By the special grace of God I am dedicating this write up to women all over the world, who desire or are yet to marry. I pray that the Lord will lead you to the right man who will treat you as a queen for the rest of your days on earth. As a woman God created you to be a blessing to your spouse, your children, community and the world at large. You need to be proud of yourself, believe in yourself and trust God for the best in life knowing that no matter how bad life may have treated you or is treating you, the best is still ahead.

If you are praying to God for the right man for marriage, the first question that should come to your mind is how willing am I in accepting the authority of the man I want to live with for the rest of my life, and the second question, is he of the same faith with me?

Beloved, all that God wants from you is to follow His plans (Jeremiah 29:11). I guess your next question is what if the man is abusive or he does not know his role as a man or husband, what then? Well my answer to that question is that your focus should not be in the “LORD WHAT IF” rather it should be “LORD WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO IN THIS MATTER.” It’s like growing up and hearing that maths is the hardest subject, yet some people take it as their easiest subject (my class mate POE for example). I can tell you that it is all about your mind set. If you will allow what God says determine the course of your life, I tell you that you will never go wrong. The Holy Spirit will teach you all things (John 14:26). My dear if you are not yet married, just kneel down and thank God for He wants you to learn the basics of marriage before marrying. Like my Pastor would say, “marriage is a circle that many want to enter and many inside want to go out or are going out.” Many women are living in fear; fear of what happened to their mother not to repeat in their own lives, and so many other reasons. Well there are pointers or signs when you are in the period of dating (knowing yourselves). A man can hide who he is but cannot hide his attitude towards you the woman or matters of life. I believe so much that God has given women this thing called “perception,” that is knowing men beyond face value.

For example you meet a young man and everything about him is perfect yet inside you, you hear the warning bell sounding so hard that there’s something wrong about him you cannot pin point. The man is there at your beck and call, opening the car door for you, buying flowers and gifts for you, he’s in church on time, prays and speaks in tongue, never harassed you or asked for sex yet the alarm bell keeps going off. My dear sister, you must be careful. You may be persuaded by friends and relatives to go ahead and marry him but I believe that is God’s way of stopping you from a failed marriage in the future. You need to trust God for He has your best interest in His heart and He shall order your footsteps. Please tread with caution, for there is a way that seems right in a man’s way yet it leads to destruction (Proverbs 16:25; Psalm 37:23). I would suggest that you tell your pastor to agree with you in prayer, you go and pray for confirmation, and when you cannot get a confirmation just meet him and say a polite “NO” that the marriage is not going to work out.

You may be asking what if in the case you have prayed and you feel convinced beyond reasonable doubt yet your heart is still shaky about the whole relationship what next? Sometimes you may not like the height of the man or his colour or tribe or he may not be that handsome as you like your man to be. Moses was a man who never wanted to go back to Egypt when God called him. He gave several excuses yet God gave him assurance in all (Exodus chapter 3 & 4). Matthew 7: 9 – 11 says, “You parents if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him.” One of the major ways to know if it is God’s will for you is by God giving you peace of mind (Philippians 4:7). When you have peace of mind and the devil is trying to trick you by reminding you what had happened to Mrs A or Mrs B, he (Satan) may try to pressurise you to quit the relationship, my suggestion is tell the Lord to give you peace of mind amidst the voice of the devil, and rebuke the devil. Though the Lord may lead you on a long route to get to your destination, He will never lead you wrong. You can be sure to depend on God in the midst of confusion and pressure (Psalm 37:23). There is no perfect man only God is perfect and is incapable of making mistakes. The first question is how willing are you as a woman who desires to marry, ready to accept the authority of a man because of God? Answer this question and I tell you, you will never be afraid of men.

NOTE: (2 Corinthians 6: 14 – 18) Please bear in mind that the young man “must” be of the same faith (Christian) and beliefs with you and “if” he does not have the same Christian “beliefs” with you please meet with your pastor for a spiritual advice. I believe that it is better you have the same beliefs even though he says he’s a Christian.

