In step

[RiverOL]

My Enemy, Satan
Dear Friend,

This world is not a playground; it is a battleground! The Christian life is a life of warfare. We have a terrible enemy who wants to destroy us. That enemy is Satan!

Christians are called to be “good soldiers” of the Lord Jesus Christ, and “to war a good warfare.” The reason why the Christian life is a warfare is that we have a terrible enemy who wants to destroy us. That enemy is Satan.

Satan was originally created as an angel named Lucifer, but he rebelled against God. A third of the angels in Heaven followed Satan in his rebellion against God. Satan and his fallen angels are spirit-beings. We cannot see them, but they are very real enemies of every child of God.

When God created the world, He put Adam in charge. But when Adam rebelled against God, he took sides with Satan and came under his rule. It is a terrible thing to think that the first man chose rebellion and sin and death. What did it mean? It was a great victory for Satan. The Bible says,

“…the whole world lies in wickedness [under the rule of the wicked one]” (1 John 5:19).

Why Christ came.
The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to destroy the works of the devil. The Bible says,

“For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).

For thousands of years, until Christ came, sin and death and Satan reigned in the world. Death meant that Satan had the victory. But one Man went into the prison house of death, and rose up out of it in triumph. The Bible says,

“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).

God is at last victorious!
There is a Man who has gotten the victory for God. The Man Christ Jesus destroyed the power of Satan and rose in resurrection victory. He went back to Heaven as the mighty Victor over sin, death, and Satan.

Christ was exalted.

When God’s Son went home to glory, the Father gave Him the place of greatest honor and power. The Man Jesus Christ is now seated on the very throne of Heaven. The Bible says,

“…He [God] raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come” (Ephesians 1:20-21).

The Man Jesus Christ is now seated at the right hand of God. Neither Satan, nor his fallen angels, can ever dispute the fact that they are Christ’s captives.

Satan is a terrible enemy.

Though Satan has been defeated and condemned to the lake of fire, the sentence has not yet been carried out. For now, Satan is a terrible enemy, and he has great power.

Because he knows that his time is short, Satan is filled with wrath. The Bible says,

“Be sober, be vigilant [watchful]; because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

Satan is “the father of lies.”
All lies have their source in Satan. Satan’s objective is to destroy people. He knows that his eternal destiny is the lake of fire, but he wants to take as many people as possible with him.

Satan destroys people by deceiving them. To deceive someone is to cause them to believe a lie. Jesus said of Satan,

“…He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44).

God hates lies! In His Word God lists seven things that are an abomination to Him. Two of them are “a lying tongue” and “a false witness who speaks lies.” (See Proverbs 6:17-19.)

God is the “God of truth.”
Truth is that which may be known of God and of His will. It is the setting forth and expression of what God is like. People have many wrong ideas about God, put in their minds by Satan. Jesus came to tell us and show us what God is like.

God is the “God of truth.” God cannot lie. The Son said, “I am the truth” (John 14:6). The Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of truth” who “guides us into all truth” (John 16:13). The Bible is “the Word of truth.”

The word “truth” is mentioned ninety times in the Old Testament and one hundred seven times in the New Testament. Jesus said,

“…the scriptures cannot be broken” (John 10:35).

The truth of the Bible is set forth in understandable statements called Christian doctrine. God is very concerned that we hold to the true doctrines of the Bible. The one thing that is emphasized more than any other in the New Testament is warning against false doctrine. It is emphasized more than love, unity, or experience. Since God inspired the Scriptures, this shows that true doctrine is of paramount importance to God.

Concerning His disciples, Jesus prayed to His Father,

“Sanctify them [set them apart] through your truth: Your word is truth” (John 17:17).

The Bible is our unfailing guide on all matters of doctrine and practice. The Bible says, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because they have no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). Jesus said, “…the scriptures cannot be broken” (John 10:35).

The battle for the minds of men.
The battle of the ages between God and Satan comes down to a battle for the minds and hearts of people. It is a battle between God’s truth and Satan’s lies.

The Bible calls Satan “the god of this world” because he is the unseen ruler of his world-system. Satan is the one who ultimately controls business, education, entertainment, sports, religion, the news media and countless other things. Satan uses his world system to propagate his lies. Let us consider some of them.

The theory of evolution teaches that all life evolved upward from a single cell billions of years ago.

This is one of the biggest lies that Satan has ever invented to deceive the human race. This unproved theory leaves God out and is almost universally taught as fact in schools and universities.

The truth is that man is not evolving upward, but going downward, deeper and deeper into sin. The reason for this is that man did not want to retain God in his knowledge. Romans, chapter one, gives us the true account of man’s history. The Bible says,

“Because that, when they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, neither were thankful…Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools…Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator…For this cause God gave them up to vile affections…” (Romans 1:21-22, 25-26).

Regarding moral values, Satan says everything is relative. Do what feels right to you. If you don’t think it is sin, it’s not sin to you. Don’t let other people put a guilt-trip on you.

The statement, “There are NO moral absolutes” contradicts itself. It is an absolute statement which says there are no absolutes!

God is a moral Being. He created man in His own image as a moral being. He has revealed His moral absolutes to us in His Word.

Every commandment of God is an expression of His love for us to keep us from making mistakes which can have lifetime consequences. This wonderful God desires a personal relationship with you. If you want proof of His love for you, look at His Son dying on the cross.

Satan’s lie to Eve was, “You don’t have to live by what God said. When you eat the forbidden fruit, you will be as gods. Then you can make your own decisions about what is right and what is wrong for you.”

Satan’s tactics have not changed. His lie to us today is: “There is no truth greater than you. You can make your own decision about what is right and what is wrong for you. When you believe something, that makes it true for you.”

Believing a lie does not make it true. In His Word, God has revealed His truth. Our salvation depends on our believing God’s truth. The Bible says,

“…God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:13).

There is only one true and living God, and the only way we as sinful creatures can approach Him is through His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus said,

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no one comes to the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6).

Peter said,

“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

It was not a spirit that died on the cross for us, and it was not a spirit that rose from the dead. Jesus appeared to His disciples and said, “Behold My hands and feet, that it is I myself: handle Me and see: for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see Me have” (Luke 24:39). Jesus sat down and ate fish and honey with them.

Christ’s resurrection proves that He is who He said He was. The Bible says,

“[Jesus Christ was] declared to be the Son of God with power…by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4).

The Bible makes it quite clear that death is not the end of a person’s existence. Every person will live forever in either Heaven or hell. The Bible says,

“It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

An atheist was on his death-bed. His friends tried to cheer him up by telling him that he did not have to be afraid of death. He said, “It is not death that I am afraid of; it is resurrection!”

Jesus said plainly that He is God. He said, “I and My Father are one,” and “He who has Me has seen the Father” (John 10:30, 14:9). Three times the Jews took up stones to kill Him. They said,

“For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, because You, being a man, make yourself God” (John 10:33).

Do not be deceived!

We live in an age of great deception. Satan has many deceivers in the world doing his work. The Lord Jesus said, “Take heed that you be not deceived…” (Luke 21:8). The question we have to ask ourselves is this: Am I going to believe this person’s word or believe God’s truth?

Don’t let anyone deceive you with empty philosophy and high-sounding nonsense! The Bible says,

“They promise freedom while they themselves are slaves of sin…” (2 Peter 2:19).

God has spoken in His Word. Those who reject Jesus Christ and do not receive His words will be judged by God’s Word and consigned to the lake of fire. The Lord Jesus said,

“He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).

Picture a circle and let it represent your life and the circumstances God has arranged for you. Inside that circle that is yours, God has provided all that you really need.

Things are not perfect in your little “circle,” nor will they ever be in this life. We live in a world that is under the curse of sin. Therefore we will face many troubles and trials of our faith.

God has not promised us an easy time in this life, nor has He promised to give us everything we want. But He has promised to be with us always and to meet our needs. You can truly say, “God and what God provides for me is all I need.”

Satan is the great deceiver, and he will seek to put wrong thoughts into your mind. He will point to something outside your “circle,” and suggest to you, “You really need this. In fact, you cannot be happy unless you have it.” If you accept a wrong thought, it becomes a wrong belief, and wrong beliefs lead to wrong actions and wrong feelings.

“You must have the approval of your peers to feel good about yourself.”

Often, gaining the approval of your peers means compromising your beliefs and lowering your standards. If pleasing your friends means displeasing the Lord, choose to please Him. Christ is your Beloved—the One who loves you with all His heart.

“God has not given you the best.”

Resentment comes when you think what God has provided for you is not best. You may not understand your situation, but you must not be offended by what God does or does not do. What God has provided for you is best for you even though you may not understand it.

“You must have this person’s love. Without it, your life will be miserable.”

God has promised to meet all your needs. The fact that He has not provided you with that person’s love means that you do not really need it. It is not wrong to love someone and to be grieved when that person does not respond to your love. But you can truly say, “I don’t have to have that person’s love. God and what He provides for me is all I need.”

“You must do what this person wants you to do to keep from losing him.”

Every romantic relationship in which you are involved will one day come to an end—except for one. The only one that will last is the one that leads to marriage. If you give away your priceless virginity in one of those other relationships, you will regret it.

If it is God’s will for you to get married, He will bring the right one into your life. Until then, keep yourself for the right person, the one you marry, and the right time, your wedding night!

David's Courage
Israel’s army was facing their enemy, the Philistines. The camp of Israel was on one mountain and the camp of the Philistines was on another mountain. In between them was a valley.

One of the Philistine warriors was a giant named Goliath. He was over nine feet tall, and probably weighed at least 600 pounds. He also wore a lot of armor. He had a helmet of bronze to protect his head, and an armored coat to protect his chest. He even had armor to cover his legs.

Goliath strutted into the valley and yelled to the Israelites, “Send your best man to fight me. If he can kill me, we Philistines will be your slaves; but if I kill him, you must be our slaves!”

David, now seventeen years old, volunteered to fight Goliath. He took his shepherd’s staff and his slingshot and started toward Goliath. When Goliath saw David, he did not think David was worth fighting.

Then David said, “You come to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.”

Goliath had never seen such courage and faith in a man! David said,

“This day will the Lord deliver you into my hand; and I will smite you, and take your head from you…that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel…for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands” (1 Samuel 17:46-47).

When Goliath started lumbering toward him, David did something surprising. Trusting in his God, David ran right toward Goliath! Then he stopped, put his hand into his bag, and took out one stone. David put it in his sling and sent it flying toward Goliath.

The stone from David’s sling hit Goliath squarely in his forehead. It broke his skull. Goliath fell down on his face. So David defeated Goliath with his sling and one stone.

God gave David a mighty victory over the dreaded giant because David was trusting in his God and fighting for the honor of his God. David had no sword, so he ran and stood on the giant’s body. Then he took the giant’s sword and cut off his head.

When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they ran for their lives. The men of Israel gave a great shout of victory and started after them. They chased them, killing many. When they returned to the camp of the Philistines, they took all the gold, silver, and clothing as the spoils of their victory.

David took the head of Goliath and brought it to Jerusalem. In one moment David became Israel’s greatest hero. The nation of Israel had not defeated the Philistines in battle for a hundred years. Throughout his life, David trusted in the Lord and he never lost a battle.

 

[RiverOL]

Consecration
Dear Friend,

When God saved me, He put me in Christ on the cross. I died with Him, I was buried with Him, and I rose from the dead with Him as a new person in Christ.

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

The history of every Christian can be looked at as being in two volumes: “The Old Life in Adam” and “The New Life in Christ.”

Volume 1 of my life is “The Old Life in Adam.” This life began when I was born into Adam’s family. What is in Volume 1 of my life? The pages of this volume are filled with my sins and failures. There was nothing for God in this life. My old life in Adam ended in my death with Christ.

Volume 2 of my life is “The New Life in Christ.” This began when I was born again into Christ’s family. When Christ rose from the dead, I rose with Him as a new person in Christ. This is my new spiritual position. This is the way God sees me. I am “accepted in the Beloved.”

What is in Volume 2 of my life? The pages of this volume are filled with the perfections of Christ and my blessedness as being in Him. This volume will never end! I will reign with Christ forever!

To whom does my new life belong?
My new life belongs to God. In my old life I was a slave of sin and Satan. But the Lord Jesus loved me and redeemed me with His precious blood.

What should I do with my new life? I should present it to God to do His will. The Bible says,

“Let not sin reign in your mortal body…but yield [present] yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead…” (Romans 6:12-13).

No one can serve God with the old self-life. God cannot use that life at all. But I died to that life, and I present myself to God as “alive from the dead.”

The apostle Paul wrote,

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).

What is “consecration”?
Consecration is the giving of my life to God to do His will instead of my own will. It means that I present my body to Him as a “living sacrifice.”

The animals which were offered to God in the Old Testament were killed. They were dead sacrifices. God does not ask me to place my body on an altar to be killed. Instead, He asks for a “living sacrifice.” This means He wants me to live for Him.

The sacrifices in the Old Testament were “pictures” or types of the Lord Jesus. When a lamb was offered as a sin offering, it was a type or “picture” of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. But there was another sacrifice which had nothing to do with sin. It was called “the burnt offering."

What did the burnt offering represent? It represented the Lord Jesus offering up His life to the Father to do His will. This sacrifice represented consecration, and it was very precious to God. From the burnt offering sacrifice, we can learn many things about consecration.

Consecration is voluntary.
The burnt offering sacrifice was voluntary. The Bible says,

“If any man bring an offering to the Lord…If his offering be a burnt sacrifice…he shall offer it of his own voluntary will…” (Leviticus 1:2-3).

This tells us that consecration is “unto the Lord,” and it must be voluntary. Though I belong to the Lord, He does not compel me to consecrate my life to Him. Instead, God says, “I beseech you by the mercies of God….”

Consecration is to the Lord.
When I consecrate my life to the Lord, does this mean I am giving my life to be a preacher or a missionary? No, it does not have to mean that. I do not consecrate myself to be a preacher or a missionary.

I consecrate myself to the Lord to do His will, wherever He wants me—in an office, in a school, in the home, or wherever He may send me. God is the One who decides what He wants me to do and where He wants me to serve Him. Whatever God chooses for me is sure to be the very best for me.

Consecration is the offering of a whole life to God.

God permitted four kinds of creatures to be used as burnt offering sacrifices. People who were wealthy brought a costly animal such as a bull; those with less wealth brought a sheep; and those who could not afford either of these brought a dove or a pigeon. But in each case, it was the offering up of a whole life to God. God could not accept anything less than a whole life.

What does this tell us about consecration? It tells us that consecration is the offering up of my whole life to God. I cannot give God part of my life and keep part for myself. This would not satisfy God, and it would not bring satisfaction to me either. All my joy and blessing in the Christian life depend upon my giving God my whole life and holding back nothing.

Consecration is final.
Once an animal was placed on the altar as a burnt offering, it could not be taken off the altar. It was “holy unto the Lord.” The Bible says, “…every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord” (Leviticus 27:28).

Once I have dedicated my life to God, I cannot take it back. God expects my dedication to be a once-for-all giving of myself to Him. If I have sinned, I should confess my sins to the Lord and receive His forgiveness. But it is not necessary to “rededicate” my life which has already been given to Him.

Consecration is continual.
God required that the priests offer a burnt offering to Him each morning and each evening, day after day, continually.

What does this tell us about consecration? It tells us that our consecration must be continual. My consecration begins with the act of giving myself to the Lord, but it does not end there. I must live out my consecration all the days of my life.

Why should I consecrate myself to the Lord?
I should give my life to the Lord because I belong to Him. I was a slave of sin and Satan, and the Lord Jesus redeemed me. The Bible says,

“Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit…and you are not your own? For you are bought with a price…” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

These verses tell me plainly that I am not my own. I have been bought with a price. I belong to the Lord. What was the price the Lord Jesus paid for me? The price was His own precious blood. The Bible says,

“…you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold…but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

The Lord Jesus has redeemed me; He is my Lord and Master; I belong to Him. Since I belong to the Lord, it is only right that I give myself to Him. The question is not “Do I belong to the Lord?”, but “Have I given to the Lord that which belongs to Him?”

A dedicated servant of the Lord said, “If you have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, don’t talk about giving God your money, your time, your talents, or your life. It all belongs to Him; just quit stealing!”

Consecration is simply recognizing Christ’s ownership of me and saying to Him, “Lord, I am Yours by right, and I wish to be Yours by my choice.” The Bible makes it clear that this is the “reasonable service” of every child of God.

The motive for consecration
My motive for giving myself to the Lord is the love of Christ. The Bible says,

“For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died: and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them, and rose again.” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

The result of consecration is that I die to my own plans and ambitions: I live to do the will of God. The Lord Jesus is our perfect Example. He did not come into the world to do His own will or to become great in the eyes of men. He came to do the will of His Father. That meant dying on the cross for us. God now says to us,

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).

Do not think that you will become a world-famous preacher or evangelist if you consecrate yourself to the Lord. The Lord Jesus Himself was rejected by men, and we are His servants. Jesus said, “The servant is not greater than his lord…” (John 13:16).

"If you are willing to be a nobody, God will be to you that great Somebody." (James C. Richardson)
When I consecrate my life to the Lord, He can show me the work which He has for me. My greatest joy and satisfaction will come when I find God’s will for my life and do it. Think of the joy of meeting those in Heaven whom you have led to the Lord.

Think of the joy of standing before the Lord Jesus in glory and hearing Him say,

“Well done, good and faithful servant…Enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matthew 25:21).

What is your answer?
The Lord is saying to you, “I beseech you by the mercies of God” that you consecrate your body to God to do His will. The Lord could rightfully command us, but He says, “I beseech you.” Beseech is a love word. God wants us to give our body to Him, not because we must, but because we love Him and want to serve Him.

If you hold on to your life, you will miss God’s best for you. When you meet your Savior face-to-face, will you be prepared to tell Him why you never surrendered your life to Him? God’s purpose is that you may prove for yourself that God’s will is “good, and acceptable, and perfect.”

Do you understand what God is asking of you? Have you seen that you and all that you have belong to Him? Will you give God His property? Have you seen that God is asking you to present yourself unto Him “as alive from the dead”? God is asking you to present your body “a living sacrifice” to Him to do His will.

Have you considered the Lord’s mercies to you? Out of the millions of people on the earth, He chose you, and He has blessed you with all the riches of Christ. Has the love of Christ so touched your heart that you want to give yourself to Him? Study carefully the following statement of consecration. If this is your decision, we encourage you to print this PDF, sign your name and date on it, and keep it as a personal reminder.

My Consecration

• As a born-again person, I realize that I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ.
  1 Corinthians 6:19-20
• I believe that my old self-life ended with my death with Christ on the cross, and that I was raised with Him as a new person in Christ.
  Romans 6:6,11; 2 Corinthians 5:15
• I believe that God is seeking to work out His purpose through me.
  John 15:15-16; Ephesians 2:10
• I realize that my new life must be presented to God in order that He may accomplish His purpose. Romans 6:13; 2 Corinthians 5:15
• It was in His body that the Lord Jesus did the will of God, and it is in my body that I do the will of God.
• I hear God’s call to me, “I beseech you…by the mercies of God… that you present your body a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1).

Dear Father, This day, I definitely consecrate my body to You, to do Your will, and not my own will. I want to love, trust, and obey You. I pray that You will enable me to live here on earth in such a way that when I stand before You in Heaven, I may hear You say, “Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your Lord!”

David stood for God's authority
King Saul made David a captain in his army and would not let him go back to his father’s house. David behaved himself wisely, and Saul set him over the men of war. Saul and David traveled together.

The Lord was with David and helped him do everything well, and all the people loved him. As Saul and David came into the cities, the women came out with songs and dances to praise them. But they praised David more than Saul. The women said, “Saul has slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands.”

This made Saul very angry and he became very jealous of David. One day while David was playing his harp for Saul in the palace, an evil spirit came on Saul. Saul had a spear at his side. He grabbed it and threw it at David, intending to kill him. But David saw it coming and jumped out of the way just in time.

David had to flee for his life. For most of the next seven years, Saul was hunting for David, trying to kill him. Many mighty men gathered themselves to David, and he became captain over them. David was in a most difficult place. God had rejected Saul and anointed David to be the next king over Israel. But Saul was still king, and David recognized Saul as God’s delegated authority over him.

Though repeatedly chased by Saul, David addressed Saul as “my lord,” or “the Lord’s anointed.” One day while seeking David, Saul entered a cave alone to rest. Unknown to Saul, David and his mighty men were in the innermost part of the cave.

David’s men told him that the Lord had delivered Saul into his hand. They urged David to kill him so he could be king. But David would not rebel against God’s delegated authority.

David said to his men,

“The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, God’s anointed, to stretch forth my hand against him, seeing that he is the anointed of the Lord” (1 Samuel 24:6).

David respected God’s authority. He would not rebel against God or His delegated authority, the king.

Later, another occasion came where David had an opportunity to kill Saul. Saul, along with 3,000 men, was seeking David in the wilderness. At night David and his nephew, Abishai, found their way into Saul’s camp. Saul lay sleeping with his spear stuck in the ground by his pillow. Saul’s general and the rest of the soldiers were sleeping around the king.

Abishai said to David, “The Lord has delivered your enemy into your hand this day.” He begged David to let him kill Saul with the spear. But David said,

“Do not destroy him: for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord’s anointed and be without guilt?” (1 Samuel 26:9).

David stood absolutely for God’s authority. He would rather be obedient to God than save his own life. God was pleased with this.

 

[RiverOL]

I Have a New Power!
Dear Friend,

After His resurrection, the Lord Jesus appeared on the earth forty days. He appeared to His believers many times. Before He ascended back into Heaven, the Lord Jesus said,

“You shall receive power, after the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” (Acts 1:8).

• Who is the Holy Spirit?
• What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit living in us?
• What does it mean to be “baptized in the Spirit”?

The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity. The one true and living God is in three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a “force” or a mere influence; He is a Person! He is God the Holy Spirit.

Thus far every step in our Christian life has been brought about by the blessed Holy Spirit. We were born into God’s family by the Spirit. We have spiritual life by the Holy Spirit. We know that we are the children of God by the Holy Spirit. The Bible says,

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Romans 8:16).

What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit?
The great purpose of the Holy Spirit who lives in us is to glorify the Lord Jesus. His primary concern is not us or our service for God. The great desire of God the Father and the Holy Spirit is that all may honor and love the Son. Jesus said,

“When He, the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all truth…He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you” (John 16:13-14).

The Holy Spirit is a gift.

The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to each and every person who believes on His Son, regardless of age, sex, condition, intelligence or former manner of life. There is nothing God so delights in as to give the Holy Spirit. It is His longing and His joy to give the Spirit to us. You do not have to work for a gift, pay for it, or struggle for it. You simply receive a gift with thanks.

The Holy Spirit dwells in every child of God.
Because they do not know the Scriptures, many of God’s children beg and plead with God to send His Holy Spirit. They do not realize that God has already sent the Holy Spirit into the world, and that He dwells in every child of God.

There is not one believer in the Lord Jesus Christ in whom the Holy Spirit does not dwell. The Bible says,

“Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:18).

This glorious fact that the Holy Spirit lives in us, when known and acted upon, makes the difference between success and failure in the Christian life. There is a world of difference between saying that you believe in the Holy Spirit and knowing that He lives in you. A beloved Bible teacher shares his experience with us:

“There was a time when I did not know that the Holy Spirit lived in me, and I thought nothing of Him, or of His presence in me.
“Then one day I decided that I would believe the Book; I would believe that the Holy Spirit lived in me. I began to thank God that it was true.
“Morning and night, whenever the thought came to my mind, I thanked God that His Spirit lived in me. One day my believing became a conscious knowing, and today I know He lives in me.
“Beloved, will you also enter into a covenant with your heart that you will actively believe God’s Word, and begin to thank Him? Begin today to practice the presence of God. The best way is to thank Him that He lives in you, that your body is the temple of God.
“When you do so, many things which today you allow in your life will be seen to be hideous sins. Some will drop off, others you will cast away. The one thing that each Christian needs to know today is the Holy Spirit lives in him.”
We have been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Before He ascended back into Heaven, the Lord Jesus promised His disciples that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit. He said,

“For John indeed baptized with water; but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:5).

The word “baptize” means to “immerse” or “dip under.” When John the Baptist baptized with water, he dipped the people under the water. When they went under the water they were immersed in water.

