This day i will be speaking on the topic: Wisdom for Singles. As i was thinking about this message, what came to my mind was, if the topic is wisdom for the singles, then the married people can excuse themselves from this teaching but the Lord took me to Matthew 19:1-6
“And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judaea beyond Jordan;
2 And great multitudes followed him; and he healed them there.
3 The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder”.
Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? That was the question, and now we need to understand some basic things about this question,
In the old testament there is a place in malachi that God said i hate divorce, so that tells us that if there’s anything God hates it is divorce.
Between Malachi and Matthew, there was a 400 years silence according to historians, then we launched into the book of Matthew, by the time we started the book of Matthew, the issue of divorce has become a national or global concern.
At the time divorce had become so rampant, people just wanted to get divorced for lots of flimsy reasons, so the people wanted to get Christ’s opinion regarding this issue of divorce, but when Jesus answered them, He did not address the issue of divorce.
Jesus looked at their question and said your focus is on the product, but I want you to take a step back and look at the ingredient. So Jesus told them while divorce is what you’re asking about, I will speak on the root cause of the problem then He told them: in V 4″ for this purpose shall a man leave his mother and father and be joined with to wife.
So Christ was saying that the issue of divorce is not something that is coming from marriage but is coming from the singleness.
The man that Jesus was talking about here was not the man in Genesis 2 and 3 , He was talking to the man that was in Genesis 1 and 2, that is, Adam
Therefore brethren even if you are married there is still something about singleness that you are going to learn today, and I believe that as you read on, and you get to understand what singleness means, the Lord is going to do great things in your life in Jesus name.
There is a thing about about singleness that we are going to address today and I pray that as we do this, the Lord will bless you and increase you in Jesus name.
Singleness doesn’t mean that you are not married, in fact, the quality of your marriage is determined by the quality of your singleness, you don’t try to escape singleness by embracing marriage.
That is not the answer, cause your singleness is what determines your marriage.
There is something about the life of a man that God wants us to understand. One of the major problem in life today is the problem of relation. Relationship is actually one of the greatest problems in the World today
You see countries fighting countries, it’s all about relationship and that is why God wants us to address the issue of relationship. So the relationship we have always had can be in two ways:
There is an inter – relationship which is the relationship with you and another person, but importantly there is also another kind of relationship, and that is intra-relationship which i want us to focus on today.
If your intra- relationship is strong, your inter-relationship will be taken care of, and that is why I’m trusting that today even if you’re married, the Lord God will deliver into your hands keys that will help you to recover your singleness
I pray this because singleness is very important even when you get married, because what marriage does usually is to multiply your singleness, if your singleness has been flawed, when you enter into marriage, it will multiply it.
If your singleness has been what God designed it to be, and we are going to look at what designed it to be), when you enter into marriage it’s going to manifest.
So the Bible tells us that God created Adam and there’s something about God, and that is called the principle of purpose and priority.
Anything that God considers as fundamental, God prioritizes it, and puts it first, that is the reason why God did not create Adam and Eve as a married couple, God felt it was important for Him to create Adam first, because the singleness of Adam is what is going to determine his marriage.
So God created Adam as a single man and the Bible tells us that Adam was just going about the good business of God, meanwhile it was not Adam that was craving for a wife, it was God who looked at Adam and said it is not good for man to be alone.
Now there is a difference between someone been alone and someone been single.
They are two different things, Adam did not have any problem been single because Adam was given to the work of God, but God looked at Adam and said it is not good for a man to be alone, the Word “alone” is translated from the Word separate, exclusive etc, so what God was saying in Genesis was that I want to create somebody that is of like-fashion like Adam I don’t want someone that Adam cannot relate with.
The Bible said that God created a woman, that is, a man that has a womb, that is why when Eve showed up, Adam looked at Eve and said this is someone I can relate with, unlike other creatures, that were animals, so Adam was excited
The “alone” that God was talking about here was not alone of been single it was alone of having somebody in your own similitude and that is why God wants us to look at the Word- single today in a different way.
The World has attempted to explain singleness to us.
I came across a data a week ago, and discovered that many who are single often deny been single because they believe there’s a stigma attached to singleness, so when people ask them if they are single, they bypass the question, and that speaks to the heart of the problem.
May I tell you today that there’s every reason to celebrate your singleness, the quality of your singleness is a prerequisite for you to have a lasting marriage.
I discovered that there are some countries that preclude singles from some privileges in their country because they believe married people have more responsibilities than singles.
So there’s majorly a stigma around singleness, I pray that this morning God will help us to deflate this stigma, because this is not the intention of God for our lives.
So we will be considering how singleness affects our marriage, you are going to learn that even if you are married,
God wants you to recover your singleness. Paul was writing in Corinthians 7
“He said for those who are unmarried and widowed I wish that you remain”
In essence I’m saying that there’s a lot of things God is about to do in your life now that you’re single that will be important for you when you get married, remember I said the fundamental of a successful marriage is singleness, that is why God started with a single couple not married
The challenges of been single and how you can navigate
First you must understand that been single is not a curse, but loneliness is a major hurdle, although there are many who are married but are still lonely
Another challenge is societal expectation, this factor can be really brutal. For example, people assume that you do things the way you do, because you are single, people think you are unhappy when you do things.
Another lady once called herself Matured Single but someone then called her Miserably Single.
These are issues that put lot of singles under pressure. Often times people tend to make singles feel miserable because they are not married
Solution:
Truly pressure mounts, so you must
1. Get Involved with God
2. Get involved in activities that are worthwhile
2. Develop yourself, in character, career etc
3. Read books
4. Let God be your all and all
5. Get accountability partners whom you report to
6. Get encouragements from people around.