There are so many potentials in the lives of men that can be used by God yet God does not expect any good thing to come out of a man’s life that He has not refined. Those that God used and still uses to transform their generations to bring glory to Himself had to be refined by Him. If you see any man God decides to use to bring glory to Himself, the man has to go through purging and this process is not a process anyone would love to go through but it is God’s own way so as to forge such a man to the kind of instrument specified for a particular purpose. So many of us are eager to be used by God but how many are prepared to be refined? Power if not managed they say, is corrupt; and absolute power corrupts absolutely when not managed. This is why you see some of our young stars who are age 16 – 29 exposed to the front of cameras and are earning large sums of money in their career misbehave a lot, are stubborn, arrogant, and have no respect for their elders or to God.

This is why as Christians we need to allow God to prune us (John 15) to enable us grow more, grow better and bear fruits continuously. Beloved, this pruning process is a period of pain and this pain can come in form of disappointments, persecution from your department head or even the pastor (1 Samuel 19:1), lack of money, friends betraying and denying you (Luke 22: 47 – 62), sickness of which some will say it is because of your sin which is not (John 9:3), and many more. Are you able to stay in the same church and the pastor is using you as an everyday sermon without you getting offended rather you learn and ask God to help perfect your life? Are you still able to relate with false brethren in the church with the intention to see them repent rather than to see them destroyed by the enemy? Can you be able to go through all these without praying against those who have hurt, betrayed or lied against you instead you pray for them like Stephen did, “Lord don’t charge them with this sin” (Acts 7: 59 – 60). Those that God is preparing for effective service, He takes them out of the crowd (Matthew 5:12) and sits upon them for refining. The more God wants to do something in your life He concentrates on you just as goldsmith and blacksmith does to their products. Now a goldsmith sits down for hours to make one little ear-ring and his instruments are sharp little tools to be able to pick out sands and chemicals for washing off layers of dirt on it to bring out the real gold to its full shinning state.

What is God’s concentration all about?

Separation from the Crowd: A call out of the crowd is for a divine concentration and appointment. (Luke 5: 15 – 16; Galatians 1: 15 – 18; Luke 4: 1). Divine concentration is needed for you to become a vessel or an instrument in the hand of God. No man takes this honour to himself but receives it when called by God, just as Aaron was (Hebrews 5:4). This is why God have decided to take out from the crowd to mould you in the shape He (God) desires. Anyone who moves with the crowd cannot achieve much because such person can never stand out. Dr Seuss gave a quote which I love so much and it goes like this: Why fit in when you were born to stand out. Separation from the crowd is what releases the glory that is embedded in you that will prepare you for the use of what you are called to be and do on earth.

Intimate Fellowship: As the deer pants for water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirst for God, for the living God when shall I come and appear before God (Psalm 42: 1 – 2). The Apostle Paul’s word in Philippians 3:10 shows a man whose desire is to know the Lord the more, this made him stand out. As God takes out a man from the crowd, He wants to bring the man to fellowship intimately with him for it is through the intimacy God spends time with such a person and makes him to have knowledge more than others. Paul’s order of the day is do the will of the Master and this requires consistent fellowship with the Lord. How many hours a day do you give God? Are you too busy that you give one excuse or the other, we are told to study and meditate on the Word of God “day and night” (twice a day) not just once a day or two, or once a week. As we study and meditate on God’s Word we can then be sure to obey it and also have “good” success (Joshua 1:8 NLT Version).

Divine Revelation: Intimate relationship with the Lord brings about divine revelation (Psalm 119: 18) that makes you strong in faith, grounded in God’s Word, and fully equipped for the work ahead. The time God concentrates on you, His teachings which is His Word becomes real instrument He uses on you to sharpen and make you useful. The Word of God transforms a man before he can transform others (Romans 12: 2).

Exposure: God will first expose you to Himself before He exposes you to the world (Exodus 3; Acts 13: 22). This is to make you possess spiritual authority and to be fully prepared for the leadership role in the body of Christ. When God takes you into confidence, He exposes you to suffering so as to experience the mystery of Christ’s Passion, and to cooperate in the redemption of mankind (2 Corinthians 11: 22 – 33; 12: 8 – 10). God also exposes the person to lack so that you can look up to Him and Him alone so that when you have breakthrough you can no longer have lack again. All these are the process you may go through for God to bring you out to the particular instrument He wants you to be.