On the Day of Pentecost, the disciples were all together in one place. Suddenly the Holy Spirit came like a mighty rushing wind, and filled the house where they were sitting. This was the baptism in the Holy Spirit which the Lord Jesus promised. They were baptized [immersed], not in water, but in the Holy Spirit. The disciples were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

Something else happened—the Church was formed! On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit united all the believers into one spiritual body—the Body of Christ.

Through the Holy Spirit, the believers were baptized or put into one Body. Before this, they were individual, separate believers, but now they were “the Church”—the spiritual Body of Christ.

On that day, the gospel was preached, and about three thousand people believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and were saved. The Holy Spirit put these new believers into the Church—the spiritual Body of Christ. After this, others were saved daily, and they, too, were added to the Body of Christ. The Bible says,

“And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women” (Acts 5:14).

Now, whenever a person believes on the Lord Jesus, he is saved and baptized into the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit. The Bible says,

“For by one Spirit are we [all believers] baptized into one body…and have all been made to drink into one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13).

The death of Christ on the cross was a once-for-all act. It will never be repeated. Christ’s resurrection was a once-for-all event. It can never be repeated. Christ’s ascension into Heaven and being exalted to the right hand of God is a once-for-all event. It will never be repeated. Likewise, our being baptized into the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit is a once-for-all action. It never needs to be repeated. Nowhere in the Bible are we commanded to be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is God's “seal.”

The Bible says,

“Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30).

One purpose of a seal is to identify. The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit identifies us as belonging to God. It distinguishes us from the unsaved people of the world. The Bible says,

“If any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Romans 8:9b).

I have a new power.
Every Christian has the old sin nature which the Bible calls “the flesh.” There is a “law” or principle about the flesh which is very powerful and it is always pulling us down. It is called “the law of sin and death.” No matter how hard I try, I can never overcome this “law” in my own strength.

God delivers us from “the law of sin and death” by giving us the Spirit of His Son. The Bible says,

“Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Galatians 4:6).

I have the Spirit of Christ and the law of His life which makes me superior to the law of sin and death. The “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” is the most powerful law of all. The Bible says,

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).

I have a new power! I can sin, but I do not have to sin. I can say “no” to sin. I have the power through the Holy Spirit to turn from it. The Bible says,

“Sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14).

“Walk in the Spirit”
As Christians, there are two powers within us—the flesh and the Spirit, so there will always be two ways before us. We can “walk in the flesh,” or we can “walk in the Spirit.”

To walk in the flesh means to allow the flesh to rule and express itself. When we allow the flesh to rule, we are capable of committing the terrible sins listed in Galatians 5:19-21. There is not one sin of the flesh that we are not capable of committing. This is why the Bible says,

“Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).

What does it mean to “walk in the Spirit”? First, it is a walk, not a work. I am no longer struggling to please God and failing continually, like I once did. Instead, I am quietly and restfully depending on the Spirit of Christ to do in me what I cannot do myself. When I do this, the Holy Spirit takes over, and “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control…” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Second, to “walk in the Spirit” means that I am subject to the Holy Spirit. He is my “Resident Boss.” As long as I obey Him, I enjoy all the riches of Christ. If I sin, I will lose my joy. I have grieved the Holy Spirit. What do I do? I go to God at once and confess that sin to Him. I claim His forgiveness according to 1 John 1:9.

The one thing that every Christian needs to know today is that the Holy Spirit lives in him. To many Christians, the Holy Spirit is not real; they think of Him as just an influence for good. They fail to realize the greatness of the Person who lives in their hearts.

The Spirit of God who dwells in me is not some “force.” He is a Person. He is God! He is God the Holy Spirit. The infinite God dwells in my heart! The Bible says,

“Do you not know that you are the temple of God…” (1 Corinthians 3:16).

Dear friend, will you believe God’s Word? Begin today thanking Him that He lives in you. You carry God in your heart. Say to yourself many times a day, “The Spirit of God who lives in me is a Person. He is God! I carry God in my heart! Thank You, blessed Holy Spirit, that You live in my heart.”

David's sins and confession
Eventually King Saul and Jonathan, his son, were killed in battle. David wept when he received this news. David became Israel’s new king.

David was 30 years old when he began to reign over all Israel. God preserved David wherever he went. David never lost a battle! Every enemy of Israel was defeated and subdued. David became Israel’s greatest king.

But the time came when David sinned greatly. David’s army had gone to battle, but David tarried in Jerusalem. One night, while walking on the roof of the king’s house, David saw a woman bathing herself. She was very beautiful.

David inquired about her name. He was told that she was Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Uriah was one of David’s mighty warriors, and he was away fighting their enemies.

David sent messengers to bring Bathsheba to him. When she came, he had sex with her, and she returned to her house. Bathsheba conceived and sent word to David, and said, “I am with child.”

David sent word to Joab, his commander to send Uriah to him. David wanted Uriah to go to his own house and sleep with his wife, but Uriah slept with the servants in David’s house. He said, “My lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camped in open fields. How can I go to my house, and eat and drink, and lie with my wife? I will not do this thing.”

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by Uriah. In his letter David said, “Set Uriah in the front, in the hottest battle, and retire from him, that he may be smitten and die.” Joab did as David had said, and Uriah was killed in battle.

After the time of Bathsheba’s mourning for her husband was past, David brought her to his house, and she became his wife. Seemingly, David had covered up his sin, but God saw what David had done, and it displeased Him.

God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David about his sins of adultery and murder. David was truly convicted of his sins. Psalm 51 describes the depths of David’s repentance. David said to God,

“Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight…Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities… The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”

God always forgives us when we confess our sins with a broken heart, but we have to live with the consequences. We will reap what we sow. The Bible says,

“…whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

God said that David was a man after His own heart. Although his private sins were grievous, David stood like a rock for God. He never turned away from God. Above all, he loved God with all his heart. The Lord Jesus said the greatest of all commandments is to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

 

[RiverOL]

“Be Filled with the Spirit”
Dear Friend,

Christians are in on a great truth that the world knows nothing about. The truth is this: Jesus Christ has been rejected in this world, but He has been exalted to the highest place in Heaven!

In His Word, God promised two things that would happen at the same time. The first promise was that His Son Jesus Christ would be glorified and exalted to sit at His right hand. The second promise was that when Jesus was glorified, the Holy Spirit would be poured out on His believers.

On the Day of Pentecost both promises were fulfilled. The believers were of one accord in one place. Suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind. It filled the house. The Holy Spirit had come! The believers were all filled with the Holy Spirit!

What did Pentecost prove?

Pentecost proved that the Man Jesus Christ was now glorified and exalted at the right hand of God. Peter stood up and said,

“This Jesus has God raised up, of which we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this, which you now see and hear. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made that same Jesus, whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:32-33,36).

On the Day of Pentecost, the disciples knew two things. They knew that the Lord Jesus, whom they knew and loved, was now exalted to the very throne of God in Heaven. And they knew that Christ was now dwelling in them by His Spirit.

God's new dwelling place.
In Old Testament times when Israel was on the way to the promised land, the people dwelled in tents. There were hundreds of tents in the camp of Israel, but there was one tent which was quite different from all the others.

In the common tents, you could do as you pleased, but that special tent commanded reverence. When you stood before it, you bowed your head. No one could touch this tent carelessly. If a man or beast dared to touch it, the penalty was death! What was so special about this tent? It was the dwelling-place of the living God. Outwardly, it looked very much like the other tents, but the great God had chosen to make it His dwelling-place.

Do you realize what happened when you were saved? God came into your heart and made it His temple. In Solomon’s days, God dwelled in the magnificent temple which Solomon constructed. Today, He dwells in the hearts of His believers. When we really see and understand that God has made our heart His dwelling place, a deep reverence will come over our life.

The reason many Christians do not experience the power of God in their lives, though He actually dwells in them, is that they lack reverence. They have not had their eyes opened to the fact of God’s presence. Have you really understood that wherever you go and whatever you do, you are “the temple of God”? You do not just carry your Bible with you; you carry God Himself! The Bible says,

“Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16).

To truly believe that God lives in you, and your body is the “temple of God” will keep you from many sins of the flesh. The Bible says,

“If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him; for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” (1 Corinthians 3:17)

The great purpose of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit who lives in you has but one great purpose—to glorify Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is the one Person who can testify of the glory of Christ in Heaven. The Holy Spirit has come down to earth to report that which is in Heaven—the glory of God and the glory of Christ at the right hand of God. Jesus said,

“He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it to you” (John 16:14).

Do you know what the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life? He wants to glorify Christ in your life. Christ is “Lord of all” in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit longs to see Him “Lord of all” in your life.

The Holy Spirit is God's love gift to His children.

Believers are God’s love gift to His Son. God knew the kind of people He was giving to His Son. He knew our sinfulness, our weakness, our helplessness.

The Holy Spirit is God’s love gift to His children to enable us to live like His children. He is called “the Spirit of Christ” because He is the very same Spirit who is in Christ Himself. The Bible says,

“Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts…” (Galatians 4:6).

The Holy Spirit connects us with Christ.

The Holy Spirit is our “link” with the exalted, glorified Christ at the right hand of God. His purpose is to take all the wonderful things of Christ and bring them into our life. Jesus said,

“All things that the Father has are Mine: therefore I said, that He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you” (John 16:15).

God has given all things to His Son, and He has given His Son to us. We have everything in Christ! The Bible says,

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3).

How do we receive the things we have in Christ? We receive them by the Holy Spirit. He is our life-connection with the glorified Christ. The Holy Spirit takes the things of Christ and makes them real in our life.

“Be filled with the Spirit.”
We not only have the indwelling Holy Spirit, but we have the great privilege of being filled with the Spirit. It is God’s will that every child of His be filled with the Spirit.

When we are filled with the Spirit, we are completely satisfied with Jesus Christ. The Bible uses water as a type of the Holy Spirit. We must have water to live.

“Thirsting” is a condition of being unsatisfied. The sinful pleasures of the world will never satisfy us, but the “living water” of the Holy Spirit will satisfy us completely. Jesus said,

“Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst…” (John 4:14).

To “drink” means to believe on Jesus. Notice that the Lord said, “Whoever drinks.” This is not just a one-time drink. It means to drink continually. If you drink continually, you will never thirst. If you believe on the glorified Christ continually, you will be satisfied.

Jesus is saying to us, “If you are not completely satisfied, come to Me, believe on Me, and I will give you the living water of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus said, “…He who believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). This means that we will be so completely satisfied with Jesus that there will be a great “overflow” to bless others.

“How can I be filled with the Spirit?”
Let us consider the simple steps by which you can be filled with the Spirit.

Be “thirsty.”
Are you thirsty for the satisfaction which only Christ can give? Do you long to be totally and completely satisfied with Christ? The Lord can only fill thirsty people.

It is not more religion you need, but a personal relationship with the living Christ. If you are “thirsting” for what is real and satisfying, come to Jesus now!

Come to Christ and “drink.”

To “drink” is to believe on the glorified Christ at the right hand of the Father. To believe on the risen, exalted Christ is the key to all God’s treasures.

Do you long for a relationship with Christ that will satisfy you completely? Do you believe that Christ wants to fill you with His Spirit? Then thank Him that He wants what you want.

Give yourself to Jesus Christ completely.
What the Lord is asking of us is very simple. He is saying to us, “I gave My all for you. Now I want you to give your all to Me, that I might fill your life with joy and blessing like you have never known.”

Christ and the Holy Spirit dwell in the heart of every believer, but perhaps you have assigned Christ only one small corner of your heart. You are glad that He lives in you, but you do not want Him to interfere with your plans and your life.

If this is so, who is on the throne of your heart? SELF is on the throne! The Holy Spirit is grieved because Christ is not being honored in your life. You will never be filled with the Spirit as long as SELF is on the throne in your life.

To be filled with the Spirit is to be filled with the glorified Christ. Think of who Christ is. He is the Glory and Delight of God. He is the Center and Joy of Heaven. The Holy Spirit wants to fill our life with the glorified Christ so that He becomes our joy, our satisfaction, our delight, our victory, our “all in all.”

Right now, will you give yourself to Him completely, just as He has given Himself to you completely? Do not hold anything back. Give Jesus your heart, your life, and all that you are and have. He will take what you give Him and fill your life with Himself.

Believe continually.

Without looking for any special feeling, begin to thank Jesus for filling you with His Spirit. Thank Him that He is willing to sit upon the throne of your heart. Begin to rejoice in Him! The Bible says,

“Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).

The Spirit of Christ is the real presence of the risen, glorified Christ in you. Power, joy, and victory come from the glorified Christ at the right hand of God. Believe on Him continually. The Bible says,

“Whom having not seen, you love; in whom, though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

The great evidence that you are filled with the Spirit is that Jesus Christ becomes everything to you. You see Him glorified and exalted in Heaven, with all God’s satisfaction and glory on Him. He becomes real to you. You think about Him constantly. You are fully satisfied with Christ.

How can I stay filled?
Being filled with the Spirit is not a once-for-all experience. We trusted Christ to fill us with His Spirit and we must trust Him to keep us filled. While we are trusting, there are some things we must do:

• Feed on God’s Word daily. It is impossible to remain filled with the Spirit if you neglect the Word of God, the food for your spirit. If you want your life to count for God, set aside time each day for prayer and the study of God’s Word.

• Deal with sin instantly. When the Holy Spirit shows you sin in your life, go to God at once and confess it. Unconfessed sin grieves the Holy Spirit and the Bible says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit…” (Ephesians 4:30). Grief causes pain in the heart of One who loves you. Grief makes the Holy Spirit unable to do His work.

• Keep believing on Christ! Jesus said,

“He who believes on Me…out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).

You received Christ by believing.
You are filled by believing.
You are kept by believing.
KEEP ON BELIEVING!

Solomon—his glory and failure
“His heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.” 1 Kings 11:4
David reigned over Israel forty years, and he was Israel’s greatest king. His son, Solomon, became king when he was nineteen years old.

God appeared to Solomon in a dream and told him he could have any one thing he asked for.

If you could have any one thing you wanted—good looks, riches, popularity, fame—what would you choose? Solomon asked God to give him wisdom.

God was pleased with Solomon’s choice. He said to Solomon,

“I have given you a wise and an understanding heart…I have also given you that which you have not asked, both riches, and honor: so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto you all your days” (1 Kings 3:12-13).

Solomon’s greatest accomplishment was the building of the temple. This was what his father David had longed to do. Solomon’s temple was built on Mount Moriah where Abraham had offered up Isaac.

There has never been a greater, more costly building than Solomon’s temple. The inside of the temple was covered with gold. In Solomon’s days, God dwelled in the magnificent temple which Solomon had built. Today He dwells in the hearts of His believers. The Bible says,

“Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16).

Solomon was a great and glorious king. He had everything his heart could desire. He was the wisest and richest king who ever lived. Yet with all his possessions and accomplishments, Solomon was not satisfied. He said,

“I looked on all the works that my hands had done…and behold, all was vanity and grasping for the wind…Therefore I hated life…” (Ecclesiastes 2:11,17).

God had warned the kings of Israel that they were not to multiply horses, gold and silver, and wives. Solomon multiplied all three! Solomon had 700 wives! Led by his heathen wives, Solomon fell into idolatry. He built places for idol worship, burned incense, and sacrificed to the gods of the heathen. The Bible says,

“The Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice” (1 Kings 11:9).

Solomon’s reign began with a blaze of glory, but Solomon’s end was failure. The Bible says,

“his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father” (1 Kings 11:4).

The lesson for us: God wants our heart!

 

[RiverOL]

Get Your Tools Ready!
Dear Friend,

Before He ascended back into Heaven, the Lord Jesus commanded His disciples, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). God has done something in Christ upon which the salvation of every person depends, and every person needs to hear about it.

Who is going to take the gospel to the world? The believers are to do this. Every Christian is called to serve God and have a part in taking the gospel to every person. We ourselves were once lost, separated from the life of God. Someone shared Christ with us. Now we must share Christ with others that they may hear and believe on Him.

Sinner...son...servant!

These are the vital links in God's plan for getting the gospel to the world. Sinners hear the gospel, believe on the Lord Jesus, and become sons. In time, they become son-servants of God to take the gospel to others.

In this lesson we are going to learn how we can begin preparing ourselves to be effective servants of God.

To be an effective servant of God, two things are absolutely necessary:

1) A working knowledge of the Bible, and

2) daily fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

To become a teacher, a doctor, or a lawyer, one must spend many, many hours preparing himself. To become an effective servant of God requires diligent preparation. The Bible says,

"Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15).

How do we obtain a working knowledge of the Bible?
We gain a working knowledge of the Bible by reading it, studying it, and by memorizing portions of it. The Bible is the most important book in all the world; yet, sad to say, many Christians do not take time to read the Bible and become familiar with it.

As we read the Bible, we must depend on the Holy Spirit to reveal its truths to us. The Bible is different from all other books in that it cannot be understood without the illumination of the Holy Spirit. This explains why an unsaved person cannot understand the Bible. The Bible says,

"The natural man [the unsaved man] receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14).

We who have been born again spiritually have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us; therefore we can understand the things of God. The Bible says,

"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God" (1 Corinthians 2:12).

Every time we read or study God's Word, let us pause a moment to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal its truths to us. David's prayer is a good one for us:

"Open my eyes that I might behold wondrous things out of Your law" (Psalm 119:18).

We grow by obeying God's Word.
We come into the family of God as a tiny baby. To grow spiritually, we must have food. What is our spiritual food? Our spiritual food is the Word of God. The Bible says,

"As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).

When we eat, we take food into our bodies. It becomes part of us. We must likewise take God's Word into our lives—it must become a part of us.

We take God's Word into our life by obeying it. The Bible says, "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves" (James 1:22). As we read God's Word, we grow by believing its truths, claiming its promises, and obeying its commands.

Begin today!
Begin systematically reading God's Word today. Start with the Gospel of John. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand it. Mark the verses that seem to speak especially to your heart. This will make your Bible more valuable to you. A colored pencil and a short ruler are best for this. Do not use a ball point or ink pen. These will "bleed" through the paper of most Bibles.

In the Gospel of John you will discover that Jesus is the living Word of God; He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; He is the living Bread which came down from Heaven; He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; He is the Good Shepherd; He is the Resurrection and the Life; He is the true Vine; He is the One who died for our sins; and He is the living, resurrected Christ.

After you have read the Gospel of John, read the book of Acts. This book tells about the early days of the church. Then beginning with Matthew, read the entire New Testament; and finally, read the Old Testament.

As you read the Bible, you will come across things that you do not understand. Someone has said that reading the Bible is like eating fish. When you are eating fish, you come across bones. What do you do with a bone? You simply lay it aside and continue eating the fish.

Likewise, when you come across something in the Bible that you do not understand, just say, "There is a bone—something I do not understand. I will lay it aside for now, and keep on reading the Bible. God may explain this to me later."

Do not allow your faith to be shaken by those who claim to find contradictions in the Bible. For hundreds of years, unbelieving men have tried to discredit the Bible, yet it still stands today as the infallible Word of the living God, and it will endure forever.

Memorize scripture.
The quickest and most effective way to gain a working knowledge of the Bible is to memorize Scripture verses. Often when witnessing to others, we do not know what to say. If you have memorized Scripture, you can quote it with confidence because it is God's Word.

Always remember that it is not our word, but the Word of God, which the Holy Spirit uses in the salvation of others. The Bible says,

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides forever" (1 Peter 1:23).

A young Christian asked an older man of God how he could serve the Lord. The man said, "Get your tools ready, and God will use you!"

"How do I get my tools ready?" asked the young Christian. The older man said, "Memorize Scripture! Memorize Scripture! Memorize Scripture!"

This is true. Every time you memorize a portion of God's Word, you are equipping yourself with another tool to use in serving God.

How do you memorize Scripture?

The secret of memorizing is repetition. If you say something over and over enough times, you will memorize it. The best and simplest way to memorize verses is through the use of index cards. Purchase some 3 x 5 index cards. On one side of a card, write the verse you want to memorize; on the other side, write the reference. It is very important to learn the reference when you learn a verse. Be sure to copy the verses and references correctly.

Carry the cards with you and go through them as often as you can during the day. Look at the reference on each card and see if you can quote the verse. Then check yourself by turning the card over and reading it correctly. Do this over and over again. Do not be satisfied until you can quote the verses perfectly, with the references. Soon you will discover that you have memorized these verses, and then you add more verses or start a new pack.

How do you remember what you have learned? To remember the verses you have learned, you must review them from time to time. You can add new verses each week, but be sure to review the ones you have already learned. Review! Review! REVIEW!

You can memorize Scripture. Do not excuse yourself by saying that you have a poor memory until you have honestly tried the above plan. You can memorize. The verses you memorize are the tools you will use as a servant of God, so begin to memorize Scripture now. Here are some verses to get you started.

Daily fellowship with the Lord.

If you want to become an effective servant of God, you must not only have a working knowledge of the Bible, but you must also have daily fellowship with the Lord Jesus.

The secret of a strong Christian life is a daily Quiet Time. What is a Quiet Time? It is time spent alone with the Lord each day in the study of His Word and in prayer. Many wonderful blessings will come to us if we establish a Quiet Time and keep it faithfully:

We will become more like Christ.
It is by beholding the glory of the Lord Jesus that we are made like Him. Of course, we cannot see Jesus in person at this time, but we can behold His glory by reading about Him in the Bible.

"But we all…beholding…the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

God reveals His will to us.
Usually, it is when we are alone with the Lord that He speaks to us through His Word and reveals His will to us. God's Word is our final authority. The Holy Spirit will never lead you to do something that is contrary to what God says in His Word.

We get to know the Lord.
This is the greatest blessing of all. There is no other way to get to know God. We must spend time alone with God to know Him and to become conscious of His presence and to be filled with His power. God says, "Be still, and know that I am God…" (Psalm 46:10).

How do you establish a Quiet Time?
Your relationship with God is the most important relationship in your life. To have a meaningful relationship with God, you must spend time with Him—much time alone with Him, reading and meditating on His Word. If you do not spend time with God each day, you do not love Him very much.

To establish a Quiet Time, three things are necessary—a definite place, a definite time, and a definite plan.

1. Find a place where you can be alone with the Lord. You need a place with a good light and a table where you can lay your Bible and write notes.

2. Decide on a definite time. For most people the best time is the first thing in the morning. Great musicians always tune their instruments before a concert—not after it. It is much better to meet with the Lord the first thing in the morning, and let Him tune our hearts, than to come to Him at the end of the day with a long list of failures to confess.

The importance of spending the first hour of each day with the Lord cannot be overemphasized. The Bible says of the Lord Jesus, "And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed."

If the sinless Lord Jesus found it necessary to spend time alone with His Father each day, how much more should we!

Are you serious about preparing yourself to serve God? If so, you must get up in the morning to meet with Him. Get a good alarm clock and use it. Decide when you want to get up, and then get up! This is one practical way in which you can show the Lord how much you love Him.

3. Have a definite plan. Begin your Quiet Time with a short prayer to the Lord asking Him to speak to your heart through His Word. Then open the Bible and begin reading. Do not hurry. Take time to think about what you are reading. Talk to God about what you are reading. Often a particular verse will be especially meaningful to you. Write it on a card and memorize it.

"How much time should I spend?"

This is up to you. A half hour is a minimum. There are 24 hours in each day, and every serious-minded Christian should be able to set aside a half hour or more for God.

Spend the first part of your time reading the Bible; then turn to the Lord in prayer. Confess your sins to Him. Praise Him for all that He is to you. Thank Him for His blessings. Pray for those whom He brings to your mind. Ask for His guidance throughout the day. Tell Him that you love Him.

Stick to it!
Once you have established your place, time, and plan, stick to it! If you allow everything that comes along to disrupt your Quiet Time, soon you will have no Quiet Time.

Warning: Be prepared for all kinds of opposition to your establishing a Quiet Time. Satan knows what a daily Quiet Time does in bringing power into the life of a child of God. Satan will do all he can to prevent your establishing this habit in your life.

