the world.

I think about how people in churches usually say, "It's the people with money that always get recognised. It's the people with wealth that get the front row seats in church". Well, that's usually true. Having been literally born and raised in church, this is the case most of the time. It's sometimes a weak point on the part of the preachers to align themselves with those who have wealth, influence and power not knowing that within the congregation, there is a meek and powerful evangelist, teacher, prophet or minister of the word of God. I knew a man who was a prophet within the congregation of a church I used to go to. This man told me of a prophesy about that church and the prophecy came to pass word for word. I was amazed. I wondered how many such people were within the congregation? All I know is that people avoided this person like the plague because he was so lowly, it literally hurt :-) He was a powerful deliverance minister and I pray and hope he is continuing in his assignment in God.

Jesus's parents were the turtledove givers. Lowly with a humble income and a humble offering. They walked through the streets of Bethlehem, Mary carrying their swaddled one and a half month old little bundle of joy, Joseph carrying the turtledoves and the pigeons. Nobody stopped to salute them, nobody asked to see the baby, no one gifted them. The people didn't know. Joseph and Mary made their way past the traders displaying their wares, the throngs of people going about their daily activities. Joseph put a protective arm around his wife because some people didn't seem to notice she was carrying a little newborn. When they reached the temple, Mary almost sighed in relief. The temple was alive with its usual activities. Pharisees, Sadducees and Levite priests here and there, young Hebrew boys rushing to class to study the Law of Moses; the boys would soon be part of the elite among the Israelites.

Mary and Joseph knew where the priest's table for handling purification after childbirth was. They started making their way towards the table. As they approached, the priest at the table cast a glance at them and their turtldoves offering and he quickly engrossed himself in the big old books before him, copying in entries of the couples who had come in that day to give their purification offerings. Suddenly, Joseph thought Mary had stumbled, he instinctively gripped her arm. It wasn't a stumble, it was old prophet Simeon who had startled her. Old Simeon was always old Simeon. As far as Mary could remember, he had always been old. Mary and Joseph smiled, Simeon was a gentle, happy soul. He greeted them quickly and asked to hold the baby. He lifted up the baby who was now waking from his sleep almost wondering why he was being lifted up in the air.

“Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, According to Your word; For my eyes have seen Your salvation...", (Luke 2:28-32) Simeon said, hearty joyful tears welling up in his eyes.

He continued speaking words of prophecies about the baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph were amazed. Simeon was known to always speak of profound things that nobody would understand sometimes, but his words at that moment led by the Spirit of God, touched the very soul of Joseph and Mary because they were the very words that God had been daily impressing on the couple since the conception of the baby.

A while later the widow prophetess Anna came rushing in with joy, as fast as her old age could allow her. She started thanking God and praising God, "Berachah! Berachah!", she said joyfully. She spoke of the redemption that Jesus would bring not just in Israel but to all mankind. The Levite at the purification registry table watched all these in amazement, "Who are these turtledoves givers that they should be given much attention? I have taken in healthy lambs for offering today. Who is the baby they are carrying? Who is Jesus? What are those two old prophets talking about?"

He didn't know that what Mary and Joseph had was of more worth than a whole bullock; they were carrying his Saviour, the Saviour of the world, the Lamb of God.

Are you a turtledoves and pigeons giver? Is your life lowly and meek? God loves to work with such. Throughout the bible we see God esteemed the gifts in the hearts of the people He used. Those who felt that they didn't have much to offer, those who felt little, insignificant, poor, rejected, abased, abandoned. God loves to use such souls. So lowly that when Gideon was called a mighty man of valour and that he would be used to save Israel from the Midianites, he refused and asked,

"O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” Judges 6:15.

The lowly shepherds that kept the flock by night were the ones who received the good news from the host of angels singing beautiful songs about the birth of Jesus. David was a lowly shepherd when he was anointed king of Israel, Joseph was a prisoner when he was appointed prime minister, Ruth was a widow a foreigner in Israel when she was recognised by Boaz, Esther was an orphan when she was crowned queen, Timothy was just but a young zealous youth when the elders laid hands on him and blessed him to do ministry, it was Jephthah that was cast out for being the son of a harlot but was later sought after,  it was the little slave girl that told Naaman that there was a prophet in Israel who could lead him into healing.

God uses the empty hearts ready to be filled with His Spirit. God uses the crushed, desolate, meek, poor and the hidden. He places us in such hidden meek positions so that we can cast our crowns and let Him use us. There is no place for a pompous, boisterous, bells and whistles, prideful heart. We should not glory not in our fleshly strength but in His awesome infinite strength. There won't be a time when your soul won't pant after His living water. There won't be a time when you'll feel that you do not need God. There won't be a time when you'll forget it's all about Him.

Do you have a small gift in your hands to offer?, give it still. But God is looking at the gift in your heart that through Him, you have to offer to the world. Do not worry about your turtledoves and pigeons lowly, meek life. Humility allows God to use you.

What do you have in your hands?

•A little oil; 1 Kings 4:2

•Only a handful of flour and a little oil; 2 King's 17:12

•A rod; Exodus 4:2

•Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ...; Acts 3:6

•two little copper coins; Luke 21:2

God is waiting to hear from you in prayer and in worship, despite how you feel, He wants to use you.

"The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of the birds is come, and the voice of the turtledoves is heard in our land...Arise, my love, my fair one and come away...O my dove in the cleft of the rock, in the hiding (secret) places of the stairs, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is comely." Song of Solomon 2:12-14.