I charge you today that as you go through the furnace of God, that you will come out better than you were before and will become more useful in the hands of the Almighty God, Amen!

Please find time to go through these Chapters in the Bible, 1 Samuel from chapter 18 to chapter 27.

One of the most amazing things about God to me is the fact that He created us with the “FREE WILL” to choose to accept Him. Now I know the huge theological discussion that exists between Calvinism and Arminianism over the attempt to explain the relationship between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in the matter of salvation. But please don’t get distracted by that rather I want you to think about how God allows us to live and choose to follow or reject Him. God our maker does not need us to make Himself complete nor was He lonely, but He chose to create us and allowed us to live freely in our own thoughts and mind. I believe that this characteristic of God shows how blessed we are and this should make our attitude towards Him to be positive and always wanting to please Him. Every truth that is revealed to us in God’s Word is there not only for our information but also for our inspiration. All scripture has been given to us by the inspiration of God, not to gratify an idle curiosity but to edify our souls and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that we may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Timothy 3:16 emphasis mine).

The sovereignty of God is something more than an abstract principle which explains the principle of the God’s government: it is made known to us for the promotion of righteous living, and it is revealed in order to bring into subjection our rebellious hearts. A true recognition of God’s sovereignty humbles us as nothing else does or can, and brings our heart into lowly submission before God, causing us to relinquish our own self-will and making us delight in His direction and performance of His Divine will.

What then should be our attitude toward God? Reverence for God and complete obedience to God are two vital keys.

1. Reverence For God: (Luke 12:5; Proverbs 16:6) Today, many of us are so utterly unconcerned about spiritual and eternal things. They are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God? Why is it that the authority of the Scriptures has been lowered so sadly of late? Why is it that even among Christians there is so little real subjection to God’s Word, and His principles are so lightly esteemed and so readily set aside? Because many want to act religious and still be identified with their unbelieving friends who have refused to have anything to do with Jesus. Remember that each one of us will one day stand before the Almighty and give account of our lives; how we used the authority, power, gifts, resources, grace, mercy, etc, given to us. What then will be your excuse? I pray that the Lord will give you the boldness to stand on the Word of God, live according to and by it daily in Jesus name, Amen!

2. Complete Obedience: (Deuteronomy 28:1; James 1:22) Naturally, man is filled with a sense of his own importance, with his greatness and self-sufficiency; in a word, with pride and rebellion. Man will glory either in himself or in God. Man will live either to serve and please himself, or he will seek to serve and please the Lord. None can serve two masters. Irreverence (having no fear of God) begets disobedience. And Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord; neither will I let Israel go” (Ex. 5:2). To Pharaoh, the God of the Hebrews was merely a god, one among many, a powerless entity who needed not to be feared or served. How sadly mistaken he was, and how bitterly he had to pay for his mistake, he soon discovered; but what we are here seeking to emphasize is that, Pharaoh’s defiant spirit was the fruit of irreverence, and this irreverence was the consequence of his ignorance of the majesty and authority of God.

Now if irreverence begets disobedience, true reverence will produce and promote obedience. To realize that the Scripture is a revelation from God (2 Timothy 3:16), communicating to us His mind and defining for us His will, it is the first step toward practical godliness. To recognize that the Bible is God’s Word, and that its precepts are the principles of the Almighty, will lead us to see what an awful thing it is to despise and ignore them. To receive the Bible as addressed to our own souls, given to us by the Creator Himself, will cause us to cry with the Psalmist, “Order my steps in Thy Word” (Ps. 119: 133). It will no longer be a matter of picking and choosing or selecting from God’s Word which meet with our approval; but it will be seen that nothing less than an unqualified and whole-hearted submission to God’s Word becoming our life styles.

When we reverence and obey God consistently then we can be able to pray like Jesus prayed; “Father, if thou be willing remove this cup from me. Nevertheless not my will but thine be done” (Luke 22:42).

Excerpts from The Sovereignty of God (chpt 10) by Arthur W. Pink