Are you willing to pay the price?
There is a price to pay in becoming an effective servant of God. You must spend time learning God's Word. You must spend time memorizing Scripture verses. You must spend time alone with the Lord. An honored servant of the Lord, S. D. Gordon, said,

"A life of victory hinges on three things: an initial act, a fixed purpose, and a daily habit.
"The initial act is that of surrender to the Lord Jesus as Master. The fixed purpose is that of doing what will please Him, and only that, at every turn, in every matter, regardless of the consequences. The daily habit is that of spending a Quiet Time in prayer alone with the Lord over His Word.
"After the initial act of surrender, the secret of a strong, winsome Christian life is in spending time daily alone with God over His Word in prayer."
There is no use talking about how much you love the Lord and how much you want to serve Him if you do not have time for Him and for His Word. God is not impressed with our words; He looks at our actions. The Bible says,

"…for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed" (1 Samuel 2:3).

Do you want to know the key to success for a Christian? It is simply this: Put God first. God says,

"…them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed" (1 Samuel 2:30).

The Lord Jesus said if we put God first, He will take care of the other things.

"Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33).

Do you want your life to count for God? Then begin reading God's Word daily. Start memorizing Scripture. Establish your Quiet Time and keep it faithfully. BEGIN NOW.

Esther risked her life
"…I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish." Esther 4:16
The people of Israel had been disobedient to God and were now under the rule of the Persian king, Ahasuerus. The queen, Vashti, had displeased the king so he was seeking a new queen.

Among those under the king's rule was a Jewish man named Mordecai. He had a young orphaned niece named Esther, whom he had adopted as his daughter. She was very beautiful and eventually was taken by King Ahasuerus to be his queen.

Haman, the king's leading officer, hated Mordecai and all the Jewish refugees. He persuaded the king to sign a decree that all Jews in his kingdom be exterminated. The king did not realize that his own queen was a Jew.

When Mordecai heard of this decree, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city crying bitterly. Mordecai sent word to Esther to go before the king and plead for the lives of her people.

Esther knew that there was a royal law that anyone who approached the king without being called by him, would be put to death unless the king lifted his royal scepter. Esther knew that the lives of her people were at stake. She sent word to Mordecai,

"Go, gather together all the Jews…and fast [refrain from eating] for me, and neither eat nor drink three days…I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in to the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish" (Esther 4:16).

Esther did not know what the outcome of her act would be. But she made her decision and left the results to God. When she came before the king, he raised his golden scepter.

When the king learned of Haman's wicked scheme to kill all the Jews, he was enraged. Haman had prepared gallows on which to hang his enemy, Mordecai. The king ordered that Haman be hanged on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai.

The Jews were not only spared from death, but they were allowed to take vengeance on their enemies. Mordecai, Esther's uncle, was made ruler of all the kingdom of Persia under King Ahasuerus.

The Jews ordained that these two days in which they were delivered be called Purim, and that Purim be remembered as a memorial throughout every generation.

Esther stands out as one of God's chosen ones. She was a sweet, winsome, courageous person. For the sake of her people, she took her life in her hands and went before the king. She said, "If I perish, I perish." The great lesson from Esther is: Do what is right and leave the result to God.

 

[RiverOL]

Win Others to Christ
Dear Friend,

One of the greatest joys we can have as Christians is the joy of leading others to Christ. The Bible says, "…he that wins souls is wise" (Proverbs 11:30). Think of it! You and I can be God's instruments for winning our friends, relatives, and others to Christ.

Why is it so important to learn how to win others to Christ? Because of the value of a human soul. God values the souls of men so highly that He sent His Son to die on the cross that men might be saved.

When we see how precious every person is to God, we will do all we can to win them to Christ. Always remember that every person will live forever—either in the blessings of Heaven or in the unspeakable miseries of hell.

Who can have this wonderful privilege of winning others to Christ? Any believer! Every child of God can have the joy of introducing someone to the Lord Jesus. The Bible says, "…he who wins souls is wise" (Proverbs 11:30). In this lesson we will learn how to do this.

We must use God's Word.
To win people to Christ we must use God's Word. A person is born into the family of God by hearing and believing God's Word. The Bible says,

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed [man's words], but of incorruptible [seed], by the word of God, which lives and abides forever" (1 Peter 1:23).

Are you reading your Bible daily? Are you memorizing Scripture? Have you established a daily Quiet Time with the Lord? Do not neglect these things if you want to win souls.

We must depend on the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit who convicts people of sin; it is the Holy Spirit who shows people their need of the Savior; and it is the Holy Spirit who reveals Christ to them. Ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit so you can be an effective soul-winner.

We must give people the gospel.

The Lord has commanded every believer to have a part in preaching the gospel to every person. People are saved by believing the gospel.

What is "the gospel"? The word "gospel" means "good news." Paul tells us what the good news is:

"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel…how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:1,3-4).

There are four basic truths in the gospel message. Study them carefully. Get these four facts firmly fixed in your mind because you will use them in leading souls to Christ.

• The fact of sin.
• The penalty of sin.
• Christ paid the penalty.
• We must receive Christ.

How to lead a person to Christ.

To lead a person to Christ, you must use the Word of God in explaining the basic truths of the gospel. It is helpful to think about these basic truths as "steps to salvation." In explaining these steps, find each verse in your Bible and ask the person to read the verse out loud.

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23

The first step in leading someone to Christ is to show him from God's Word that he is a sinner. Open your Bible to Romans 3:23, and ask him to read this verse out loud. Ask, "What does this verse say to you?"

Be sure that he sees from God's Word that he is a sinner. Explain to him that the punishment for sin is "death." Find Romans 6:23 and have him read this. This death means being separated from God forever, in the lake of fire.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16

Find John 3:16 and ask him to read this out loud. Ask, "What does this verse say to you?" Ask, "Who does it mean when it says the world?" It means all the people in the world. Ask, "Who does it mean when it says whoever?" It means anyone. That includes you and me! Ask him to read the verse again with his name where it says "the world" and "whoever."

For God so loved_________ that He gave His only begotten Son, that _________ believing in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What is God's gift to us? His gift to us is His Son. God gave His Son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. Because He loves us so much, God gave His Son Jesus to us to be our Savior.

"God commends [shows] His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

Find Romans 5:8 and ask him to read this out loud. Ask, "What does this verse say to you?" God loves sinners! God is saying to us, "I know all about your sins, but I really love you and I gave My Son to die on the cross for your sins." Christ died for you and me. You can say, "Christ died for MY sins!" Ask your friend to say this out loud: "Christ died for MY sins!"

"As many as received Him [the Lord Jesus as their Savior], to them gave He power to become the sons [children] of God, even to them that believe on His name." John 1:12

Find John 1:12. Ask him to read this out loud. Ask, "What does this verse say to you?" Explain that you become a child of God by receiving the Lord Jesus as your Savior. God has given Him to you, but you must receive Him.

Now you can ask these questions: "Do you know that you are a sinner? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? Do you believe that He died on the cross for your sins and rose again? Do you believe that Jesus wants to save you? Do you believe that He would come into your heart right now and save you if you asked Him to? Are you ready to invite the Lord Jesus into your heart?"

When you ask this last question, be silent. Pray silently for the person. The Holy Spirit is the One who shows us our need of Christ. Let the Holy Spirit do His work as you pray.

When the person says that he is ready to invite the Lord Jesus into his heart, you may guide him through a prayer. Pray one sentence at a time, and let him repeat after you.

"Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner. I believe that You are the Son of God, and that You died for my sins. I need You and I want You to be my Savior. Please come into my heart. I am taking You as my Savior right now."

"He who believes on the Son has everlasting life, and he who believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him." John 3:36

Turn to John 3:36 and ask him to read this out loud. Ask, "What does this say to you?" Ask, "What are the two groups God is talking about in this verse?" The answer: Those who believe on the Son and those who do not believe on Him.

Ask, "Which group are you in now?" Answer: The group which believes on the Son. Ask, "If you are in the group which believes on God's Son, what does God say about you?" The answer you want is: "God says that I have everlasting life." Ask, "How do you know?" The answer you want to hear is, "I know because God says so!"

God wants us to know.
How can a person know he is saved? He can know 1) by believing God's Word, and 2) by the witness of the Holy Spirit. A good verse for assurance is 1 John 5:13. Look this up in the Bible and have the person read it.

"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God."

God said it!
I believe it!
That settles it!
How can we know that the other person is saved? We cannot know for sure. We may sincerely believe that the person has received Christ as his Savior, but we may be mistaken. For this reason, we should never tell a person that he is saved. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. (See Romans 8:16.)

Get going!
You may be a new Christian, and you are wondering what you can do. You can serve the Lord now! You can tell others what Christ has done for you. You can ask, "Has anyone ever shown you from God's Word how you can know that you are going to Heaven when you die?" You can get children and teens enrolled in these online lessons.

Give special attention to children!

No group of people is more open to the gospel. No group responds so warmly. Children's hearts are tender. The Lord Jesus said,

"Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:14).

The fact that children can be saved should not come as a surprise to us. Jesus said,

"Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3).

Children's hearts are naturally open to God. They are honest and sincere. They readily admit their sins. They are deeply touched by God's love in giving His Son to die for their sins.

How old does a child have to be in order to be saved? Old enough to know that he has said and done wrong things. If a child is old enough to know that, he needs a Savior.

How do you lead a child to Christ? Simply show him the Five Steps in this lesson and ask him if he would like to invite Jesus into his heart.

There are two great joys awaiting the person who lives for Christ. The first great joy will be to see our precious Savior face to face and to hear Him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your Lord."

The second great joy will be to meet those whom we have introduced to the Lord Jesus Christ.

When I enter that beautiful City,
And the saints all around me appear,
I hope that someone will tell me,
"Hey, it was YOU who invited me here!"
— Corrie Ten Boom

Three teens who defied a king!
David's kingdom had lasted over four hundred years, but now Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. He allowed the temple and the city to stand, but he took some of the choice young men from the royal family and nobility back to Babylon as captives.

These teenagers were prisoners of war, but they were given special treatment. The Bible tells about three of these young men who defied the king—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Nebuchadnezzar was a proud and vain king. He loved things that called attention to himself. He constructed a ninety-foot gold statue in his likeness. Then he gathered all the public officials for a dedication of the statue.

Nebuchadnezzar announced that at the sound of the music, everyone must fall down and worship this image of gold. Anyone who disobeyed would be thrown into a blazing, fiery furnace.

When the music sounded, everyone fell down and worshiped the image, except Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. This was reported to the king and he blew up in a fit of rage. He called the three young men before him and demanded an explanation.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king saying,

"…our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace…But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, nor worship the golden image which you have set up" (Daniel 3:17-18).

King Nebuchadnezzar exploded with anger! He ordered that the furnace be heated seven times hotter. Then he ordered his most mighty men to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and cast them into the burning, fiery furnace.

A few minutes later, Nebuchadnezzar peered into the blazing, fiery furnace. He was shocked at what he saw. He said to his counselors, "Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?" They said, "True, O king."

Nebuchadnezzar said,

"Look! I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God" (Daniel 3:25).

Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning, fiery furnace and said, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you servants of the most high God, come forth." Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, came out of the fire. Not a hair of their heads was singed, their clothes were not burned, and there was not even the smell of smoke about them.

Then Nebuchadnezzar said, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent His angel, and delivered His servants who trusted in Him." The king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to high places in his kingdom and decreed that no one speak a word against their God.

The lesson for us is this: God honors those who honor Him.

 

[RiverOL]

The Life that Wins
Dear Friend,

God's way of saving us is not to make us good, but to take us out of Adam's family and put us in Christ. God makes us one with Christ so that all He is becomes ours.

There is only one life that wins, and that life is Christ's life. Every believer has Christ as his life. In giving us His Son, God gave us the best gift He could possibly give us. All the blessings that God has for us are in Christ. My relationship with Jesus Christ can be expressed in two simple sentences:

• I am in Christ.
• Christ is in me.

I am in Christ.

What does it mean to be in Christ? It means that I am united with Christ. It means to be one with Christ. It means that I share in all that He is and all that He has.

How did I get in Christ? God put me there when I took Jesus as my Savior. The Bible says,

"But of Him [God] are you in Christ Jesus…" (1 Corinthians 1:30).

I have a new life.
God put me in Christ on the cross. When He died, I "died" with Him. My old, sinful self-life ended with my death with Christ. I was buried with Christ; I was raised with Christ as a new person in God's new creation. The Bible says,

"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

I have a proper self-image.
My "self-image" is the way I see myself. Aside from salvation, one of my deepest needs is to see myself as somebody who is worth something.

God's way of meeting my need for a proper self-image is to put me in Christ. Do you know how God sees His believers? He looks at us and sees His beloved Son. He sees Christ! To be a son or daughter of a king would be a great honor, but we are sons and daughters of the living God. You cannot get any higher than that!

I have perfect acceptance.
God has made a way for me to be completely and perfectly accepted by Him. He put me in Christ. Because I am in Christ, I am totally and forever accepted by God. When God looks at me, He always sees me in Christ. The Bible says,

To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the BELOVED" (Ephesians 1:6).

I have unconditional love.
Every person not only needs to be accepted, but needs to be loved by someone who is important to him or her. A teenage girl wrote,

Within the last year, three of my friends tried to commit suicide. Life was too much for them. They couldn't hack it. This world ate them up until their only thought of escape was death.
Loneliness is universal. It eats inside your system. It brings a vacuum of emptiness, a fear of death, a gnawing hunger of wanting to be understood and loved. Loneliness is a sickness. It hurts. For some it hurts so much that they do anything to run away from it.
You can have a million close friends and still be lonely. You can be the bestlooking, most popular, most successful person on earth and still be lonely. No matter what you do, where you go, or what you try to be, loneliness still eats your heart. Lonely people need love: warm, flowing love…love can kill loneliness.

We all need to be loved, but there is a kind of love which does not meet our deepest inner need. It is called conditional love because it is given only when certain conditions are met:

"I will love you IF you make me proud of you."
"I will love you IF you please me."
"I will love you IF you do what I want you to do."
We need someone who loves us unconditionally. We need someone who loves us when we fail, someone whose love does not change. Christ is the only Person who can give us this kind of love. Christ's love for us never changes. He says to us, "I love you with all My heart, and I will always love you. Nothing can ever separate you from My love."

I am complete.
Everything I need to live a life that is pleasing to God is mine in Christ. I am "complete in Him." The Bible says,

"For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power" (Colossians 2:9-10).

Christ is in me.
God does not give us a lot of "things"; He gives us Christ. Christ is God's everything, and He has given Him to us to be our everything. He is everything we need.

• Christ is my righteousness. God does not promise to make me righteous; He gives me Christ as my righteousness. The Bible says, "Of Him [God] are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30). On his deathbed, a greatly honored servant of God said, "Christ is my righteousness, and that settles everything."

• Christ is my victory. When I was seeking salvation, God had to show me that what I needed was Christ, not my works.

"For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).

When it came to victory, God had to show me that what I needed was Christ, not my works and not my struggling to be good. Victory is a Person! Victory is Jesus Christ! Every person who has Him has the victorious life, though all may not experience it. The Bible says,

"Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:57).

Victory is totally and completely the work of Christ. He has already won the victory over sin, death, and Satan. Victory is Christ's work; our part is to triumph in His victory.

Suppose that your school team is involved in a crucial game. Your team wins! Along with your fellow students you wave your hands and shout with joy, "We won! We won!" This is triumphing in victory. Your team won the victory, but you and your fellow students triumph in the victory.

Christ has already won the victory for us, and His victory is our victory. When you are triumphing in Christ's victory, and rejoicing in Christ, you are in victory.

The Bible says,

"Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice" (Philippians 4:4).

When you fail, remember that Christ has not failed. Christ is still your victory, and He cannot fail. You are still His. He has not changed. You failed because you just took things out of His hands. Hand them back to Him!

Go to Christ at once and confess your sin. God says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Believe that He has forgiven you and cleansed you. Thank Christ that He is your victory.

Christ is my life.
What is the Christian life? It is not my trying to behave like a Christian. The Christian life is Christ living in me His all-powerful, victorious life. The Bible says,

"When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory" (Colossians 3:4).

Christ is my life! God did not try to change me from a selfish, self-centered person into an unselfish, loving person. God's way was to end my old life with my death with Christ on the cross. God made me a new person in Christ, and gave me Christ to live in me. Paul described the true Christian life in these words,

"I have been crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).

I have to put my self-life on the cross daily so that Christ can live His life out in me. The Bible says,

"Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body" (2 Corinthians 4:10).

Christ is my joy.
Christ is God's everything, and God wants Him to be our everything. God wants us to concentrate our attention on His blessed, glorified Son at His right hand. To learn what He is to the Father and what He is for us and to us, is the secret of all joy. Our Lord Jesus is full of joy. The Bible says,

"The joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10).

Jesus Christ was the most joyous Person who ever walked on this earth. Just before Jesus went to the cross, He prayed to the Father that we might have His joy fulfilled in us. Our Lord is filled with joy for four reasons.

• He brought to pass all the pleasure of God in His life (Matthew 3:17). All of God's pleasure and delight now rest on Christ.
• He removed everything that was against us in His death (John 1:29, Hebrews 9:26).
• He revealed the love of God to us in His death. "God shows His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).
• He has set His believers before the Father in all the blessedness of Himself (Ephesians 1:4,6).

Christ is my Beloved.

The turning point in my life is when I become conscious of the fact that Christ loves me with all His heart. The apostle Paul said, "The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me." He loves me so much that He has a right to me. "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine…" (Song of Solomon 6:3).

God is seeking a bride for His Son. Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, who made a marriage for his son" (Matthew 22:2). Christ's believers will one day be His bride. As the Bride of Christ, we will be joined to the Lord Jesus&mdash:to love Him and be loved by Him forever. The Bible says,

"You shall be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord…for the Lord delights in you…as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you" (Isaiah 62:3-5).

God is going to have a new universe.
God said, "Behold, I make all things new" (Revelation 21:5). The apostle Peter said,

"We, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3:13).

God is going to have a new universe of righteousness, love, happiness, and joy, headed up by His Son. Jesus Christ will be the Center and the Glory of this new universe. He will fill this universe with the glory of God. Christ will reign forever and ever, and we will reign with Him, sharing His power and His glory forever. This is the glorious future that awaits every child of God.

Why am I so blessed? How did I come to repent of my sins and believe on Christ when millions do not? It is all of God's sovereign grace. The Bible says,

"[God] has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began" (2 Timothy 1:9).

Knowing this will cause us to adore and worship our God forever!

Which world are you living for? Everything you see in this world will one day pass away. The Bible says,

"The world is passing away, and the lust of it: but he that does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:17).

Daniel—greatly beloved of God
There are two people in the Bible of whom nothing negative is said. One of them is Joseph; the other is Daniel.

Daniel lived all through the seventy years of Babylonian captivity. His courage and unswerving commitment to God paid off time and time again. He stood up for God against King Nebuchadnezzar and eventually won him to faith in God. He stood up for God against the king's wicked grandson, Belshazzar, and saw his kingdom fall to the Medes and Persians, under King Darius.

Darius decided to divide the empire into 120 states ruled by 120 governors. Over these governors were three presidents; of whom Daniel was the first. King Darius was so impressed with the excellent spirit in Daniel that he was planning to make him ruler over the entire empire.

When the other presidents and governors heard about it, they were jealous of Daniel and tried to find something bad about him that they could report to the king. But they could not find a single thing. Daniel was so faithful in his duties that no one could point to a single fault in him.

They decided they could not find anything to complain about Daniel, except his religion. They knew that three times a day, Daniel opened his window towards Jerusalem and prayed to his God. Finally they conceived an evil plot to destroy Daniel.

They came before King Darius and said, "King Darius, live forever! All the presidents and governors of your kingdom want a law made that any person who prays to anyone but you for the next thirty days shall be thrown into a den of lions. O King, make this law and sign it, so that even you cannot change it."

King Darius was flattered by this request. It appealed to his pride, so he had this new law drawn up and he signed it. When Daniel knew that the law had been signed, he went to his home, opened the windows of his room toward Jerusalem, knelt and prayed and gave thanks to God three times a day as he had always done.

When Daniel's enemies found him praying to his God as he had always done, they were happy. Everything was working out just as they had planned. They went to King Darius and said, "Have you not signed a decree that any person praying to anyone but you for thirty days must be thrown into the den of lions?" (Daniel 6:12).

King Darius said, "Yes, the thing is true. It is now a law of the Medes and Persians which can never change."

 

[RiverOL]

Don't Waste Your Life
Dear Friend,

Christianity is all about glory! The glory of God, and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the glory God has purposed for those who love Him and His Son. We are designed for the most inconceivable joy and happiness!

If you have trusted the Lord Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you have made the most important decision of your life. The next most important decision is this: What will you do with your one-and-only, precious, God-given life?

Believers will be judged.

Every believer will one day stand before the Lord Jesus Christ to be judged by what he did with his life after he was saved. This judgment is not about salvation but about rewards.

This judgment is called "The Judgment Seat of Christ." One day we will stand before Christ to be judged for the things we did after we were saved. The Bible says,

"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body…" (2 Corinthians 5:10).

"Only one life; it will soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last."

A day that has nothing in it for God is a wasted day. A life that has nothing in it for God is a wasted life. If you live your life pleasing yourself and doing the will of the flesh, you will waste your life. The day you stand before the Lord Jesus, you will realize that your whole life has been wasted.

Why did God create us?
The Bible is crystal clear on why God created us; He created us for His glory. God said,

"…bring My sons from far, and My daughters from the ends of the earth: Every one that is called by My name: for I have created him for My glory…" (Isaiah 43:6-7).

What does it mean to "glorify God"? It does not mean that we add something to God's glory or to His beauty. God cannot be made more glorious or beautiful than He is.

We glorify God when we magnify Him so that others can see how great and how glorious He is. When you look up into the sky at night you see countless small pin-pricks of light. With the Hubble space telescope, these pin-prick lights are revealed to be billion-star galaxies.

To the unsaved people of this world, God is just a "pin-prick" in the sky. We are to so live that our lives might reveal God as the infinitely great and glorious God that He is. Jesus said,

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven" (Matthew 5:16).

Jesus perfectly glorified God.
Jesus came to tell us and show us what God is like. The Bible says,

"No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him [shone Him forth]" (John 1:18).

When He was here, Christ's great objective was to glorify His Father. Jesus perfectly glorified God in His life and in His death. Twice, God spoke from Heaven and said,

"This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).

Jesus revealed God so perfectly that He could say, "He that has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). At the end of His life, Jesus prayed to His Father,

"I have glorified you on the earth: I have finished the work which You gave Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me with Your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world was" (John 17:4-5).

What is God's objective?
God's great objective in all that He does is the glory of His Son. When Christ returned to Heaven, God glorified Him and exalted Him to the highest place in the universe. All of God's delight and glory rest on the Man Christ Jesus.

The universe itself was created to be the scene of the glory of God's Son. The Bible says,

"For by Him [Christ] were all things created, that are in heaven, and in earth…all things were created by Him, and for Him. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist… that in all things He might have the preeminence" (Colossians 1:16-18).

What is God's purpose for us?
God's present purpose for us is that the Lord Jesus Christ might be glorified in us. God's future purpose for us is that we will be glorified with Christ forever. The Bible says that we are called "to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thessalonians 2:14).

How do I glorify Christ?

I glorify Christ by making Him the supreme passion of my life. I glorify Him by loving Him with all my heart, by praising Him, by enjoying Him, and by living for Him.

Every person has something which is life to him. It is not a matter of what you do to make a living; it is what you set your mind and heart on. To the worldly person, the world is everything. Take the world away from him, and he would have nothing to live for. Think of your own life. How would you complete this sentence:

For me to live is _______________?
Every day, young people (and adults) risk their lives and future happiness on alcohol, drugs, sex, or some form of self-pleasing excitement. Why do they do this? Because they are bored with life. God did not create you to be bored. And He certainly did not create you to waste your one-and-only, precious life on the trivial things of this world.

The opposite of wasting your life is living with a single passion to exalt and glorify Jesus Christ. The amazing thing is, when you make Christ the single passion of your life, you are choosing the very thing that will bring the most satisfaction into your life.

"Delight yourself in the Lord; and He shall give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4).

What changed Paul's life?
Originally, the apostle Paul did not believe in Jesus; in fact, his heart was full of hatred toward the Lord Jesus Christ and His followers. He went around throwing Christians into prison and killing them, but something happened which completely transformed his life.

What changed Paul's life? The glorified Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Paul got a glimpse of Christ in all His glory, and it transformed his life. Paul said,

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21).

Christ was the supreme passion of Paul's life. To Paul, Christ was everything—his "all in all." Paul was a Christ-centered man. Paul's passion was that Christ should be magnified in his body, whether by life, or by death. When people saw his sacrificial love and radiant joy, they must have thought, "Christ is great!"

Risk is better than waste.
There is a risk in living all out for Jesus. The Lord never promises us an easy time if we choose to follow Him. He said,

"Whoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Mark 8:34).

Think about the three Hebrew teens in Babylon. They were faced with a choice: bow down to the golden image Nebuchadnezzar had set up or be thrown into the fiery furnace. They chose to magnify God. They said, "We believe our God will deliver us, but even if He does not, we will not serve your gods."

They risked everything for the glory of God. As a result of their faith and courage, King Nebuchadnezzar passed a decree that everyone in his kingdom should honor the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. No doubt there will be many in Heaven because three young men risked their lives for God.

In a present day situation, two young men, Alex Mirandette, 22, and his brother Erik, 18 years old, were so filled with the love of Christ, that they set out on a very risky motorcycle adventure. They would start at the very southern tip of Africa and travel north more than 8,000 miles, all the way to Egypt.
The brothers' trip was not just a sightseeing expedition. They would be sharing Christ and God's love with the poorest of the poor. They traveled through eleven countries, many with unstable governments. They encountered two civil wars and five groups of rebels. They slept in m&d-and-thatch huts, eating what little was available, in order to tell people about Jesus.
The trip took four months. Finally reaching Egypt, they were in an open market when a terrorist's bomb filled with nails, exploded. When the smoke cleared, Erik remembers lying in a daze, trying to pull out hundreds of nails that had penetrated his body. Some had been driven into his bones. Both Erik and Alex were taken to a hospital in Cairo, where later that day, Alex died.
Erik has since endured some 30 surgeries to remove nails, reconstruct his disfigured shoulder and arm, and to repair his seriously injured legs.
In spite of his suffering and the loss of his brother, Erik has chosen to magnify God. He has chosen to forgive those involved. In televised programs which were heard throughout the Arab world, Erik was telling his story and saying, "I forgive those who did this harm to me." The love of Christ expressed like this is sure to touch the hearts of thousands of people in that region.
Was Alex's life wasted? No it was not. Only God knows how many people will be in Heaven some day as a result of the love and testimony of Alex and Erik. Jim Elliott, one of five young missionaries who were martyred in Ecuador, said, "A man is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

Don't waste your life!
The first step in not wasting your life is to make Jesus Christ the single passion of your life. Do you know what the single passion of Christ's heart is? It is His believers. He thinks about His own all the time. Every believer can say, "The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me."

Christ will never be completely satisfied until He is the single passion of your heart. In the book Don't Waste Your Life, John Piper says,

We do not use the word cool to describe true greatness. It is a small word. That's the point. It's cheap. And it's what millions of young people live for. Who confronts them with tears? Who pleads with them not to waste their lives? Who takes them by the collar, so to speak, and loves them enough to show them a life so radical and so real and so costly and Christ-saturated that they feel the emptiness and triviality of their CD collections and their pointless conversations about passing celebrities? Who will waken what lies latent in their souls, untapped—a longing not to waste their lives?
God is closing in on some of you. He is like the "Hound of Heaven" who wants to make you far happier in some dangerous and dirty work. Missionaries and servants of God do not come from nowhere. They come from people like you, stunned by the glory of God and stopped in your tracks. Sometimes it happens when you are going in exactly the opposite direction.
John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life (Wheaton, Il.: Crossway, 2003), 123, 255.
Living with a passion for Christ.
As a little girl, Claretta Clendenin was a member of the Mailbox Club. Through the lessons she came to know and love the Lord Jesus. She lived her life with a passion for Christ.

When she was 22, Claretta was killed in a tragic automobile accident. It was only after her death that her parents discovered she had kept a daily journal of her prayers. This journal has been published and countless people have been blessed by it. Here is what Claretta wrote when she was 14 years old:

To the One I love more than life, Who loved me far more than words can tell, far before I ever knew Him. To the One who still loves me with an everlasting love, a love unending. When I deserved nothing and was nothing, my Father and my King took me in and gave me all that ever wanted or needed. He gave me all for nothing, and that was more, yes more than enough for me. I owe Him my all.
Take this life which is Yours for You gave it to me. You bought it back when I did not deserve to be bought or paid for by anyone. And yet, You bought me and gave me a gift better than life, that I might have LIFE—LIFE for eternity.
I am overwhelmed at Your love for me which reaches far beyond my wretchedness and loves me for what You and You alone have made me. That is more than I can comprehend. You not only love me, You pour out Your rivers of blessings upon me every moment of my life that I live, yet I do not even deserve life.
I will serve You my King and my Savior as long as I live, as long as you allow me life. Lord, take me, break me, mold me, shape me, and use me. Let me be broken and spilled out and used up for You. Use me to bring glory, honor and praise to Your name, the Name above all names, worthy of all praise forever and ever. Amen.
Claretta Clendenin

Daniel—greatly beloved of God
Daniel's enemies pointed out to King Darius that he had signed a law saying that any person praying to anyone but him for thirty days should be thrown into the lions' den.

Then they said, "That Daniel does not regard you, nor the law which you have signed, for he prays to his God three times a day!"

The king was crushed! He was very displeased with himself for signing that law. He set his heart on delivering Daniel. He tried every way he could to save Daniel, but the presidents and governors said to him, "You know perfectly well, O King, that no law which the king has signed can be changed!"

At last the king gave up. He gave the order that Daniel be thrown into the den of lions. The king said to Daniel, "Your God, whom you serve continually, He will deliver you" (Daniel 6:16).

After Daniel was thrown into the den of lions, a great stone was rolled across the mouth of the den so that no one could get Daniel out.

The king went to his palace greatly distressed. He refused to eat. When he could not sleep, the orchestra that played for him each evening came to his room, but he sent them away.

The king rose very early in the morning and hurried to the lion's den. He ordered the stone to be removed and he called sadly to Daniel, "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is your God, whom you serve continually, able to deliver you from the lions?"

Daniel called to the king, "O king, live forever! My God has sent His angel, and has shut the lion's mouths, that they have not even scratched me!"

The king was exceedingly glad and overcome with joy. He commanded that Daniel should be taken out at once. Daniel was unhurt because he had trusted in his God, and his God had delivered him.

King Darius ordered that the men who had accused Daniel be thrown into the den of lions, along with their wives and children. As they fell to the bottom of the pit, the ravenous lions killed them.

Then Darius wrote a letter to all the people in all the nations of his kingdom:

"I make a decree that in every part of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel; for He is the living God…and His kingdom… shall not be destroyed…He delivers and rescues, and He works signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who has delivered Daniel from the power of the lions" (Daniel 6:26-27).

So Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and also in the reign of Cyrus, who became king after Darius died.

The lesson from Daniel is this: God honors those who honor Him. God said,

"…those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed" (1 Samuel 2:30).

 

[RiverOL]

What is Love?

During high school, I dated a lot of guys and I was hurt a lot. I was a very vulnerable girl because I wanted someone to love me. I wanted someone to truly care about me. The problem was finding the right person to love and have them appreciate and enjoy my love.

When I got into college I had no intentions of getting married or falling in love. I felt like, "I’m going to have a good time. I’m going to experience a lot and I’m not going to get myself tied down to any one person or any one thing. In other words, I’m starting on a clean slate. It’s just going to be good wholesome relationships, fun and finding out what being in college is all about."

I was doing well until I met Joe. I don’t believe that there is any such thing as love at first sight, but at that time I was a romantic teenager, and when I saw him for the first time I thought he was super. He had a dynamite personality and a lot of charm. When he finally asked me out, I was beside myself.

On our first date we talked a lot and tried real hard to impress each other. A month went by before he called and asked me for another date. I think he knew by then that I wanted to date him. He played on this and from that time on things were pretty heavy.

Our relationship really didn’t start off on the right foot because we were trying to impress each other. I didn’t want him to go out with anybody else but me. I don’t think at that point I neglected any of my standards or morals, but I did do things to impress him and to encourage a relationship with him.

We dated and had some pretty serious talks. We had some pretty bad fights too. He picked on me and teased me a lot. I tried to cover up my hurt feelings when he would do this. I tried to laugh along with it, but I did get hurt. Often at parties he would just walk off and leave me. He didn’t give me any special attention and that hurt me.

At that point, I realized that it was mostly a one-sided relationship, so I started working real hard to make him feel the same way I felt. This is what got me into trouble. I worked too hard at it. I started to do things that I knew he wanted—anything that would please him. This included some heavy sexual things. I thought, “If I don’t, he’s going to go somewhere else and I don’t want to lose him.”

Time went on and we ended up going to bed together and doing things that I knew were not right, but I sacrificed my morals to keep him. This is the biggest mistake a young girl can make. She thinks if she keeps doing what a guy wants to do, he is going to be crazy about her, but it’s not true.

I know Joe lost respect for me. And I lost so much respect for myself that it was awful. Because of my Christian background, I died a hundred times in my own guilt. But I could not bring myself to say, “Forgive me, Lord,” because I knew in the back of my mind I was going to do it again. I was going to do anything I had to do to keep him.

At this point, if I can say anything to young girls, it is this—when you get into the dating game, find a fellow you know is a Christian—one who isn’t ashamed to say, “I’m a Christian and I do have morals myself.” I know that it is kind of daring to date the guys you know are not Christians, the ones who are kind of wild. But stay away from these guys because you are going to lose something precious along the way.

Joe and I were having problems in our dating relationship. We fought a lot. He picked at me constantly, and I got hurt a lot. I tried to explain to him the guilt I felt about sleeping with him. I tried to stop it, but he just wouldn’t accept it.

I had evaluated our relationship and to put it bluntly, it stunk! He did not treat me right at all. But I thought, in the back of my mind, “If we get married, everything is going to be different. He is going to love me and take care of me.” This was a big mistake on my part. You cannot change a person and make them love you, no matter how much you try, and no matter how much you love them.

You can take your dating relationship and magnify it about ten or twenty times, and that is what your marriage is going to be like. Television, books, movies, songs—all these make you think you can pull another trick out of your sleeve to make everything great. Marriage is tough. Even when two people really love each other and both are working at it, it is still tough.

If I had magnified our relationship ten times or even five times, I would have seen that in the future Joe was going to go out on me. He was going to sleep around with other girls, he was going to lose his temper, he was going to hit me, he was not going to treat me like a wife and he was not going to take the responsibility of being a husband.

But I did not do this. I moved quickly. We ran off and got married. I do not blame my running off and getting married on anyone but myself, because I knew that I should not do this. But at that moment, I made a decision without a whole lot of thinking. I decided if I don’t do this, I am going to lose him. What I should have decided was that if he can’t wait for me and do it my way, then it’s not worth it. But my emotions were in complete control and my thinking was not clear at all. I was very confused. I did not want to be hurt. But I jumped into it, not knowing that it would be the biggest hurt of my life.

When we told our parents, they were very hurt and very disappointed. I quit college so I could put him through college. I took any job I could get. I was a waitress. I worked at a cocktail lounge at night, which was awful. I worked as a sales clerk. I did all kinds of jobs to keep us going.

Our marriage was just nothing. He did not love me. It was me loving him and trying to make him love me, trying desperately to please him, sacrificing my own feelings, but it didn’t work. It couldn’t work. You cannot make someone love you. They either love you or they don’t. I lived in constant fear that he was going to go out and find somebody else and he did exactly that. I didn’t want to admit it, because I wanted our marriage to work.

Five months after we were married, I became pregnant and had a beautiful little girl. That changed things for awhile. He was very excited about having the baby. But a month after the baby was born, things slipped back into what they were before—him losing his temper, leaving me alone with the baby all the time, and me carrying the load, trying to raise a child and support our family.

We were married three years when things happened which made me realize that he did not love me, that he never would love me, that he was not a good father, and that he was not a responsible husband. I couldn’t handle it any more, so we were divorced.

As I look back I see where I made many mistakes. My first and foremost mistake was that I did not accept and maintain a steady relationship with God. If I had done that, I would not have found myself in the position I was in. God’s love is free and His love is like no other love you could ever experience in your life because it’s whole. There’s nothing lacking in the love that God can give you. Don’t ever believe that you can live without love because you can’t. You cannot count on people around you to give you that love either, but you can count on God. He is always there, and He never changes.

Another mistake was starting off in such a hurry. This seems to be the popular thing to do these days. You think, “Well, I like him and he likes me. Maybe we are in love. Why don’t we just go ahead and see if this sex business will work out for us if we really like it.” You end up skipping over the part where you are really good friends. This was what was missing in my relationship with Joe. There was no respect and friendship. He did not respect me and I did not respect him. There was no friendship there.

Another mistake was getting involved sexually when I had no business doing it. I was not married. I was not old enough or mature enough to face the consequences of a sexual relationship. Just because you have all the necessary parts to have a sexual relationship with someone does not mean that you are ready to get into it. It’s not just a physical act—it involves all your emotions. You can truly mess up your emotions by getting involved when you are not ready. It is something that should be held sacred for marriage.

If you go back to the basics in what a relationship is all about, you will see that you should have friendship first, and secondly, that you are both Christians. Out of that can grow respect and love. And God helps maintain that love. From there you go to dating and being serious and then later getting married.

— Learned too late

The writer of this true story was seeking love. It is only natural to want someone to love you and someone you can love in return. This is especially true of young people.

If you are in high school or college, the chances are that you are in love with someone right now, or think you might be. But there are many wrong concepts about love.

Many people confuse infatuation with real love. Others think that "love at first sight" is the real thing. Still others do not know the difference between lust and love, or between sexual attraction and love.

What is infatuation and how does it affect you? What is the difference between lust and love? What is sexual attraction? What is real love? Let us consider these important questions.

What is an Infatuation?

An infatuation is the state of being completely carried away by an attraction to someone. The dictionary calls it "being blindly in love." In other words, you are so carried away by this attraction that you don’t know what you are doing.

One involved in a romantic infatuation usually cannot think of anything or anyone else other than the person he or she is "in love" with. An infatuation is an exciting experience—an emotional high—but it never lasts long because it is NOT true love.

One of the signs of an infatuation is that you tend to idolize the person you think you are in love with. Everything he or she says or does seems just perfect to you. You do not see his or her flaws. Other people can see plenty of "danger signals," but you can’t see them because you are "blindly in love." Your romantic feelings have taken over and you are not using ordinary good sense.

When you are involved in a romantic infatuation, you tend to be disorganized. You are not yourself. You are irresponsible and you tend to neglect your duties.

Sometimes young people will daydream and "laze" around, not doing their duties. Someone will ask, “What’s the matter with you, Caroline? You are not yourself.” Caroline will smile sweetly and say, “Oh, I’m in love.”

No, she isn’t! She is infatuated. If she was in love and her love was the real thing, she would be concerned about doing her duties, preparing and planning for her future.

Most infatuations do not last long. What does last is the bitter fruit of wrongdoing committed during the infatuation. Remember, when you are infatuated, you do not use common sense. Your romantic feelings are in control. When this happens, you can do some things that you will regret the rest of your life.

The Fruit of an Infatuation
Debbie was infatuated with Larry. He was handsome, and the fact that he was a football hero made him all the more appealing to her.

Then one day the thing she had dreamed of actually happened. Larry phoned to ask her for a date. She was thrilled!

When he arrived and she asked where they were going, he gave a vague answer. They drove out to a lonely place and parked. He told her how much he "loved" her.

Before long things were getting out of hand, but she didn’t stop him. She thought, “A little experience won’t hurt me.” That "little experience" turned out to be "going all the way."

Later, Debbie said, “It was awful. I was so scared. I didn’t feel any thrill at all. I kept thinking, ‘What if someone should drive up and see us?’ Within a few minutes I was putting on my blouse and hating myself for throwing away something precious on a guy who didn’t care about me—and one whom I didn’t care about either.”

What is Lust?

Lust is an intense desire to satisfy one’s sexual appetite. Lust often goes under the name of "love," but lust and love are two entirely different things.

Lust is SELFISH—the emphasis is on getting something. Lust demands immediate satisfaction. Lust says, "I want it for my own pleasure, I want it regardless of the consequences, and I want it now."

What is Love?

Love is UNSELFISH—the emphasis is on giving. Love wants what is best for the other person. Love is willing to wait. Real love will wait for the right time and the right circumstances.

The Bible gives examples of both lust and love. Amnon, one of King David’s sons, thought that he was madly in love with Tamar, his half-sister. He desired her so much that he was literally sick. One of his evil friends suggested a plan so Amnon could get Tamar alone. Amnon carried out this plan and forced Tamar to have sex with him.

What happened next? He no longer cared for her. In fact, he hated her. Amnon’s "love" was not love at all. It was lust.

On the other hand the Bible tells of the love which Jacob had for Rachel. Jacob had to work for Rachel’s father seven long years in order to obtain Rachel as his wife. Jacob was willing to work and wait for Rachel because his love was the real thing. The Bible says that the seven years "seemed unto him but a few days" because of the love he had for her.

What is Sexual Attraction?

Sexual attraction is physical attraction between a fellow and a girl. We are built with a sex drive which causes us to be interested in the opposite sex. There is nothing wrong or sinful about this. God made us that way. Sin comes when we attempt to satisfy our sexual drive in the wrong way.

To be sexually attracted to someone does NOT mean that you are in love with that person. A fellow sees a girl with a beautiful figure and he says, "Wow!" A girl sees a handsome football player and her heart skips a beat or two. Is that love? No, it’s simply physical attraction between a fellow and a girl.

Movies, television, magazines, and books constantly bombard us with this idea: "Find someone who turns you on…if you have a good sex life, that’s all that matters." The campus beauty queen marries the former captain of the football team and everybody sighs and says, “What a handsome couple!” But in a short while, their marriage is broken. Why? Because there was no real love between them. They were just sexually attracted to each other and had little in common besides that. They soon became bored with each other.

Remember, sexual attraction is not love. There is a vital place in marriage for sexual attraction, but a marriage cannot be built on sexual attraction alone. There are couples by the thousands who could not or did not resist sexual involvement before they were married, but now they cannot stand to touch each other.

What is REAL Love?

Real love has many qualities. Love ordinarily does contain the magical element of physical attraction. But it is a lot more than that. Love has its roots in friendship. In true love, you love the total person. You enjoy being with that person and sharing things with them.

Real love is unselfish.
It will sacrifice for the one it loves. Love carries with it the vital quality of commitment. It does not give up or quit when problems come along.

Real love brings out the best in you.
You want the one you love to be proud of you. If you are just infatuated with someone, you may "laze" around and daydream, but if your love is real, you apply yourself to your work, you make plans, and you prepare for the future.

Real love is not just a wonderful feeling that strikes you suddenly. It takes time to grow and develop. Some of the popular songs in the world of music give the wrong impression that falling in love with someone at first sight is real love.

Real love grows over time.
You don’t "fall" into real love—you grow into it. You have to know a person before you can love that person with real love. It is impossible to truly know someone at first sight, and it is also impossible to have real love for someone at first sight. You may be attracted to someone at first sight. You may even be "turned on" by someone at first sight. But you cannot genuinely love a person whom you do not really know.

Satan does not want you to know and experience true love. That is why he promotes all kinds of false love. He wants you to get involved in sex outside of marriage. He wants to generally mess up your life so that you think life is not worth living.

Precious Love
God loves you supremely and desires only what is best for you. He wants you to have precious love—not cheap sex. If it is His will for you to be married, He has just the right person for you. He wants you to have a mate who loves you unselfishly and is committed to you for life. And He likewise wants you to be committed to that person for life. He wants your home to be a little bit of heaven on earth.

In the little town of West Point, Mississippi, a beautiful marriage of twenty-five years ended in a most dramatic way. The devoted wife of the local newspaper editor walked out of the evening service at her church. She smiled happily and spoke to her friends and then fell dead on the church lawn. Emergency efforts to revive her were of no avail.

To her friends and husband, it seemed as though she had walked out of church straight into Heaven. The little city was stunned. Letters poured in to the bereaved husband, for she was warmly loved and admired.

One day, after the funeral, her husband, Henry Harris, wrote a long, heartfelt tribute to his wife. Here is what Mr. Harris wrote of his lovely wife:

"She walked right out of church, and right into Heaven.
"As one friend expressed it, she came to West Point to go to the church, and she left from the church.
"I remember when she graduated from the Mississippi State College for Women and came to West Point to become assistant to the pastor. Actually she looked upon her work in West Point as temporary. She was convinced that the Lord was calling her to become a foreign missionary…but the Lord was giving me a different message. I knew she was the girl for me. Later that same year, I nervously asked her to become Mrs. Henry Harris….
"One year to the day after that proposal, we became man and wife. There’s absolutely no doubt that God’s will was done. There was never a happier marriage. Some more ‘modern’ couples will find this hard to believe, but for over twenty-five years, we never had an argument. Surely, there must have been some disagreements; but now, in looking back across those wonderful years, I cannot recall a single one of consequence.
"I know that the coming weeks and months will be extremely hard. There will be times when I’ll have to find a quiet place and let the tears flow. There is nothing wrong with that. But Heaven is dearer because Wanda is there waiting. And I still have part of her in our four wonderful children.

"Every year, I added another long-stemmed red rose to those I sent to her. There were twenty-five in the last bouquet. Then, on Tuesday, I told the florist to cover the coffin with red roses and put an urn at each end, filled with red roses. You see, they’ll have to last for a time…til we are together again.
"I don’t believe a day passed in twenty-five years that I didn’t tell her that I loved her. And yet, I don’t believe she ever knew just how MUCH she meant to me, and how much I truly loved her…And while I can’t keep telling her of my love every day, I can keep thanking God for letting one of His truly precious ones share this portion of my life.
"As I have said before…in trying feebly to pay tribute to a departed friend…but never more meaningful than now… ‘Thank God for memories!’"
That is precious love! What young person would not want such a marriage as this? Such a marriage can be yours if you seek God’s will, find it, and follow it.

 

[RiverOL]

Three Kinds of Love

Justin thought he was in love with three different girls at the same time!

Karen was a member of his church and they saw each other often at church services. There was something different about this girl! She was completely sold out to her Lord and totally unselfish—always thinking of other people. When Justin was with her, he thought big thoughts and dreamed big dreams. He felt inspired to go out and do things for others and for his Lord.

Then there was Sandra. She lived next door and Justin had grown up with her. He could talk over anything with Sandra. She was a good sport and fun to be with. Best of all, she really understood him. When he needed advice or wanted to talk over some problem, Justin headed straight for Sandra. Though he cared deeply for her, Justin had never kissed her. In fact, he had never even felt like it. His love for Sandra was that of a friend.

The third girl in Justin’s life was Linda. She was a real knockout! She not only had a beautiful face, but she also had a lovely figure. Justin felt proud when he escorted Linda to a party. But when they were out on a date, Justin couldn’t think of much to discuss with Linda. The attraction was mostly physical.

Justin’s three “loves” illustrate the fact that there are different kinds of love.

Most young people dream of being married some day and, of course, they want a happy and successful marriage. But such a marriage is not easy to come by. In fact one out of every two marriages ends in divorce.

This means that half of these people, who thought they were “in love,” quickly became disillusioned, bitter, unhappy, and ready to call it quits on their marriage.

Is marriage just a big gamble in which most people are losers? Do most partners end up hating each other, while a few lucky ones manage to have a good relationship? No, it is not that way at all. There are certain specific ingredients in a happy marriage.

In a happy marriage, there are three kinds of love. It will help us if we think of them as three parts of a pyramid. The base of the pyramid is a special kind of love which is called “agape” love. The middle portion of the pyramid is friendship love, and the top portion is physical or sexual love. Let us consider these three kinds of love. We will start with “agape” love.

Agape Love
The word “agape” (pronounced ahgah-pay) is a Greek word which is used to describe a special kind of love. The reason we are using this Greek word is that there is no single word in the English language for this kind of love.

What is agape love? Agape love is that love which gives and sacrifices for the highest good of another person.

Agape love has two main characteristics: (1) It is completely unselfish—it seeks that which is best for the one it loves, and (2) it is committed love—it keeps on loving regardless of what happens.

Chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians is called the “love chapter” because it tells us how agape love acts. Here is the way such love expresses itself:
Love suffers long.
Love is kind.
Love does not envy.
Love does not parade itself.
Love is not puffed up.
Love does not behave rudely.
Love does not seek its own.
Love is not provoked.
Love thinks no evil.
Love does not rejoice in iniquity.
Love rejoices in the truth.
Love bears all things.
Love believes all things.
Love hopes all things.
Love endures all things.
Love never fails.
Agape love is not just a wonderful feeling; it is the definite choice of the will. One of the amazing things about agape love is this: When you choose to love a person unselfishly and act lovingly toward them, in time you will have the feeling of love toward them.

God has given us a wonderful place in which we learn agape love. That place is the home.

If you are living at home, God wants you to begin to show unselfish love to the other members of your family. Remember, you do not have to wait until you feel love toward the others in your family. You can choose to love them and begin acting unselfishly toward them. This is excellent training for marriage.

Any girl or fellow can act lovingly toward someone that he or she is planning to marry. It is in their interest to do so. But once they are married and the routine of daily living sets in, their basic nature will express itself. If they are selfish and self-centered in their present family situation, they will be the same way in their marriage.

One of the biggest mistakes young people make is rushing into marriage because they cannot stand to live at home. But until you learn to live at home, accepting and loving the other members of your family, you are not ready for marriage.

Before considering marriage you need to know that you have agape love for that special person and that he or she has the same kind of love for you.

A happy marriage is not a marriage between two “perfect” people who just happened to meet each other and get married. There is no such thing as “perfect” people!

A happy marriage is a marriage between two imperfect people who love each other with unselfish, committed love. Agape love is not blind—it sees the faults of the other person, but it covers them with love.

When you really love someone, you don’t try to change them. You accept them and love them as they are. Agape love says, “I love you, no matter what happens, and I always will.” You can see why this kind of love is so essential in a happy and successful marriage.

Agape love is not just for marriage. We should develop agape love for all people. Every person is the object of God’s love. Every person is exceedingly precious to God. His love includes all people, and ours should also.

God has given us the perfect example of agape love. He gave His Son to die on the cross for sinful people like you and me. The Bible says,

“God shows His [agape] love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Friendship Love
This is the warm love and affection we have for good friends—people whom we like and enjoy. We should have such friends both from our own sex and from the opposite sex.

Christians should develop unselfish agape love for all people, but we cannot be close friends with all people. The pyramid illustrates how the objects of our affection begin to narrow when we get to friendship love.

To have a successful marriage, you need friendship love for your mate so that you enjoy being together, talking and sharing things with each other. A marriage without respect and tender affection between husband and wife will be unsatisfactory, even if there is a lot of passion in the bedroom.

Sexual Love
This is that special, most intimate kind of love between a husband and wife. We should have sexual love for only one person—the one to whom we are married. The pyramid illustrates how our affections should narrow to one person when it comes to sexual love.

In the beginning God created one man and one woman. They were committed to each other for life. This is God’s design for marriage and sexual love—one man and one woman committed to each other for life.

God gave sex both as a means of producing children and as a source of pleasure. Through sexual intercourse a husband and wife are able to express to the fullest their love for each other. This is one of the great blessings and privileges of marriage.

To protect this blessing of sexual love within marriage, God gave this command—“You shall not commit adultery.”

This command forbids all sexual impurity. Fornication is sexual intercourse between an unmarried man and woman. Adultery is sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than his or her marriage partner. Both fornication and adultery are forbidden by God, along with all other sexual sins.

God is not against sex. He is against the wrong use of sex. After all, sex was God’s idea in the first place. Within marriage, it is one of the most wonderful blessings we can enjoy. That’s what God intended it to be!

As wonderful as sexual love is, it can never be the foundation for a successful marriage. Many couples try to build their marriage on the foundation of physical or sexual love. The marriage may last for a while, but when the storms of life come, their marriage fails. They discover too late that you cannot build a happy and successful marriage with sexual love as the foundation.

We need all 3 kinds of love

We have discussed the three kinds of love—agape, friendship, and sexual love. Which of these three do you think are most needed in a happy, successful marriage? The answer is all three! It is like a three-legged stool—you need all three legs to keep it from falling!

However, it is very important that these three kinds of love come together in the right order. First, for a happy and successful marriage, you must have agape love—the unselfish love which desires the best for the other person. Then you need friendship love—the love that enables a husband and wife to enjoy being together. Finally, in a happy marriage there is satisfying sexual love.

Unfortunately, most young people put the emphasis on physical or sexual love. They rush into physical intimacy without finding out if they have agape and friendship love for each other. It may seem more exciting, but it’s like trying to build a pyramid upside down! It will not work.

One girl, whose marriage lasted only five months, explained the situation to her friends by saying of her husband, “He was not capable of real love.” She was not talking about sexual love. That was the big attraction in the first place. And there was some degree of friendship love because they enjoyed going to games together and listening to certain kinds of music.

What was missing? Agape love—the kind of love that is unselfish and seeks what is best for the other person. This kind of love produces commitment and enables people to stay together and work out their problems.

If you value your future happiness, stay away from physical involvement before marriage. And do not get married until you are sure that you and your future mate have real agape and friendship love for each other.

We have considered the three kinds of love as three parts of a pyramid. But a pyramid cannot be built on shifting sands. It needs a solid foundation.

The solid foundation for our “pyramid” is God’s love. In ourselves, we cannot love other people as we should. But one of the wonderful things that happens when we take Jesus Christ as our Savior is that God gives us His Spirit. God’s love is poured into our hearts. The Bible says, “…the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us” (Romans 5:5).

God’s love in us makes it all work! It enables us to love other people as we should. It enables us to love our friends as we should. And it enables us to love our marriage partner as God intended so that our home can be a little bit of Heaven on earth.

We all need love
Every person desperately needs to be loved by someone who is important to him or her. Because this need is so great in young people, they often seek love in the wrong way.

The Bible says, “Keep your heart with all diligence.” This means: Above all else, guard your affections. You do not have to be “blindly in love.” You do not have to be so carried away with an infatuation that you do foolish things.

Real love is not blind—you should use good sense in deciding whether or not you want to be involved with someone. You do not have to “fall in love” with someone. You can choose not to love someone who is not right for you.

Do not be in a hurry. Time is your best friend in determining if there is real agape love between you and the other person, or if it is just an infatuation or physical attraction.

The following letter from “Peggy” tells of one girl’s search for love, the mistakes she made, and how she eventually found the love she was so desperately seeking. Peggy said, “I wish I had received a letter like this nine years ago, but I didn’t. I am writing this letter of my experience to teenage girls who want the true love of a man.”

Dear Teen,
“All around me I see people falling in love, walking in love, growing with the love they have found—and it accentuates my aloneness. For here I am, having conceived two children, given one away, about to bear another one alone.
“All I ever wanted was love. All I ever longed for was a home and strong arms to hold me so I could sleep through the night. I wanted someone who would be there with me to meet the morning.
“When I was fifteen, I never thought the next nine years would bring me such despair, emptiness and sorrow. Now, at twenty-four, I am still alone. While you are waiting for love to come to you, I have destroyed that hope of waiting because I was never willing to wait. I was so hungry for love that I tried to taste it all too early, too fast—and now there is little left.
“The fear you feel when you love someone and say ‘No’ to him, and the pain that could come if he leaves you for saying ‘No’ seem awesome and devastating to you now. But the greater pain comes when you say ‘Yes’ and he tires of you, calling you “not the kind of girl he wants to marry.” You may choose not to believe me, but it is true.

“A man who truly loves you will not ask for your body first. He will wait and ask you to marry him. He will ask to be the one to provide for you and meet your needs so you can give him, in all trust and confidence, the secrets of your soul. He will see the sacred beauty of your gift and will handle it with the gentleness of the man beholding the pearl he has sought so long.

“Value yourself, for you are very precious. Do not sell out. Any price you’re given less than a love willing to commit itself and willing to wait—that price is too cheap.
“Waiting may seem very hard for you. You think so because you are young and still have the impatience of a child. Learn patience; it is the beginning of self-discipline, a lesson that must be learned sooner or later. The sooner you learn it, the greater your joy, and the lesser your sorrow. I know. I have to learn it now, and I wish I had learned it then.

“There is only one Man now between me and total disaster. That Man is Jesus Christ. He loves me as I am: scarred, twisted, and often broken, not very pretty anymore, with eyes that tell the secret of my solitude. But in His eyes alone I’m still a fresh young girl with eyes that catch the twinkle of stars and a smile that does not show any hurt.
“His love does not go away. It rises with me in the morning and helps me pull aside the shutters and let in a new day. His love helps me bear the pain of never seeing my child again this side of Heaven. It sustains me as I bear this child who never should have been—the result of the sin of selling myself out.
“I think I’ve finally learned that I cannot sell out and win. Right now there is only One to whom I can give my everything without having my gift turned into a vain sacrifice. Now there is really only One who knows who I am. There is only One who sees me as beautiful. I am His.
“Learn love from Him. Don’t learn it on the streets or in the back seat of a car. What you will be given there in the name of love is poison—a perversion of something very sacred.

“Learn about true love from Him who is Love. He told you about it long ago, and if you can grasp this simple truth (the one we teach children) you will understand that He is the foundation of all you ever long for. God is Love. Know this and let it expand you into the beauty of true womanhood.”
With love,
Peggy

 

[RiverOL]

Wait Until Marriage

People desperately need to be loved by someone who is important to them. This is especially true of young people. Just knowing that a person of the opposite sex finds you attractive, generates a warm, wonderful feeling.

When a guy and a girl are attracted to each other and begin spending time together, the excitement builds. They discover how pleasurable it is to touch and caress each other. This stirs their passions. Before long they are drawn toward sexual intercourse, and they begin to think, “If we really love each other, what’s wrong with having sex?”

There are many reasons why you should not engage in sex before marriage. They add up to one thing: What you gain by sex before marriage is not worth what you lose by it.

What do you gain? A brief thrill. Perhaps some momentary pleasure. But what you lose by having sex before marriage can affect your entire life. Let us look at just a few of the reasons you should wait until marriage.

can ruin your chances of knowing real love.

A girl makes a tragic mistake when she tries to gain love or hold on to it by giving sex. Real love may lead to engagement, marriage, and sex, but sex does not lead to real love. Instead, it often destroys your chances of knowing real love.

A nineteen year old girl had kept herself pure all through high school and the first year of college. She was going steady with a guy whom she liked very much. On the night before he left for summer vacation, she gave in to him. She thought, “Why shouldn’t I? He loves me, and I love him.”

What happened? During the summer, she heard little from her “lover.” When he returned that fall, she discovered that she had been deceived into giving something very precious to a guy who had no real love for her. He said, “Our last night together was a nightmare…I would never marry you after that.”

can keep you from ever knowing God’s best.

One of the wrong ideas concerning sex is that it is just a physical thrill to be enjoyed with whomever you choose. This makes sex cheap and meaningless, and it disregards certain facts about how we are made.

Sex is not just a physical act. In sexual intercourse, you and the other person become one. It is such an intimate experience that a part of you remains forever with the other person. When you do get married, you will find that you can never give your mate 100% of yourself. Why? Because you have given part of yourself away to others. To take this lightly is not only foolish but it is plain ignorance of how God made us.

will hurt your self-esteem.

The Bible says that a young person should learn to possess his body with honor and not follow the ways of those who are immoral. A young person’s purity is his or her priceless possession. Unfortunately many do not realize this until it is too late.

Sometimes a girl is love-hungry, and she mistakes a fellow’s sex desire for the love she is looking for. She gives in to him. All too often, the guy does not really love her or respect her as a person. He wants sex and she is available, so he uses her to get what he wants. After awhile, he gets tired of her. She is like bargain-table goods—“Slightly soiled. Greatly reduced in price.”

She has nowhere to go in her search for love but to another guy who is looking for sex. She becomes cheap in her own eyes and in the eyes of others.

can leave you with life-long consequences.

God has given you a conscience and you have to live with it. A 42-year-old woman wrote,

You may get a few moments of “thrilling pleasure” out of sex before marriage, but is it worth this price?

can be a BIG disappointment.

Do young people find sex as exciting and heavenly as they thought it would be? The answer is NO!

A study of premarital sex relations was made in a large clinic for unwed mothers. The question was asked of the unwed mothers, “Did you find the sex experience pleasurable, disappointing, or unpleasant?”

Fifty percent said it was “disappointing,” thirty percent described it as “unpleasant or revolting,” and only twenty percent said it was “pleasurable.”

Under the right circumstances, sex can be an exciting and thrilling experience, as God intended it to be. But outside of marriage it is disappointing. A sixteen year old pregnant girl expressed it like this:

is risky.

Engaging in sex before marriage can expose you to sexually transmitted diseases. The “easy” girl, who is by no means a prostitute, can be the source of any one of several such diseases. Likewise, fellows can be “carriers.” Sexually transmitted diseases can cause serious infections, blindness, and even death. They can be transmitted to your children with the same devastating effects. There is no known cure for some of these diseases.

A girl who had sexual relations with only one boyfriend thought she was safe. She was terribly shocked when her doctor told her she was infected. A “disease tracer” revealed that the guy had had sex with only one other girl. But this girl had had sex with five other men, who in turn had been with nineteen women, some of them prostitutes. The girl who thought her relationship had been limited to one person had had contact, through him, with at least 92 persons.

can shatter a girl’s life.

Young people who experiment with sex outside of marriage should ask themselves: “What will we do if this results in pregnancy?” They might better ask, “What will we do when this results in pregnancy?”

One who visited a home for unwed mothers said, “You can never forget that look of despair on the faces of the girls who do not know what their future holds—girls who don’t know if they will ever know real love or have a happy home.”

It is not just the “easy girls” that get pregnant, but “good girls” as well. Abortion is NOT an easy solution to the problem of an unwanted pregnancy. Killing your unborn baby can leave you with terrible feelings of guilt which can haunt you the rest of your life. The following letter tells a familiar story:

“When I found out I was pregnant, I was 18 years old and two months away from college. My boyfriend was a back-slidden Christian like me, and we chose abortion because we didn’t want to face our family and friends. We took the easy way out.
“After my abortion I faced mental heartaches, shed many tears, and regretted the whole decision. To this day I still get on my knees and cry— asking the Lord for His lovingkindness because I was so wrong!
“I struggle a lot wondering if God will give me a second chance. He is such a loving God and I believe with all my heart that He is God, and yet I always carry a conscience full of guilt.”

can result in some BIG problems.

Sometimes a guy will say, “If you get pregnant, we can get married.”

Marriage is serious business. It means taking on a job you may not be prepared for. Marriage is not all moonlight, romance, and roses; it’s daylight, diapers, and dishes! Consider this letter:

“I am 17 and already my life is messed up. Ted and I went steady for six months and we began to do things we had no right to do. I became pregnant.
“We both quit school and got married. I hate my life and what I have done to Ted. The baby cries all the time and gets on Ted’s nerves. He drinks too much and I can’t blame him.
“We live in a dump and there is no money for sitters or movies or decent clothes. Ted never says anything, but I know he must hate me. I’m afraid he hates the baby, too.
“There are times when I think this is all a bad dream and I’ll wake up at home in my own bed, and get dressed and go to school with the kids I liked so much. But I know too well that those days are over for me and I am stuck.
“I’m not writing for advice. I’m just writing in the hope you will print this letter for the benefit of other teens who think they know it all—like I did.”
—Wrecked at 17

can fool you into marrying the wrong person.

If you become involved with someone sexually before marriage, you may think that you have found real love when all you have is the thrill and excitement of sexual attraction. You go ahead and get married and then you discover that you married the wrong person. You find out too late that it was not real love but only sex that was the attraction.

can wreck your marriage.

Some people think that if they just get married, everything will be fine. But this is not so. A happy and successful marriage is not easy to come by under the best of circumstances, but when you start out wrong, it is very difficult to achieve.

Sex before marriage greatly reduces your chances of a successful marriage. One reason is that those who play around with sex before marriage tend to do the same thing after marriage. They are never satisfied, always looking for a new thrill.

Sometimes couples engage in sex before marriage, then get married and seemingly get along well. But they have sown seeds of doubt and distrust which will bear bitter fruit later on.

A couple who had been married 20 years was counseling with Dr. Henry Brandy, trying to keep their marriage from falling apart.

The husband said, “My wife doesn’t trust me.” The wife shot back, “You don’t trust me either.”

Why had they never trusted each other? Because they had sex before they were married. It resulted in 20 years of suspicion and distrust and finally wrecked their marriage.

We have considered ten practical reasons why you should avoid sex before marriage. But there is one reason that is more important than all these ten reasons: It is wrong!

It is wrong because God says it is sin. Nothing can change that. Sin is that which is contrary to God’s will. God has said that all sex outside of marriage is sin. Sex between two unmarried people is called “fornication.” It is one of the most damaging sins. The Bible says,

Flee fornication...he that commits fornication sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians 6:18).

God says that all forms of normal or perverted sex outside of marriage are sin. People say, “Times have changed,” but God has not changed, nor has He changed His mind about these things. The Bible says,

“Marriage is honorable in all, and the marriage bed undefiled: but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4).

“Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind [homosexuals]…shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

God wants us to have the BEST
Many young people do not understand why God tells us not to engage in sex before marriage. Some even think that God does not want us to enjoy sex, but this is not true at all.

The truth is that God gave commandments concerning sex, not to keep us from enjoying it, but in order that we might enjoy sex to the fullest and over the longest period of time.

To illustrate what we mean, let us think about trains. Some of the fastest trains in the world are in Japan. These trains regularly run at 120 miles per hour and at times they hit 155 miles per hour!

How can these trains attain such speeds? The reason is that they run on tracks that are superbly designed and skillfully built. The tracks enable these trains to run at their maximum speed.

Suppose one of these trains would say, “I’m tired of running on these old tracks. They are too restricting. I want to be free to go where I want to go and do what I want to do.” So this train jumps the tracks and heads out across a rice paddy.

This train is truly free now—no longer bound by those tracks. Yes, it is free all right, but it is not running at 120 miles an hour. In fact, it is not running at all. Instead, it is lying there in the m&d. And that is where it will remain until a power greater than it picks it up, cleans it up, and puts it back on the tracks.

That is the way it is with sex. God has laid down “tracks”—not to keep you from enjoying sex, but that you might enjoy sex to the fullest and over the longest period of time in marriage. Satan offers you the thrill of “jumping the tracks,” but you end up in the m&d.

If it is God’s plan for you to be married, He has just the right person in mind for you. When you walk down the aisle on your wedding day to seal your vows before a holy God, you will be glad that you kept yourself pure.

Someone reading this may be saying, “I have already jumped the tracks. Is there any hope for me?”

Yes, there is hope for you! Jesus Christ can pick you up out of the m&d of your sins and failures, clean you up, and put you back on the tracks.

Christ's Example of Forgiveness

On one occasion, some religious leaders brought to Jesus a woman who was guilty of adultery. They threw this woman at the feet of Jesus and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded that she should be put to death by throwing stones at her. But what do you say?”

These men did not care about this woman. They were simply using her as a means of getting Jesus into trouble. If Jesus said, “Do not stone her,” He would be going against the law of Moses. If He said, “Put her to death,” He would be in trouble with the Roman government.

Jesus did not answer them right away. He kneeled down and began writing in the sand. When these men continued to press Jesus for a decision, He stood up and said, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone.”

Those who heard Him were convicted by their consciences and left, one by one. Jesus forgave this woman of her sins and said to her, “Go and sin no more.”

Christ will forgive you!
Jesus wants to forgive you and make you clean in God’s sight. He shed His precious blood on the cross that you might be forgiven of your sins. His blood can cleanse you from all your sins. The Bible says, “…the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from ALL SIN” (1 John 1:7).

You do not need to be afraid to come to Jesus. He forgave the woman taken in the act of adultery. He is “the Friend of sinners,” and He invites you to come to Him. Jesus said, “…anyone who comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

Your part is to come to Him; His part is to take you in. He will not only forgive you for your sins, but He can deliver you from any sin that may be binding you. Jesus said, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

If this is what you truly want, get alone with the Lord Jesus. Tell Him about your sins. Tell Him everything. He will not reject you. Thank Him for dying on the cross for your sins. Ask Him to make you clean through His precious blood which was shed for you.

Get a Bible or a New Testament and begin reading the Gospel of John. As you read it, underline the words “believe” and “believes.” Note especially the following verses:

John 3:16-18
John 1:10-12
John 3:35-36
John 5:24
John 8:36
John 20:31.
Put your name in this verse: “For God so loved _________ that He gave His only begotten Son, that _________ believing in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Read this verse over and over with your name in it. Believe it! Ask the Lord Jesus to come into your heart and give you a new life.

Secondary Virginity
“I’ve blown it! I didn’t realize how important it was to keep myself for the one I marry. Can I get my virginity back?”

No, you cannot. Your virginity is something that you can give to only one person and you can give it only one time. You cannot get back your outward, physical virginity, but you can get back your inner virginity—your purity. It is called “Secondary Virginity.”

What is Secondary Virginity? It is choosing to say no to any further sex until marriage and living out that decision. You become what you choose. If you make this choice and live it out, you will become a different person.

Some people say that, once you have been involved in sex, you will keep on doing it. So they say, “The best thing to do is to carry a condom with you at all times, because you cannot or will not say no.”

That is not true! You can change! Just because you made a mistake does not mean that you have to keep making that same mistake. If you drank too much at a party one night, does that mean that you have to get drunk at every party you go to for the rest of your life? Of course not!

Because you made a mistake in getting involved with sex does not mean that you have to keep on making that mistake. You can choose Secondary Virginity. Thousands of teens make this choice—every day!

Why do teens choose Secondary Virginity? For a number of reasons. Here are some:

• I finally realized that what I was doing was wrong.
• I got tired of being used.
• Frankly, I was scared of AIDS and the other sexually transmitted diseases.
• I learned a bitter lesson.
• I did not want to take the chance of damaging my reproductive organs.
• What I got out of it was not worth what it cost me.

One of the wonderful things about taking Jesus as your Savior is that God makes you a new person. It’s like He hits the DELETE button and wipes out your past. You become a new person in Christ. You are as clean and pure in God’s sight as Christ Himself.

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

 

[RiverOL]

Understanding the Sex Drive

As a young person grows into adulthood, he or she becomes aware of a powerful new force in the body. This powerful new force is the sex drive.

The appetite for sex is something God created within us. It is not dirty or evil. The sex drive was God’s idea—not ours. He created those hormones within us that make the opposite sex appealing to us. Sex as God intended it to be is beautiful. Everything that God creates is good.

Think of a person driving a car. The driver reaches a place in the road where he must choose to either turn left or right. To his left he sees a large sign that says, “One Way, Do Not Enter.” The driver makes his decision and turns left, in direct opposition to what the sign told him to do. He is now going the wrong way down the street, breaking the law and risking injury to himself and others.

This is similar to the choices we must make regarding our sex drive. The sex drive is not sinful, but God tells us that we must control this desire. He has stated many times in the Bible that we are to keep ourselves pure and to save our body for the person we will some day marry.

Like the driver of the car going the wrong way down the street, disobeying what God has told us to do is sin and causes injury to ourselves and others. We sin when we choose to satisfy the sex drive in a wrong way.

The Sex Drive as God planned it
God created all living creatures with the ability to reproduce themselves. Animals have a powerful sex drive which brings the male and female together for sex. However, in the case of animals, the sex drive is seasonal. The female will accept the male only during the time when she is in heat. The rest of the time she has no interest in sex. Apparently, in the case of animals, God intended the sex drive to be only for the purpose of reproduction.

With human beings it is different. God gave us the sex drive both as a means of reproduction and as the means by which a husband and wife can express to the fullest their love for each other.

Actually there are several ways God could have made us. He could have made us with only a seasonal sex drive such as the animals have, but this would have given only limited enjoyment of sex. He could have made us with a constant sex drive, but this would have made life unbearable.

God had something better for us than either of these ways. He made us with a potential sex desire which can be activated by stimulation.

This means that a husband and wife can live together without being controlled by their sexual appetites. But they can, at the proper time, stimulate each other’s sexual desires.

Within marriage, the powerful sexual desires which are aroused when a husband and wife stimulate each other can be satisfied legitimately in sexual intercourse. That is the way God intended it to be.

But these same powerful desires and passions can be aroused outside of marriage. In this case, however, there is no legitimate outlet for these aroused desires. To stop short of sexual intercourse leads to frustration, and to go on leads to fornication—one of the most damaging sins that young people can possibly be involved in. This is why the Bible warns against stimulating the powerful sex desires outside of marriage.

We can compare the sex drive to a steam boiler. When a fire is built under a steam boiler, the water inside is converted into steam. This steam is under tremendous pressure, but a proper outlet is provided. It is used to drive a turbine which produces electricity. However, if a fire is built under the boiler and there is no safe outlet for the steam, the boiler will explode.

Sex is the wonderful gift of God, but do not “build the fires of sexual passion” unless you have a proper outlet for the tremendous physical and emotional pressures that are built up. The only safe and proper outlet which the Bible recognizes is marriage. Outside of marriage, it is wrong to arouse and stimulate sexual desires.

Men are stimulated visually
All our senses play a part in sexual stimulation but there is a difference in the way guys and girls react. Girls are stimulated primarily by touch, but guys are stimulated by what they see as well as by touch.

A girl in a tight sweater or a revealing blouse can excite a guy sexually. Some girls know this. They know just how to dress, how to walk, how to sit, and to move so as to stimulate guys. This is wrong because it causes the guys to think sinful thoughts.

A girl may try to excuse herself by saying, “If they didn’t have evil minds, they wouldn’t think those thoughts.” The Bible says it is a sin to cause someone else to sin.

Looking at lustful pictures, reading pornographic magazines, listening to music with a beat and words designed to produce lust, and going to a movie filled with lustful scenes—all of these are things which “build the fires” of sexual lust and passion. The Bible warns against doing this. God’s Word says, “…Do not make ways for the flesh [your sinful fleshly desires], to fulfill its lusts” (Romans 13:14).

Sex is never an emergency
In understanding the sex drive, young people should know that they can deny the sex drive without suffering any harmful effects whatsoever. The sex drive is different from the hunger drive in that you cannot survive very long without eating, but you can deny the sex drive indefinitely without any ill effects. Without a doubt, sex is important, but sex is never an emergency. Many people go through their entire lives without sexual intercourse and still have full, happy lives.

Sometimes a fellow will become so aroused by caressing and other forms of stimulation that he will tell his girl, “We’ve gone this far; you’ve just got to let me!” This sounds as though some terrible thing will happen to him if she does not give in, but this is not true. If he does not have sexual intercourse, he will not suffer any ill effects whatsoever. But it is certainly not wise to let things go that far.

A special word to the guys: A young man has strong sexual desires as he grows into manhood. His body is producing sperm by the hundreds of thousands. These sperm are stored in his body. If he is unmarried and living a life of purity, there will be times when his “storehouse” is overfilled. God has so designed the human body that, when this happens, the surplus is discharged during sleep. This is known as a nocturnal emission or a “wet dream.” This is perfectly normal for a young man and nothing to be ashamed of. It should be, in fact, a matter of thanksgiving to the Lord for the relief it gives.

A lesson in LUST:
a tragic example from the life of King David
The Lord Jesus had some strong words to say concerning the matter of lust. Jesus said,

“Whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).

David was a great man of God. He wrote many of the Psalms. He was the greatest king that the nation of Israel ever had. But David allowed lust to overcome him and he committed two of the worst sins that a person can commit—adultery and murder.

The Bible tells us exactly how this happened. One night David was walking on the roof of his palace and he saw below a beautiful woman bathing. Sometimes you cannot help the first look, but David looked again and again until the fires of passion were raging in his heart. He sent for Bathsheba and committed adultery with her.

Some time later, Bathsheba sent word to David informing him that she was pregnant. Since Bathsheba’s husband had been away on military duty for some time, David realized that his sin of adultery would soon be exposed.

In order to cover up his sin and enable him to marry Bathsheba, David arranged to have Bathsheba’s husband killed. Then he proceeded to marry Bathsheba. He seemed to have been successful in covering up his sins of adultery and murder, but the Bible says that “the thing David had done displeased the Lord.”

God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David with his sins of adultery and murder. David truly repented of his sins and confessed them to God.

David said,

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness: according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin” (Psalms 51:1-2).

David was truly broken hearted over his sins. God forgave David and restored him to fellowship with Himself. But David still had to reap the consequences of his sins. The Bible says,

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

Because of David’s sins, God sent word to him through the prophet Nathan that “the sword” would never depart from his house. This meant that David would have much sorrow and tragedy in his family. This came to pass, just as God had said.

The son born to Bathsheba died. Amnon, one of David’s sons, raped his half-sister, Tamar. Another son murdered Amnon. Another of David’s sons, Absalom, led a rebellion against his father and was killed in battle. These were some of the terrible consequences of David’s sin.

From this account of David’s great sin, we can learn two important lessons:

• Although we may be forgiven of our sins, we must reap the consequences of our actions.
• Some sins have terrible, lifetime consequences.

You may say, “That won’t happen to me.” But it can! David was a spiritual giant, but even he was not strong enough to overcome his lust once he had allowed his passions to be stimulated. Neither will you be able to overcome your lust if you allow your passions to be aroused.

No one can seek and submit to sexual stimulation continually and not sin. The Bible says, “He that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption [rottenness]…” (Galatians 6:8).

God's Rules concerning Sex
To protect the wonderful gift of sex, God has given certain rules or commandments. Let us consider some of them.

Rule #1: Avoid fornication
Fornication is voluntary sexual intercourse between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. This sin has disastrous consequences. The Bible says,

“…the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord …Flee fornication. …He that commits fornication sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians 6:13,18).

Rule #2: Do not cause others to sin
The Bible says that it is a sin for a man to lust after a woman in his heart. It is likewise a sin on the part of a woman to deliberately dress and act in a way so as to cause a man to lust. Some girls dress and act in such ways as to cause young men to lust after them. They say, “That is their problem,” but one day girls who do this will have to answer to God for causing others to sin.

Rule #3: Do not let others cause you to sin

Jesus said, “Whoever commits sin is the slave of sin” (John 8:34). Some who have gone into sexual immorality take pleasure in dragging others down to their level. They talk about being “free” to do what they want to do, while all the time they are in bondage to their sins. The Bible says, “While they promise others liberty, they themselves are the slaves of sin...” (2 Peter 2:19).

Rule #4: Avoid abnormal sexual desire
Any deviation from the normal man-woman sexual relationship is a misuse and abuse of the sexual nature which God implanted in us. In His Word, God says,

“If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination [sin]...” (Leviticus 20:13).

The Bible says that God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their widespread practice of homosexuality. God’s Word says that this is a warning to all that live ungodly. (See 2 Peter 2:6.)

Rule #5: Do not tease
Teasing is arousing sexual desires in another person which you cannot legitimately fulfill. We are not to “light the fires of passion” in another person. This is sin in God’s sight.

Rule #6: Keep yourself pure
This means that you are to avoid all sexual immorality. There is no greater gift you can give to your future husband or wife when you marry than the gift of purity. This applies to the fellows as well as the girls.

Rule #7: Do Not give or take that which one day may rightfully belong to another.
One thing that is so wrong about fornication is that those who engage in it are giving or taking that which one day may rightfully belong to someone else. The guy who gives up his purity is taking from his future wife that which rightfully belongs to her. The girl who gives up her purity is taking from her future husband that which rightfully belongs to him. Their partners are likewise guilty. God will judge those who do this. The Bible says,

“That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because the Lord is the avenger of all such…” (1 Thessalonians 4:6).

Rule #8: Avoid things which stir up lust
The Bible warns against the dangers of stimulating the sex drive outside of marriage. The Bible says, “Flee also youthful lusts…” (2 Timothy 2:22). The way to “flee youthful lusts” is to turn totally away from anything that leads to lust. Lust may look harmless, but it is a deadly enemy.

Suppose a fellow has a date tonight. Before going out he reads a magazine which is designed to produce lust. He looks at pictures which stimulate his sexual desire. He listens to music which has both words and beat which produce lust. He picks up his girl to go to a movie. Guess what movie they attend—one full of lust, designed to stir up sexual passions. Is he “fleeing youthful lusts”? No, he is promoting them.

After the movie they park in a secluded place. Both have already been aroused by what they have seen and heard. They engage in petting and before long they are having sex. Should they be surprised when this happens? No, they should not. It is the logical outcome of all that went before.

The Bible says,

“Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?” (Proverbs 6:27-28).

Just as you cannot walk on fiery coals and not be burned, so you cannot continually seek and submit to sexual stimulation without sinning.

Sex is the wonderful gift of God
Sex is the gift of a loving God. It invigorates a marriage and adds zest to life. It is such an exhilarating experience that it enables a husband and wife to be truly one. The Bible says, “...they two shall become one flesh” (Ephesians 5:31).

This oneness is more than simply physical oneness. It is a union of two people—body, soul, and spirit. The very maximum enjoyment of sex is attained when both husband and wife are Christians and thus “one in the Lord.” When this is the case, they experience a oneness that is beyond anything else in this world.

God has put His blessing on sex within marriage. In His Word, God says,

“Let your fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of your youth…be ravished always with her love” (Proverbs 5:18-19).

You can see from these verses that God is certainly in favor of romance in marriage. God loves to see a joyful marriage and a happy home. If you are married for forty years, God wants you and your mate to have forty love-filled years.

Looking at the chart below, it seems likely that your “dating time” will be short compared to your “married time.” It is definitely to your best interests to wait for the right person, the right time, and the right circumstances.

This applies to the wonderful gift of sex. You can choose momentary pleasure and reap the bitter harvest of your wrongdoing, or you can wait for the right person and the right time and enjoy it to the fullest over the longest period of time.

Sex is not a game or a playtoy, but a gift from God to be enjoyed within the security and commitment of marriage.

To sum up what we are saying: Do not sacrifice the long-term benefits of sex for short-term thrills.

Guard your affections

It is not easy to be patient—we want thrills now. It is not easy to “guard your affections.” It is not easy to deny your sexual appetite. It is not easy to keep from envying those who seem to be enjoying the thrills of sex outside of marriage. But God’s way is best.

What young people call “going all the way” is cheap sex. Precious love is quite another thing. It is experienced when two people are totally committed to each other and have the security of marriage.

As the writer of these lessons, may I share a personal word with you? My wife and I have enjoyed 65 love-filled years together, and we are looking forward to more. God gave us six children, and we have had many happy days.

We have also had tragedy—our oldest son was killed in an accident when he was seven years old.

We were very much in love when we married, but our love has grown deeper and stronger through the years. My wife has that special beauty that a woman has when she is in love with a man and knows that she is loved and cherished by that man whom she loves.

Many times my wife and I have thanked God that we kept ourselves for each other and did not play around with sex before marriage. We are still sweethearts—we still like to hold hands! It is fantastic being so in love with each other all these years.

You say, “That’s beautiful!” Yes, it is. That’s the way God intended marriage to be. That is the way He wants your marriage to be!

by Pastor George Gardner
One of my sweet little teenagers came mincing into my study and blurted out, “Pastor, I’ve got to talk to you. I’ve got a problem.”

“What’s the matter?” I said.

“It’s my dates,” she replied.

“What’s wrong with your dates?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but they always end wrong. I’m discovering something—that the Christian guys in our church are a lot faster than the kids I used to date before I was a Christian.”

I thought, “Unfortunately, many times that’s true.”

“Now,” she continued, “what am I going to do? I want to serve the Lord. I want to be a Christian. I want to be a good witness, I want to be clean. What am I going to do? I don’t want to be an old maid. I don’t want to be laid on the shelf.”

I said to her, “Kid, you’ve got no danger of ever being an old maid, believe me. But, nevertheless, go on from there.”

“Well, what am I going to do?” she asked.

“Let me ask you something. The guy you are going with, is he a Christian?”

“You know him,” she replied. “He is a professing Christian.”

“And you’re a Christian, right?”

“Right.”

“Have you ever thought about praying over your dates?” I asked.

“Praying over a date?” she said.

“Yes, what’s so strange about that?”

“Everyone would think I was flaky if I prayed over a date. Over a youth meeting, yes. Over choir practice, yes. Over Sunday School, yes. But a date? Who prays over dates?”

“Well, from what you have just been telling me, I think maybe it’s about time that you started. Now if he won’t take the lead, how about you? Ask God’s blessing on your date.”

“Well,” she said, “that will sure change the program.”

“Well, that is what you wanted, isn’t it? It’s worth a try, isn’t it? The Lord said, ‘In everything by prayer’…so what’s wrong with that?”

It was certainly something that had never entered her mind, but she seemed satisfied to give it a try. She came back a couple of weeks later. She had a grin on her face.

“How did it go?” I asked.

“Great! Bea-u-tiful!”

“What happened?” I inquired.

“He picked me up at the house, we got in the car, he was ready to turn the key in the ignition, and I said, ‘Wait a minute.’ He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘What are we going to do tonight?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’

“I said, “Then I think maybe I’d better tell you what I want to do right now.’ He said, ‘What’s that?’

“I said, ‘I want to have a word of prayer over our date.’

“If I had hit him in the face with a lemon pie, he couldn’t have been more surprised.

“He sat there and said, ‘You what? You want to do WHAT?’

“I said, ‘We’re Christians, aren’t we?’

“‘Yeah.’

“‘We love the Lord?’

“‘Yeah.’

“‘We don’t want to do anything wrong, do we?’

"'No.’

“‘Then why can’t we pray about it? How about you praying about our date?’

“‘Not me,’ he said. ‘It’s your idea. You pray about it.’”

“So,” she continued, “I just asked the Lord to keep His hand on us, and that we would be a good witness and a good testimony, and have a good time. Pastor, I want to tell you the dates have never been better. Things are going beautifully. And I sense a certain respect and admiration that I never knew before.”

 

[RiverOL]

The Five Laws of Guy-Girl Relationships (part 1)

The Law of Attraction
We are attracted to that which is hard to get, and we think little of that which is easily obtained.

There is a strange fact about human nature: We value and prize that which is difficult to get and we treat lightly or despise that which is obtained with little or no effort on our part.

The rich kid whose parents give him a brand new sports car on his sixteenth birthday is not likely to value it as highly as the fellow who has worked and saved for three years to buy his first set of wheels.

The Law of Attraction works in guy-girl relationships. You are attracted to the person who is hard to get and you think little of the person who chases you.

Some time ago in California, a wealthy, lovesick young man named Keith was very attracted to a young girl named Karine. He proposed marriage but she said, “I don’t love you and I’m too young to get married.”

What did Keith do? He holed up in a $200 a day hotel room nearby and spent a lot of time crying. He also spent roughly $20,000 trying to get Karine to change her mind.

To show his affection for her, he provided a Learjet, placed on standby at the airport, “in case she wanted to ride around.” He sent between 3,000 and 5,000 flowers to her house. A limousine equipped with a bar and television was kept parked outside her door. He sent musicians to serenade her. He sent all kinds of fancy food, candy and perfume. He had people walking around her house carrying signs which said, “Keith loves Karine.”

What did Karine say to all this? She said, “NO”—period! She didn’t love him and she was not attracted to a man who was trying to bribe her and making a fool of himself in the process.

The moral of the story is: Don’t chase someone of the opposite sex. When you do, it wipes out your dignity and self-respect, and it lowers your value in the other person’s sight. How does that person react? He or she usually runs as fast as he or she can—in the other direction.

Some girls are so boy-crazy that they will write or call a guy on the phone to tell him that they will be only too glad “to prove their love” for him. No decent guy would be attracted to a girl with so little self-respect.

The Law of Attraction works not only in the initial contacts but in the relationships as well. A girl can never understand why a guy dropped her after she gave in and did what he had been begging her to do.

There are two reasons for this. One reason is that, for many guys, the thrill is in the chase. In the boys’ locker room, one guy will ask another, “Get with a girl lately?”

After the conquest has been made, the guy is ready to move on to the next challenge. He doesn’t care about the emotional wreckage he has left behind him. The poor girl is left to pick up the pieces of her life the best way she can. Fortunately, most guys are not that callous.

A second reason why a guy drops a girl after she gives in to him is because he loses respect for her. The Law of Attraction operates. That which is easily obtainable becomes “cheap” in his sight. He is attracted to another girl who is not so easily obtainable.

Many guy-girl relationships die because they are smothered to death. Usually one person tries to possess the other person, and that does not work. A girl may want her boyfriend to spend all his free time with her. He has to account for all his time and actions. She is upset if he looks at anybody else.

One reason why becoming involved sexually usually breaks up a relationship is that the girl expects too much. She thinks, “I’ve given myself to you completely, and I expect you to give yourself totally to me. I want you to be around when I need you. I want you to meet all my needs.” It’s almost like she thinks it is a marriage relationship instead of a “going together” relationship.

How does this affect the guy? He is no longer pursuing but being pursued. He says to himself, “This is too much! I have got to have some space!”

That is exactly what a good relationship needs, so don’t smother it. He or she may be attracted to someone else, but you have to take that chance. The popular saying is right: If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it is yours. If it does not, it never was yours.

To Summarize:
We value that which is hard to get and we think little of that which is easily obtained. In guy-girl relationships, you are attracted to the person who is hard to get and you run from the one who chases you. Do not smother a relationship!

The Law of Self-Image
We are controlled by the way we see ourselves inwardly.

What you think about yourself is very important. It affects not only your happiness but also how you get along with other people.

Those who study and understand human behavior tell us that we are controlled by the way we see ourselves inwardly. To put it another way, you are going to act out the way you see yourself. If you see yourself as not being worth much, you are going to act that way.

We all manage to remember all the “put downs” we have experienced. If somebody said to you, “You never do anything right!” you will always remember that.

When you started school, you became conscious of your appearance. As you grew older, your physical appearance became more and more important to you. You began to look yourself over for every possible “defect.”

And just in case you might have missed something, your classmates were only too happy to point it out to you. If you were shorter than the others, you were “Shorty.” If your ears protruded a little more than others, you were “Ears.” Or maybe you were a girl who was a little oversize and you got the name “Moose.”

The result of all this is that you end up with a bad self-image. You feel that, somehow, you came out on the short end of things.

Here is a strange fact: We are often totally mistaken in the way we see ourselves. A girl may be good looking and have a great personality, but because she was not elected cheerleader, she thinks she is not worth much. A fellow may have a lot going for him, but because he is not a star athlete, he has a poor self-image.

Often young women have a personality disorder called anorexia. Though they are not really overweight, they see themselves as being fat, and they become obsessed with the desire to lose weight. Many reach the point where they develop an aversion to food and simply stop eating, resulting in permanent damage to their bodies.

Sometimes it even results in death. The tragedy is that it is all based on a false idea.

But whether an idea is false or not, if we believe it, we will be controlled by it. Many young people have a low sense of self-worth. If we could listen to the thoughts inside their minds, we might hear something like this:

I am not worth anything. Nobody likes me. Why should they? I am not good looking. I am not smart. I don’t have a lot of money. I am just plain worthless.

Your self image depends on how much respect you have for yourself.

This feeling of worthlessness makes young people desperate for the approval and acceptance of their peers. They will do almost anything to be liked and accepted.

The number one reason why teens get involved in sex is their desire for love and acceptance. The girl with a poor self-image is likely to say yes to any guy who shows her a little attention. She craves for someone to hold her close and tell her that she is worth something. If it takes sex to get that, then she is willing to give it.

She says, “If losing my virginity is the price I have to pay to get my boyfriend to love me, then I will just pay that price.” To her, it seems that this is the best way to get the love and attention she needs to build up her self-image, and make her feel better about herself.

The tragedy is that, sooner or later, the relationship will break up. Now that the girl is rejected, she feels like a piece of trash. What little bit of positive self-image she had is wiped out. On top of that, she has to fight feelings of bitterness.

Your self-image depends on how much respect you have for yourself and how much respect others have for you. You build respect by setting high standards and living up to them. Nobody can make you “cheap,” but you can make yourself cheap. Most large stores have a bargain table. The stuff on that table is cheap because it has been handled by many people. Nobody can put you on the “bargain table,” but you can put yourself there by allowing people to handle your body.

The Law of Self-Image will work for you if you can see yourself as you really are—a person of priceless value. Every human being is priceless.

Think of a group of people on a late afternoon outing in the mountains. Darkness is beginning to fall when someone suddenly realizes that a little five year old girl is missing. The alarm goes out, “Janie is missing!” Immediately everyone begins to search for her. Other people are called in. Search parties are organized. Soon hundreds of people are anxiously combing the mountainsides. The search continues on into the night. No effort or expense is spared because every child is priceless. Think of the joy of the parents when Janie is found!

Because we live in a world that practically worships success, we tend to judge the value of things by size or dollar value. This is a big mistake! Those mountains with their colossal size may contain minerals worth millions of dollars; yet their value cannot be compared to that of the little five year old girl who was lost. Janie weighs less than thirty pounds, yet everyone recognizes that she is worth far more than those mountains.

Every human being is priceless.

Why is this little girl so valuable? Because she is a living person—she can laugh and love and be loved. She is priceless!

All the things that we value so highly—bigness, success, money, glamour, and fame—are nothing compared to the worth of any human being.

When you begin to see your value and the value of other people, it will affect the way you relate to them. Guys, that girl you are going out with is more than just a sex object to give you pleasure and satisfy your sexual desires, and then be thrown away when you are tired of her. She is a priceless human being with all the possibilities that every person has.

And girls, to put it plainly, you are priceless, not just some guy’s sex object.

To Summarize:
You are controlled by the way you see yourself inwardly. Begin to see yourself as you really are. You do not have to pretend that you are worth something; just believe the truth that you are priceless. Believe this and begin to act it out in your life. You can have dignity and self-respect.

The Law of Difference
There is a basic difference in the way guys and girls think about love.

Guys and girls are different in many ways, not only in the obvious, outward differences in the way their bodies are made, but in many other ways as well.

One basic difference between a guy and a girl is the way they think about love. A girl thinks of love in terms of romance. She wants a guy to love her, cherish her, talk to her, listen to her, and put her on a pedestal. She wants love, protection and security.

A guy thinks of love differently. He thinks of it more in terms of sex. The focus of his attention is the physical body of the girl. He is not daydreaming about romantic love; it is the sexual aspect of the relationship that has his attention.

There is a reason for this. The time of greatest sexual desire for a guy is in his late teens. His glands are working overtime. This is why he tends to think of love more in terms of sex, but his desire for sex is not an evidence of real love.

Just because a guy wants to have sex with you does not mean he loves you.

Girls, write this down in concrete: Just because a guy wants to have sex with you does not mean that he loves you. We do not want to be too hard on the guys but the fact is that most guys could enjoy sex with anything in a skirt! So do not get all excited just because some guy lets you know that he would like to have sex with you.

The peak of a woman’s sexual desires comes later. In a guy-girl relationship, the girl is not thinking primarily about sex. She is thinking about romantic love.

Many guys and girls cannot figure out what happened to their romance. Everything was fine when they started out, but now they do not see things the same way. There are misunderstandings and arguments. The reason is they are coming from different directions.

It has been said, “A girl plays at sex, for which she is not ready, because what she wants is love. A guy plays at love, for which he is not ready, because what he primarily wants is sex.”

What the girl primarily wants is love. She wants someone to hold her and tell her that she is special. She wants a committed boyfriend who loves her—someone to talk to and to share her life with. Her love drive is mature.

A girl plays at sex—what she wants is love.

Her sex drive, however, is not mature. She is not ready for sex and all the dangers and problems that come with it. She knows that it is the girl who gets burned in these matters. She has a lot more to lose than the guy, and she is not ready for all the heavy stuff that goes with a sexual relationship. But she does not want to lose her boyfriend, so she “plays at sex” to get the love she wants and needs.

The guy, on the other hand, is not ready for love. He is not ready for a lifetime commitment. He is not ready for all the responsibilities that go with being a husband and a father. His love drive is not mature at all.

A guy plays at love...what he primarily wants is sex.

His sex drive, however, is mature. At 16 or 17, he has powerful sexual desires and they do not want to wait. What does this mean? It means he wants a girl. He wants to pet and caress her body. He wants sexual intercourse.

What does the guy do? He “plays at love” in order to get what he primarily wants. He uses words of love and tells the girl what she wants to hear. We do not question his sincerity, but the focus of his attention is on sex. He may sincerely think that he loves the girl, but he does not understand real love. He does not realize how selfish he is in thinking only of his sexual needs.

The test of true love: it is unselfish and committed.

If a girl is not careful, things can get out of hand very quickly. She gives him an inch and he takes a mile! Before long she is wondering if she is out with a sex maniac.

Let us say that Debbie is out with Larry and she likes him a lot. They park in a lonely place and talk. Then he begins to come on real strong. He is telling her how much he loves her and how much he needs her. He is breathing heavily and his hands are starting to roam. She does not need to read a book to figure out what he has on his mind.

If Debbie does not know the facts of life, she may reason like this: “Larry wants to have sex with me. I would not want to have sex with a guy unless I really loved him, so Larry must really love me.”

Hold it, Debbie! Do not get carried away with that reasoning. Sexual desire in itself is NOT an evidence or proof of love. Debbie should guard her affections.

Most guys know that a girl will not give in unless she thinks the guy really loves her. So Larry says, “I love you, Debbie, and one day we will get married. I want to ‘express’ my love for you.”

Is that love? No, it is not. Remember the test of true love—it is unselfish and it is committed. When these two qualities are missing, it is not real love. His strong sexual desire is NOT an evidence of true love. It is just his glands pushing him. If he really loved her, he would want what is best for her, not just a thrill at her expense.

Strong sexual desire is not an evidence of true love.

Girls, when a guy is getting himself all worked up and telling you how much he “loves” you, tell him to back off. Guard your affections. Strong sexual desire is not an evidence of true love.

When a couple becomes sexually involved and later breaks up, it is the girl who suffers. Even if there is no pregnancy, the break-up is much harder on her. One reason for this is he got what he wanted, but she did not get the love she wanted. She feels used.

In fairness to the guys, it should be said that often it is an aggressive girl who is putting the pressure on the guy. Some girls have little or no self-respect and they are relentless in their pursuit of guys. The following letter from a mother appeared in the “Ann Landers” column of a newspaper:

To Summarize:
There is a difference in the way guys and girls think of love. A girl thinks of romantic love—someone to hold her close and tell her that she is special. A guy thinks of love more in terms of sex.
How far is too far?
Research has shown that, even with couples who do not intend to go all the way, they will be sexually involved after approximately 300 hours spent alone with each other, unless definite steps are taken to prevent this. The formula goes like this:

How far is “too far”? An automobile is equipped with safety devices to let you know when you are in danger of ruining the engine. For example, when the engine is running hot, a red light flashes on the dash. This lets you know that something is wrong. You need to stop immediately and find out what it is. Here are some “warning lights” to let you know when you are going too far:

• You are going too far when a guy’s or a girl’s hands start roaming.
• You are going too far when either of you starts removing clothing. Keep all of your clothing on all of the time.
• You are going too far when you are doing something you would not want to be doing around someone you really respect.
• You are going too far when you cannot make an intelligent decision as to what you should or should not do and carry out that decision.

To Summarize:
Before you start dating, you need to set your guidelines as to how far to go. The only guideline that is 100% safe is: Keep your hands off and your clothes on!

 

[RiverOL]

The Five Laws of Guy-Girl Relationships (part 2)

The Law of Progression
There is a progressive nature in sex—you tend to move toward greater physical intimacy.

Some teens deliberately choose to experience sex. A fellow may hear about it from his older friends and he wants to “score.” Some girls do not want to be different from their friends who are already into sex, so they make the decision to give up their virginity.

There is not much that you can say to someone who has made up his or her mind to have sex. But most guys and girls want to do what is best for them. They have no intention of going all the way, but many of them will end up doing it anyway. Why? Because they did not know about the progressive nature of sex. They did not know about the Law of Progression.

What is the Law of Progression as it relates to sexuality? It is this: When a guy and a girl spend time alone together, the relationship tends to move steadily toward greater physical intimacy.

To begin with, just being together with the person you love is a happy and satisfying experience. But along with this is the desire for physical contact.

The first physical contact in a guy-girl relationship is usually holding hands. This is exciting because it is physical contact and it feels great.

Soon, however, there will be a desire for greater intimacy. The guy may put his arm around the girl. Then comes the first kiss. It may be a simple goodnight kiss, but for him, it is exciting and satisfying. That is wonderful, but the Law of Progression is working. What satisfies you now will not satisfy you later on.

Each time you are alone, you start where you left off last time. The couple begins experimenting with “super kissing”—prolonged kissing. Then comes “French kissing”—kissing with your mouth open. You are now entering a phase where sexual desires are being aroused.

Then comes prolonged sessions of hugging and kissing. The more time you spend together, the more intimate you become.

Then comes “petting.” This is where the hands get into the act. Petting is handling each other’s body—parts normally covered by clothing. It does not include sexual intercourse. It has been defined as “everything but.”

Petting is pleasurable to both the guy and the girl, but it is dangerous because it arouses strong genital feelings. In marriage, this is the foreplay that prepares the couple for sex. But your body does not know that you are not married. The signal to your body is: Get ready for sexual intercourse.

Many guys and girls get involved in petting and see nothing wrong in it because they have no intention of going all the way. But invariably they end up doing what they never intended to do because they did not understand the progressive nature of sex.

Petting is followed by “heavy petting.” Then comes mutual sex play in which the guy and the girl are touching and handling each other’s intimate parts. Sexual passions are further aroused and the couple proceeds to sexual intercourse—something that should be reserved for marriage.

This marks the end of the relationship as it once was. The physical side of the relationship is now overpowering. After this, every time the couple gets alone, the tendency will be to have sex—regardless of the dangers and the problems.

The best way to deal with the Law of Progression is to control things on the physical side. The girl who allows a guy to kiss her on the first or second date is starting out too fast and too far along on the path of physical intimacy. She might like to stop with a little romantic hugging and kissing and keep the relationship at that point. But the Law of Progression is at work, and the relationship will move steadily toward more and more intimacy.

To Summarize:
There is a progressive nature in sex. You tend to move steadily toward more and more physical intimacy unless you take definite steps to prevent this.

The Law of Harvest
You will reap what you sow!

Every farmer knows the Law of Harvest: What he plants is what he will reap. If he plants corn, he will reap corn. If he plants watermelons, he will reap watermelons. What you sow is what you reap.

Each of us is planting a “crop” with our lives. Our actions are the “seed.” Sometime in the future we will reap a “harvest.” That harvest will be according to our actions.

When you engage in sex outside of marriage, you are sowing seeds of immorality. At some future time, you will reap the harvest from what you are sowing.

Someone may say, “But I do not believe in the Law of Harvest.” Your believing or not believing in it will not affect its operation.

In the physical realm, there is a natural law called the Law of Gravity. You may not believe in it, but it operates just the same. If you jump off a ten-story building, you will suffer the consequences, regardless of whether or not you believe in the Law of Gravity. The same is true of the Law of Harvest. It operates constantly, whether you believe in it or not.

Television and movies are guilty of promoting the “Big Lie” in sexual matters. What is it? The Big Lie is: Sex is fun and no one has to pay the consequences of sex outside of marriage.

On TV and in the movies, the large majority of sexual encounters are between people who are not married to each other. Night after night on TV and in the movies, you can see people jumping into bed with those other than their marriage partners.

It all seems so exciting, and apparently there are no bad consequences. Young people see this and think this is the life. But it’s a lie! They are being deceived.

So, where is the lie? The media claims to tell it like it is, but they do not. Every day untold thousands of people become infected with a sexually transmitted disease (STD). That is reality. But when have you ever seen anyone on TV or in the movies contract an STD? You do not see it happening to them.

Maybe no one on TV pays the price of illicit sex, but in real life you do. The Law of Harvest is sure. If you sow the seeds of immorality, you will reap bitter fruit.

Some people think that sex outside of marriage is okay so long as it is “responsible sex.” This means “take proper precautions so you don’t get pregnant or get some sexually transmitted disease.” But sex outside of marriage is sin, whether or not you “take precautions.” To say otherwise is like saying, “There is nothing wrong with shoplifting so long as you don’t get caught.”

It is bad enough when you have to suffer for your own wrongdoing, but it is even worse when an innocent person—someone you love—suffers for what you did.

Like a lot of other young men, Joe tried to see how many girls he could seduce. In the process he contracted a sexually transmitted disease. In time, he settled down and married a lovely young lady. This couple had a little son born to them—born blind, due to the disease of his father. Not long after this, his young wife died of the same cause. Then, one night, in his terrible grief and guilt, this young man took his baby in his arms and drove to the graveyard. There, standing over the grave of his wife, he killed his son and took his own life.

If you are going to be involved in sex outside of marriage, then you should take all the “precautions” you can take. But taking precautions will not prevent the Law of Harvest from operating. You will reap what you sow.

You may go for a long time and never get caught. There is no pregnancy, you do not get any disease, and no one discovers what you are doing. But the Law of Harvest says, “There will be a harvest.” This is true and it will happen. You will reap bitter fruit some day.

The matter of sowing and reaping is not all negative. There is a positive side as well. If you are one of those young people with enough courage to go against the crowd and keep yourself pure for marriage, you can look forward to a wonderful harvest.

A young girl named Julijanna chose to remain alone rather than accompany some of her friends to the parties where there was drinking and immorality. To her friends, it seemed that she was missing out on so many teenage pleasures. But she had her reward. Later, a friend wrote about her:

“Look at Julijanna. She has a wonderful life and a beautiful man who loves her deeply. She is happy down to her soul. Julijanna is eating the fruit of her obedient life.”

To Summarize:
The Law of Harvest says that you will reap what you sow. Movies and TV promote The Big Lie that no one has to pay the price of illicit sex, but it is different in the real world. You will reap what you sow.
Why you should say No!
It is definitely to your best interest to say no to sex before marriage. By denying yourself some thrills now, you are providing for your brightest future. This is illustrated by the following story.

Suppose you had a fabulously rich uncle who was very fond of you. When you were fourteen, he made you a wonderful promise. He said, “On your sixteenth birthday, I’m going to give you a thousand dollars.”

Wow! Already your mind is working, thinking of all the things you are going to buy. But then your uncle makes you another promise. He says, “That thousand dollars will be yours to do with as you like. But I want to teach you to plan for your future, so I am making you another promise. Whatever you have left of that thousand dollars on your twenty-first birthday, I will give you that amount every month for the rest of your life.”

That changes the whole picture! If you have only $50 left on your twenty-first birthday, you will get $50 per month the rest of your life. If you have $500 left, you will get $500 per month. If you have the whole thousand dollars left, you will get a thousand dollars a month for the rest of your life.

It would definitely be to your advantage to deny yourself the pleasure of spending the thousand dollars in order to provide for the brightest possible future. That is the way it is with sex—you deny yourself some thrills now in order to provide for your brightest possible future.

How to say No!
You say “no” in two ways—verbally and with body language. Both are important. Say “No” with your lips and move away with your body. Sometimes a girl sends conflicting signals. She is saying “NO” with her lips but she’s saying “Maybe” or “Yes” with her body. That never works.

When you say “No,” say it firmly and finally, and move away. You cannot be indecisive. You should NEVER, under any circumstances, allow anyone to pressure you into doing something you do not want to do—something you know is wrong.

A guy will try some things without necessarily expecting the girl to go along with it. This is the time for you to tell him plainly that you are not that type and you are disappointed that he would try such things. Any time a guy’s hands start roaming, that is going “too far.” With some guys, all a girl has to do is quietly and firmly remove the wandering hand and say, “No, please.” With others it may require more drastic action. If a guy does not take your “No” politely, ask him to take you home—NOW.

The word will get around that you are NOT that kind of girl. This will undoubtedly cause some guys (the wrong kind!) to lose interest in you. At the same time, however, it may catch the attention of others (the right kind!). At times it may not seem so, but there are guys who appreciate a girl with high standards.

If you really love each other, sex is not necessary to fulfill your relationship. There are many ways to express love.

Coming across the campus one evening was a couple very much in love. As they neared the girl’s dormitory at closing time, they saw that every available spot on the porch steps was already occupied. Yet, even then, the couple did not find it necessary to add their too-obvious goodnight to all the others.
She turned as they approached the stairs, looked up into his face with hers beaming, put her finger on his chin in a sweetly personal way as she said, “It’s been wonderful. You’re great.” As she ran up the steps, he turned back toward his dorm with such a satisfied look on his face that one knew he did not realize what he had missed!
In fact, it was evident that he had not missed anything really important. She had told him everything a boy wants to hear from a girl he cares about. She told him she enjoyed being with him, that she had had a wonderful time, and she liked him very much and in a very special way.
Of course, this girl did not go around touching every fellow on the chin! This gesture was important to him because it was just for him and it showed that he was special to her.

Sometimes it may be necessary for a guy to instruct his girlfriend on the facts of togetherness. Girls have no idea how some things they do excite a guy sexually.

Carlos and Anna were very fond of each other. They had been going together steadily for some time, when Carlos found it necessary to talk things over with her. He said something like this: “I love you very much, so much that I want you close always. But when you sit on my lap like this, my feelings become almost more than I can handle. So slide over on your side of the seat and let’s go get something to eat.” Carlos was taking his share of the responsibility for their relationship.

It is very unwise to let the situation get out of hand. To stop lovemaking when it is already advancing at a rapid rate is not easy, but it can be done. Many girls have found that quoting a Bible verse like John 3:16 changes things.

Practical steps to saying No!
Saying NO begins in the heart, but it must be lived out in your actions. Here are some practical steps that will help you carry out your decision:

• Write out your standards. What you will and will not do. You need some unshakable, unbreakable rules—rules that you are not going to break for anyone. Things like:
  1. I will keep myself pure for the one I will marry.
  2. I will not engage in petting.
  3. I will not go to my boyfriend’s house or invite him to come to my house when no one else is at home.
  4. I will not go to parties where I know there will be drinking, drugs, and sex.

A girl should be careful how she dresses. How many buttons do you leave unbuttoned on your blouse? Guys notice those kinds of things. You may be saying one thing with your lips and something else by the way you dress.

• Plan your dates. Know what you will be doing. When the planned part is over, let the date be over. One young person after another can say, “It was when we didn’t plan our dates and had too much free time that we got into trouble."
• Communicate your sexual standards up front. Today many guys who go out with a girl more than once or twice expect her to have sex with him. This is why you need to spell out your standards up front. Say, “I don’t want to be involved sexually, and I don’t want to pet. I don’t want to French kiss.” You will save yourself a lot of hassles and a lot of grief if you do this. If his standards do not agree with yours, it would be best not to date that person.

Look to your future in saying No!
In a survey of over 11,000 young people, 94% of the girls and 76% of the guys said that it is acceptable to say NO to sex. It is not only “acceptable,” it is smart. It is like money in the bank. The person who puts money in a savings account is not throwing it away. He is looking ahead to his future.

Saying no to sex before marriage is looking ahead to your future. It is building a “love savings account” to be withdrawn at the right time and spent with great joy with the right person.

To their surprise, many girls have discovered that when the word got out that they were virgins and intended to stay that way, they had more dates and better quality friendships. The guys knew that they did not have to perform sexually, so the fellow and the girl could concentrate on getting to know each other and having a great time.

Let’s face it—keeping yourself pure in our sex-crazy world is not easy. It takes courage for a guy to leave a party when the couples start wandering off to the bedrooms. It takes courage for a girl to say NO and keep saying it when others are not. But the reward is great.

A girl who was keeping herself pure told her father that sometimes she wondered why she was waiting. He replied wisely, “I think I can tell you why you are waiting. You are waiting to be free from the nagging voice of conscience and feeling guilty. Free to give all of yourself to the right person.”

The reward for saying NO to sex before marriage comes later, but it is a wonderful reward. What is it? It is this: Being able to begin your married life with no shame, no guilt, no regrets, and no STDs!

To Summarize:
“Saying NO” may take place in a house or a parked car, but it has to start in your heart long before then. You can say NO, and there are ways to do it. You need to program yourself ahead of time to know exactly what you will do…and then do it!
How to please God
Most people live their lives on the principle: “I will do what pleases me.”

For a Christian, things are different. If the Lord Jesus is your Savior, you do not belong to yourself; you belong to God. You were a slave in Satan’s kingdom, but God “bought” you with a great price.

What was the price God paid for you? The price was the death of His Son. The Bible says,

“...you were not redeemed...with silver and gold...but with the precious blood of Christ...” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

Christ is not only our Savior, but He is our Lord. He has the right to sit on the throne of our heart. That throne is not for two, but for one. That One is Christ, not SELF. The Bible says,

“...you are not your own, for you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Choosing to live your life to please God will settle a thousand questions in your life. When you are faced with a big decision, you will not run around to all your friends, asking for their opinions. Instead, you will ask yourself, “Will this be pleasing to God?”

All sex outside of marriage is forbidden by God. When it comes to God’s will concerning sex, the Bible says,

“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification [purity]: that you should abstain from fornication [sexual immorality]” (1 Thessalonians 4:3).

The word “sanctification” means “set apart for God.” My body, which the Bible calls a “vessel,” belongs to God, but God has given me possession of it. I am entrusted with my “vessel,” to hold it for God. I am to glorify God in my body. The Bible says,

“Every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification [purity] and honor; not in lustful passion, like the heathen who do not know God” (1 Thessalonians 4:4-5).

It pleases God when we control our body in holiness, purity and honor. Knowing that we are pleasing to God brings great joy to our heart.

When we live like the unsaved people of the world and do what they do, it is a triumph for Satan and a defeat for God. But when we live in purity and honor, we are glorifying God in our body. This is a very great triumph for God!

 

[RiverOL]

Dating—the Benefits and Dangers

At a parent-teen conference on dating, a teenage girl asked speaker Bill Gothard, “How old do you have to be before you can start to date?” He answered with the following statement: “You are old enough to date when you have achieved the following three requisites:

1. When you are aware of both the benefits and dangers of dating,
2. When you have personally worked out from Scriptures a set of dating standards,
3. When you have purposed that you will not lower these standards, even if it means losing dates.”

What is Dating?
A date or “going out” with someone is time prearranged with a person of the opposite sex. Group dating is several couples getting together. When two couples go out together, it is called a “double date.” A single date is going out with just one person.

First-time dates are usually group dates. Picnics, skating parties, school functions, and church socials are ideal for first dates. You are more at ease, and you do not have to carry the conversation. A natural follow-up to group dating is going out with another couple. Single dating can come later. The first dates of a young girl should NOT be single dates.

The Benefits of Dating

Dating can help you develop your personality
You learn how to handle situations and how to grow and mature in your relationships with others.

Dating helps you learn to get along socially
Being with a girl or guy will be awkward at first, but dating can help you learn to be comfortable and at ease with those of the opposite sex.

Dating can help in the selection of a mate.
Most every young person looks forward to getting married some day. Dating is one way of meeting possible marriage partners and helping you decide the kind of person you want to marry.

The Dangers of Dating
Dating is not necessarily sinful, but many young people fall into sin as a result of dating. The danger in dating is that you will do something that will seriously damage your chances for future happiness and a successful marriage.

It is easy for teens to think, “I have my whole life ahead of me. The choices I make now will not affect that.” Yes, they will! Your dating patterns and the things you do will greatly affect the quality of your future life. You are sowing seeds of future success or failure in your dating years. Let us consider some of the dangers in dating.

Dating can lead to broken hearts.
A large part of dating is flirting. Flirting is acting like you love someone. The object of flirting is to create a romantic attachment with the other person with no serious intent on your part.

The idea of a romantic relationship with someone of the opposite sex is very appealing to teens. Most young people realize that the relationship is temporary. There is no commitment involved. Both guy and girl realize that either one is free to break up the romance at any time for any reason.

This may sound harmless, but as two people become romantically involved, they begin to bond emotionally. Even though there are no commitments, two single people begin increasingly thinking of themselves as a couple. They are seen together and viewed as a couple by their friends. They are bonding and becoming emotionally glued together.

In breaking up, these two hearts which have become glued together are ripped apart. They are emotionally wounded and end up with scars that can last a lifetime. One or both experience a loss of self-esteem and the sense of being rejected.

Having your heart broken is no fun; in fact, it can be devastating. Some young people try to deal with it by toughening their emotions. They say, “It’s no big deal. I’ll find somebody else."

A person who is trying to rebound from a failed romance is very vulnerable. The sense of being rejected by someone they loved is devastating. Often they are frantically trying to find someone who shows an interest in them. Their normal caution is put on “the back burner.” They often jump quickly into another romantic relationship, which turns out to be worse than the first one.

Dating often leads to physical intimacy.

Our sex-crazy culture makes it appear that sex is everything in a romantic relationship. A physical relationship is often mistaken for love, and the couple rushes into marriage.

Getting involved sexually almost always destroys a relationship. Remember the pyramid! A marriage or a romantic relationship based on sex will not last.

Breaking up a romantic relationship is always painful, but if the couple has been involved sexually, the breaking up is ten times worse. You have each given yourself in the most intimate way to the other person. You have given away a part of yourself and you can never get it back.

Dating can produce animosities.
Over a period of time, jealousies and animosities can develop between guys and girls and their former partners and their new attachments. The thought is, “He or she stole my girlfriend or boyfriend.” These animosities can tear up a Christian youth group.

Dating can bring a lot of "baggage" into a marriage.
You may think you can play around and be promiscuous when you are single and leave it behind when you get married. That is wrong thinking. All those physical intimacies become “emotional baggage” that can wreck a marriage.

Dating can create an artificial relationship.
Each person is trying very hard to impress the other person. Each is putting on his or her best front which makes it difficult to evaluate the other person’s true character.

Anybody can put on a good “front” for a short time, especially when they are doing what they want to do. A couple can go together for years without really knowing each other. They get married and sooner or later discover the real person they married. They say, “I didn’t know he or she was like that!”

Finding the Right One
It is God’s plan for most Christian young people to marry and raise godly children. At the right time God stirs up their interest in the opposite sex. The big question then becomes: How will I find the one God has in mind for me?

While there can be some benefits from dating, it is based on the wrong motive—getting instead of giving. It has the wrong goal—go as far as you can. And it can produce wrong results—broken hearts and damaged emotions.

In today’s culture, it is not unusual for teens to be involved in four or five failed romances. Each time, as the pain caused from the last relationship fades into the background, the guy and girl develop a new romance with a different partner. The whole scenario of getting deeply involved romantically, breaking up, and doing the same thing over and over again becomes a dress rehearsal for divorce. Is there a better way? Yes, there is. It is called “courtship.”

What is Courtship?
Courtship is a relationship in which both guy and girl have the same long-term purpose in view. The purpose of a courting relationship is to consider marriage with the one of God’s choice. The requirement for courtship involves a commitment on the part of both guy and girl to certain guidelines:

A "one man, one woman" commitment.
You are no longer “shopping around.” There is an intense desire on the part of both guy and girl to really get to know each other and to discover if God has His approval on their possible marriage.

A restraint of affections.
Lust is a getting proposition and it demands immediate satisfaction. Real love will wait for the right time and right circumstances. It is not unusual for two committed Christians to agree to refrain from all physical contact beyond holding hands until marriage. Some of the happiest married couples can testify to the fact that their first kiss was at the marriage altar!

Respect for parents on both sides.
In a God-ordained courtship, there should be the approval of the parents on both sides. If one or both sets of parents disapprove of the relationship, that is a danger signal which should not be ignored.

Preparation for marriage.
A successful marriage involves serious preparation on the part of both the guy and girl. Financial freedom is a necessity in a happy marriage. The couple should seriously consider a budget. You may be madly in love with each other, but if you do not have a good education and financial freedom, you may not be ready for courtship.

Ideally, both husband and wife should be committed Christians who love the Lord Jesus with all their hearts. There will be serious problems if one partner is a fully-committed Christian and the other is complacent about the things of God. Under no circumstances should a born-again Christian marry an unbeliever.

The Rewards of Courtship
Courtship brings a new freedom in relationships with the opposite sex. You are focused on one person and not wondering about every guy or girl you meet. It avoids envy and jealousy.

Courtship promotes self-control and moral purity. It promotes responsibility—you are seriously planning and preparing for life.

What does God say?
God delights in the happiness of His children. Every command of God is an expression of His love and His desire that we enjoy the best He has in mind for us. If you want God’s best, you will want to work out from the Bible a set of dating standards. Let us see what God says about sexual matters.

Fornication
Sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who are not married is called fornication. The Bible says, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification [purity], that you should abstain from fornication” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). That should settle the matter for every child of God—“This is the will of God…that you should abstain from fornication.”

God hates all sins, but He has a special hatred for the sin of fornication. The Bible says, “Flee [run from] fornication…he that commits fornication sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians 6:18). God hates this sin because it destroys the beautiful plan that God has in mind for you.

If you are a Christian, your body is “the temple of the Holy Spirit.” The Bible says, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body…” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Defrauding
The Bible says,

“Every one of you should know how to possess his body in sanctification [purity] and honor…that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter…” (1 Thessalonians 4:4,6).

“Defrauding” is raising expectations in another person which you cannot righteously fulfill. In business, defrauding is cheating—leading someone to expect certain benefits which you know are false. When a guy professes to love a girl and talks about their getting married some day in order to entice her to have sex with him, that is defrauding. The Bible says that God takes note of this and that He is the “avenger” of all who do this. This means God will punish those who commit this sin.

A good rule for guys and girls is this: Do not give or take that which may some day rightfully belong to another person.

Homosexual sins
God forbids all sexual intercourse between two members of the same sex. The Bible says,

“You shall not have intercourse with a man as with a woman: it is abomination” (Leviticus 18:22).

God does not hate homosexuals; He loves them! He loves them so much that He gave His only Son to die for them. But God hates their sin. He says that it is an “abomination” to Him. The Bible tells us that God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of this sin.

Marrying an unbeliever
For a Christian to marry an unbeliever is a violation of the will of God. In no uncertain terms God warns us against this sin. He says, “Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers…” (2 Corinthians 6:14).

Let this fact impress itself on your mind: It is never God’s will for a Christian to marry an unbeliever.

Wait for the right person and the right time
A researcher has discovered a way to forecast the future of four-year olds by watching how they interact with a marshmallow. He invites the children one by one into a plain room with nothing but a small table and a marshmallow. He says, “You can have this marshmallow right now, but if you wait while I run an errand, you can have two marshmallows when I get back.” Then he leaves.

Through a one-way window he is able to watch what happens. Some children grab the marshmallow the minute he is gone. Some last a few minutes while others are determined to wait. They cover their eyes, sing to themselves, try to play a game, or even fall asleep. When the scientist returns, he gives these children their hard-earned two marshmallows.

But that is not the end of the story. By the time these children reached high school, the researcher found that those, who as four-year olds held out for the second marshmallow, grew up to be better adjusted, more popular, more confident and dependable teenagers than those who gave in to temptation early on.

The world says, “This is life; get all the fun and excitement you can now!” That is like saying, “Grab the marshmallow NOW!” God says, “If you wait for the right person, the right time, and the right circumstances, you can enjoy “marshmallows” every day!”

God's Design for Marriage

Man is different from animals in that he was created “in the image of God.” God is one God, existing in three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We are composed of three parts—body, soul, and spirit. Our body is the “house” in which we live. Our soul is our self—composed of mind, emotions, and will. Our spirit is our innermost being by which we can know God and receive His life.

God’s design for marriage is to bring a guy who loves the Lord with all his heart together with a girl who likewise loves the Lord with all her heart.

They develop a deep friendship based on their common love for the Lord Jesus. As they grow closer to God, they draw closer to each other.

In time the relationship develops into courtship as they seek God’s will concerning their possible marriage. In the courtship period, as they grow closer to God, they again grow closer to each other.

As they discern God’s will to get married, they become engaged. Finally, in marriage, they enjoy oneness of spirit, oneness of soul, and oneness of body. They become one in Christ.

The result is the deepest, happiest, most fulfilling relationship that can be known by two people in this life. God is smiling on their marriage and thinking, “That is what I had in mind!"

Working out your standards for dating

Here are some important standards from God’s Word.

1. I will save sex for marriage.
I will not be involved in the sin of fornication, even if it means losing dates. If necessary, I will tell my dates up front, “Some day I expect to be married, and then sex will be all that God intended it to be. I want to wait until then.”

2. I will learn to say "No!"
You will be tempted to do things that you know you should not do. Young people who are involved in sinful pleasures take delight in dragging others down to their level. If you make excuses, they will keep after you. But if you say quietly and graciously, “Jesus is Lord to me. I do not think that is a wise thing for me to do,” they will leave you alone.

3. I will learn to be content as a single person.
The fact is, if I am not happy and content as a single person, I will not be happy and content as a married person.

4. I will guard my heart.
I do not have to “fall in love” with the wrong kind of person. I have given my heart to the Person who loves me so much that He died on a bloody cross for me so I could live in Heaven with Him. I will wait for the one of His choice.

5. I will date only Christians.
God has told me in no uncertain terms that it is never His will for me as a believer to marry an unbeliever. If I do not date an unbeliever, I will not marry one.

6. I will seriously consider courtship.
Until I am ready for marriage, I will not be involved in a lot of pointless romantic relationships that create problems.

I will turn away from flirting and playing the dating game. I will turn to courtship, which promotes self-control, moral purity, and responsibility. I will turn from living for myself and begin showing real love for my brother or sister in Christ.

7. I will put my future in God's hands.
This may seem like a risky thing to do, but the Bible says,

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and do not lean to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

Why should I not trust Him? Has He not done everything to win and keep my love, my trust, and my confidence? God says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).

8. I want God's will for my life.
Why do young people risk their lives and future happiness on drugs, alcohol, and sex? Because they are bored. Why are they bored? Because they are all wrapped up in themselves. SELF is the center of their lives.

God never created us to be bored. He gave His only Son that we might have an exciting, abundant life. Our Lord Jesus said, “…I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

God has a purpose for my life. If it is His will, He will bring into my life the right person at the right time to fulfill His purpose in both of our lives. I will trust God to do this in His time.

THE GOLDEN RULE
Do not give or take anything that one day may rightfully belong to someone else.
Guys, do not do anything with a girl that you would not want some guy to do with your future wife. John and Mark were roommates in college. Although John’s past had included a couple of serious mistakes, he had vowed that his next serious kiss would be with his wife. John began to date Maryanne.

Each night when he would come home from a date, Mark would quiz him (as boys often do) about the date. “How did it go, man? I mean, what did you get?” John would always reply, “Mark, I’m not like that anymore. I respect Maryanne too much to try anything.”

After a year, John and Maryanne broke up. A few months later, guess who started dating Maryanne? You guessed it! Mark. They fell in love and eventually got married.

John was the best man at the wedding. Afterward, John called Mark inside and whispered in his ear: “Mark, do you remember when I was dating Maryanne, how you used to ride me about not doing anything sexually with her?”

You don't have any idea how deeply I appreciate you for that...

“Yeah,” Mark replied. “That was so ignorant of me.”

“Aren’t you glad I treated her the way I did?”

Mark embraced his old roommate and fought back the tears. “You don’t have any idea how deeply I appreciate you for that, John.”

 

[RiverOL]

Satan's Number One Target

Satan zeroes in on young people. YOU are at the top of Satan’s hit list. Satan is out to get YOU—dead or alive!

We sing, “Everybody ought to know who Jesus is,” and they should; but everybody should also know who Satan is.

Many people laugh at the idea of an actual spirit-person named Satan. No one enjoys this more than Satan himself. His main work is deceiving people, and it is a lot easier to deceive people when they do not even think he exists. We might ask this question: If there is no real person named Satan, who is doing his work?

The Bible speaks of him thirty-nine times as “Satan,” and forty-eight times as “the devil.” In every case, it is referring to a real person, the supreme evil spirit-being.

The Warfare of the Ages

We can never understand what life on earth is all about until we understand that there is a great warfare going on in the spirit-world between Satan and God. Originally, Satan was created as an angel named “Lucifer.” He was the wisest, most beautiful, and most powerful angel ever created by God. Apparently he was over all the other angels.

For a time, Lucifer was perfect in his ways; but pride entered his heart. He decided that he should be God. He said in his heart, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God…” (Isaiah 14:13). Satan rebelled against his Creator.

One-third of the angels in Heaven followed Satan in his rebellion against God. From that time until now, Satan and his followers have been the relentless enemies of God and mankind. Satan and his fallen angels know that they will end up in “the lake of fire” where they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever, but they want to take as many people as they can with them.

Since the beginning of time, Satan has been deceiving people and murdering them. Jesus said,

“he was a murderer from the beginning… he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).

Satan wants to deceive you and murder you. The Bible says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

The warfare of the ages is a never ending battle for the minds and hearts of people—all people.

This world is not a playground; it is a battleground! The battle is between Satan’s lies and God’s truth.

The Bible calls Satan “the god of this world” because he is the unseen ruler of the world-system which is based on pride, greed, and lust. Satan uses his world-system to propagate his lies and deceive people. Satan blinds the minds of people with his lies so they will end up in the lake of fire with him.

Satan deceives people by saying that the universe came into being by chance, and that there is no God. The truth is: God created the universe. In one majestic sentence, the Bible tells us how the universe came into being: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

Scientists who do not want to believe God’s Word teach the “Big Bang” theory. According to this theory, the universe, with its almost infinite complexity, came into being by chance, as a result of a gigantic explosion of “cosmic material” in space. This theory leaves two questions which no scientist can answer: Where did the “cosmic material” come from? What caused the gigantic explosion?

The Bible says, “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God…” (Psalm 14:1). A “fool” in the Bible is never a mentally-deficient person, but rather one who is arrogant, proud, and self-sufficient—one who lives his life as if there were no God.

Another of Satan’s lies is that man evolved upwards from a single living cell. The truth is: Man was created by God, “in the image of God.” The Bible says, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him…” (Genesis 1:27).

The human body is the most marvelous organism on earth. To create the universe, God had only to speak and it was done. The human body was not only created by God, but it was formed directly by the hand of God.

The Bible says, “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). King David said, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” (Psalm 139:14).

The theory of evolution is one of the biggest lies ever devised by Satan to deceive the human race. This unproven theory leaves God out completely, and it is almost universally taught as fact in our schools and universities. Again, a question that no scientist can answer is: Where did that first living cell come from?

The majority of young people in today’s culture believe there is no absolute moral truth. They have been conditioned to believe that each person has the right to believe and do whatever he or she thinks is right. To disagree with this is to be considered intolerant, an unforgiveable sin in today’s culture.

But God is a moral Being. In the Ten Commandments and other commands in the Bible, God has told us what is right and what is wrong. God tells us that it is wrong to worship other gods, to make idols, to dishonor your parents, to kill, to steal, to commit immorality, to lie, and to covet something belonging to another person.

These are universal truths which apply to all people, in all places, for all time. We may choose to disregard what God says, but when we stand before God, we will be judged by His Word.

Amazingly, many young people believe a most unusual lie. They believe that the act of believing something makes it true for them. They believe that moral truth does not become true for them until they choose to believe it.

However, believing a lie does not make it true for anybody. And not believing the truth does not affect the truth. I may say, “I don’t believe in the law of gravity,” but if I jump off a ten-story building, the law of gravity will work whether I believe it or not.

Satan claims that all religions worship the same God, and all religions are equally valid. If this were true, God made a terrible mistake when He let His Son die such a horrible and shameful death on a bloody cross that it made Him cry out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”

There is only one true and living God—the God of the Bible. He said,

“…there is no other God besides Me; a just God and a Savior; there is none besides Me. Look to Me, and be saved…” (Isaiah 45:21-22).

Religions around the world worship gods of judgment and harsh demands. In these religions, there is no thought whatsoever of having a personal relationship with their god.

The God of the Bible is a God of love. He loves every single person in the world whether we respond to His love or not. Our Creator wants us to come into a personal relationship with Him.

The death of Jesus Christ on the cross is the eternal expression and proof of God’s amazing love for us. Jesus paid our sin-debt in full and rose from the dead to be our living Savior. He said,

“I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me” (John 14:6).

Satan wants people to believe that Jesus Christ was a good man, but that He was not the Son of God. The fact is: Jesus is the Christ, the promised Savior, the Son of the living God.

Jesus Christ has no rival. His coming into the world was miraculous. He was sinless. No one, not even his bitterest enemies, could point to one sin in His life. Jesus was especially anointed by God as “the Christ,” the promised Savior. He claimed to be God. He did things which only God could do. He commanded the winds and the waves and they obeyed Him. He raised three people from the dead. Twice, God spoke from Heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

Another lie Satan uses to deceive people is to say that Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead. But Jesus Christ did rise from the dead in a new resurrection body. The tombs of all who have founded major religions are sacred places. But Christ’s tomb is an empty tomb. Christ is alive!

Christ appeared on the earth for forty days after His resurrection. He appeared to His disciples many times. On one occasion over 500 people saw Him, most of whom were still alive when the gospels were written.

For thousands of years, since the creation of man, death had reigned. That was a victory for the devil. When the Son of God died on the cross, He, too, descended into death’s domain. It appeared that death had swallowed Him also. But out of that black abyss of death, the Man Jesus Christ rose in triumph!

Jesus Christ rose from the dead in a new resurrection body—the Victor over sin, Satan, and death. The resurrection of Christ proves that He is who He said He was, and everything He said is true. The Bible says that Jesus Christ was “declared to be the Son of God with power…by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4). Jesus said to His believers, “…because I live, you shall live also” (John 14:19).

Satan tells people, “If you are a good person and you do enough good works, God will accept you.” The truth is that no one can ever be saved by their good works. The Bible says,

“For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

All other religions stress man’s works, but we are not saved by what we do for God, but by what God has done for us in the Person of His Son. The Bible says that Jesus Christ “loves us and washed us from our sins in His own blood” (Revelation 1:5). How this touches our heart!

Satan deceives people into thinking that hell is not a real place. Hell is a real place, just as Heaven is a real place. The word “hell” occurs twelve times in the New Testament. In eleven of those times, the word “hell” came from the lips of our loving Lord Jesus who gave His life that we might not have to go there.

Hell was not created for us, but for “the devil and his angels.” The Bible says that God “is not willing that any should perish,” but those who reject His love and grace and follow Satan will suffer the consequences.

Hell is described as “the lake of fire,” in which those who die without Christ will live forever. The unspeakable misery of the lost will be when they wake up to the fact that God was offering them eternal life in Heaven as a gift in Jesus Christ, and they would not accept Christ.

In their intense desire for the supernatural, young people are experimenting with witchcraft, seances, astrologers, fortune-tellers and other things which have to do with the unseen spiritual world. Is there anything wrong with these things? YES!!!

All forms of spiritism bring you into contact with evil spirits. God says that all who do these things are an abomination to Him.

God Himself does not come into our life unless we invite Him, and He will not let evil spirits come into our life unless we open the door to them.

But if we choose to contact the spirit world, we are opening our life to them, and they will come in.

Satan deceives people into thinking all miracles are from God. But Satan has tremendous power, and he can perform great miracles. In the last days, just before Christ comes again to the earth, Satan will bring out his masterpiece—the Antichrist.

This evil man will be wholly empowered and controlled by Satan. The Bible says that his coming will be “after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9). He will deceive the world into following him.

If you want a shortcut to hell, drugs are it. When you get hooked on drugs, Satan can turn his attention to somebody else, because he has you in his power.

Drugs destroy your mind and your body. Cocaine, or “coke,” in any form is deadly. Len Bias, a college basketball star, had a promising future with the pros, but one overdose of cocaine ended his career and his life. It was his first experiment with drugs…and his last.

Most young people know that drugs are extremely dangerous to their minds and bodies. One junkie said, “Addiction to heroin is the closest thing to hell itself.” Why then do young people fool with drugs? Mostly because of peer pressure. It is not worth risking your future and your life to gain the acceptance of others whom you do not really care that much about. Think about it.

More and more young people are using some form of alcohol and are dependent on it. They do not think of it as a drug and do not believe it is dangerous.

Experts say that alcohol in any form is the most devastating drug of all. Every time you are drunk, you have overdosed on a drug. A teen girl said,

“I have never liked alcohol. Two of my very close friends were injured very badly in drinking accidents. Tom was the first one. He hit head-on with a van. He is now blind and has been in the hospital for eight months. Ann, a senior, a cheerleader and the most popular girl in the school, hit a tree head-on and has been in a coma for five months. The worst part is that nobody has quit drinking.”

The evidence is that even the moderate drinker may suffer the loss of some irreplaceable brain cells every time he drinks. A good way to say NO to those who want you to drink with them is, “No, thanks. I just don’t think it is wise for me to do that. Besides, I need all the brain cells I have!”

Satan has fooled people into thinking that smoking is cool, but nicotine is a powerfully addictive drug. It will hook you faster than alcohol or drugs. For most people, it is harder to quit smoking than it is to quit drugs or drinking. You should know that there are three simple stages to become a nicotine addict.

The first stage is trying out cigarettes. They taste terrible, but maybe you gain acceptance with the smoking crowd.

The second stage is smoking occasionally‚ like at parties or on dates. When others light up, you light up too.

The third stage is when you cross the line and become a hard-core smoker. You are hooked. Most teens who experiment with cigarettes are hooked by the time they are twelve to fourteen.

Tar, the dark, sticky mixture that forms when tobacco burns, contains hundreds of poisons known to cause cancer. When it gets into the lungs, it sticks to them. The lungs of a non-smoker are pink in color; the lungs of those who smoke are black. You cannot be much of an athlete if your lungs are coated with that black tar.

A cigarette company sent a complimentary pack of cigarettes to a high school guy with this note: “We hope you will find these useful.” In a few weeks he wrote back, “Thank you for sending the cigarettes. I sure did find them useful. I soaked them in water and sprayed this liquid on our vegetables and it killed all the bugs in the garden.”

If you are a Christian, remember that your body is “the temple of God.” The moment you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, God came to live in you. Your body does not belong to you. “You are not your own for you are bought with a price.” Take care of God’s temple. Be good to yourself!

Satan tries to make people believe that sex is everything and that everyone is doing it. Sex is not everything, and everyone is not doing it. Think about this for a long time before you cross that line. If you choose to save sex for marriage, you can enjoy a lot of things with the opposite sex. But once you cross that line, things are never the same. Guys do not respect girls who are easy. If you use sex to attract him and try to hold on to him, that will be the only part of you he is interested in.

Listen up, Girls!
The voice of experience

“Take my word for it, girls, sex does not live up to the glowing reports and hype you see in the movies. It’s no big deal. In fact, it’s very disappointing. I would have waited had I known what it was going to be like.
“I truly regret that my first time was with a guy I didn’t care that much about. I am still going out with him which is getting to be a problem. I’d like to end this relationship and date others, but after being so intimate, it’s awfully tough.
“Since that first night, he expects sex on every date, as if we are married. Our whole relationship seems to revolve around going to bed. When I don’t feel like it, we end up in an argument.
“It’s like I owe it to him. I don’t think this guy is in love with me, at least he has never said so. I know down deep that I am not in love with him either. This makes me feel cheap.
“I realize now that the first time is a very big step in a girl’s life. After you’ve done it, things are never the same. It changes everything… Be smart and save yourself for somebody you want to spend the rest of your life with.”
Sign me,
—Sorry I didn’t wait and wish I could take it back
Make wise decisions
Whether you realize it or not, you are growing up in a dangerous world. Satan is called “the god of this world,” because behind the scenes, he is the evil one who is controlling things. His world-system is designed to destroy your mind, your body, your relationships, your future plans, and your eternal destiny.

Most teenagers do not go around looking for trouble, but it is easy to make wrong decisions. The consequences of sin always surprise young people.

No matter how many good decisions you make, you are always only one decision away from doing something that you will regret for the rest of your life.

The consequences of wrong decisions

• Drift away from the Lord
• Become addicted to drugs, alcohol or tobacco
• Get arrested
• Ruin your reputation
• Get pregnant
• Mess up your schooling
• Get AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases
• Face eternal consequences

If you choose to live your life on the principle of pleasing yourself, some day you may be sorry. But if you ask God for wisdom, He will guide you.

Regarding any important decision, the first question to ask is: “What does God say about this in the Bible?” God will never contradict what He says in His Word.

The next question to ask is, “Would the Lord like to see me do this?” If you do not think He would like to see you do it, do not do it!

Making these decisions means saying NO to wrong peer pressure. The best way to handle wrong peer pressure is to smile and say, “I just don’t think it is wise for me to do that.” What can anybody say against that?

The blessings of wise decisions

• Prosper in whatever you do
• Be kept from addiction to harmful substances
• No sexually–transmitted diseases or AIDS
• Build a good reputation
• Be attractive to others
• Have God’s blessing on your life

 

[RiverOL]

The Priceless Gift

Suppose a wealthy relative gave you a very expensive jewel. It was the most beautiful diamond you had ever seen! It was priceless! This exceedingly valuable gift was given to you with the understanding that sometime in your life, you would have the privilege of giving it to someone very special to you. You could give it to only one person and only one time. When you gave it away, it was given away for good. How would you handle this gift?

Would you give it to the first person who saw it and admired it? Would you give it to a casual friend whom you had just met and might not be seeing again? Would you give it to someone who demanded that you prove your love for him by giving it to him?

Would you give it away carelessly because others were pressuring you or making fun of you for wanting to keep this gift until you met the right person?

You would say, “Of course not! I would keep it until I met the right person—someone who was worthy of my priceless gift.”

Every young person is given a priceless gift—his or her virginity. You can give this gift to only one person and you can give it only one time.

Whether you realize it or not, your virginity is priceless! Yet many young people give it away carelessly, not realizing what they are doing. Others give it away because someone demands that they do so “to prove their love.” Still others give their virginity away because of peer pressure.

If you give away your virginity carelessly, you will one day regret it. Giving your virginity away is like giving someone your priceless diamond and discovering later that you gave it to the wrong person. Now that person is gone…and so is your diamond.

Every romantic relationship you are involved in will some day come to an end—except for one. The only one that will last is the one that leads to marriage. If you give away your priceless virginity in one of those other relationships, you will regret it.

How can you know when you meet your “one and only”? You cannot know for sure at first. That is why it is best to settle it in your mind to make sure you are keeping yourself for the right person and the right time. Make sure that the person you marry is the right person and your wedding time is the right time.

You may say, “But most of my friends are having sex.” Even if 100% of your friends are doing it, that does not make it right. It is still a sin. Most of those who have had sex before marriage look back and feel guilty or “used.” But once you give yourself to someone, you can never get your virginity back.

Some girls were making life miserable for a 17-year-old girl who was still a virgin. They teased her, made fun of her, and pressured her. But one day, the right answer came to her. She said to them, “I can become like you any day, but you can never become like me!”

No matter what your friends are doing, you need to realize that it is definitely to your best interest to treasure your virginity. When you meet the person you want to share your life with, what better gift could you give to him or her than your virginity?

There is absolutely no other gift which would be as precious and meaningful. This is true for both fellows and girls. It is a priceless gift that lasts a lifetime.

The greatest gift that a man can give his bride on their wedding night is his purity. It says to her, “You are so special and our marriage is so special that I kept myself for you.” Any girl would be thrilled with a husband like that!

The greatest gift a bride can give to her husband on her wedding night is her purity. Keep it for the right person and the right time. The right person is the one you marry, and the right time is your wedding night.

May I share a personal word? Many years ago, I stood at an altar with my bride. She was the most beautiful girl in the world to me and she was as pure as she was beautiful. We exchanged vows and wedding rings. But we had a gift far more precious to give to each other—our virginity.

There is no gift my wife could ever have given me that I would have appreciated more than the gift of her virginity. And I have appreciated it every day since then.

She will say the same thing about me. My wife and I have been married now for 65 years, and we are more in love than ever. God’s way is best!

Bitter Fruit
Decisions... decisions... decisions...

Like it or not, we all have to make decisions continually. The fact is: You can make 99 good decisions and make a single bad one, and spend the rest of your life regretting it.

“What do YOU think about having sex before marriage?” is one of the questions most frequently put to counselors by young people. What they want to know is this: “Are there any good reasons for saying NO to sex before marriage? If so, I would like to know what they are.”

There are many good reasons for saying NO to sex before marriage. They can be summed up in this statement: You will reap what you sow. God’s Word says,

“Do not be deceived…whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption [bitter fruit]…” (Galatians 6:7-8).

There is an old saying which goes like this: “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” The problem with this is that we do not usually die “tomorrow.” Instead, we live to reap the fruits of our actions. Let us consider some of the bitter fruits that come from sex before marriage.

the bitter fruit of mental agony
For a young girl who finds herself pregnant, there are few choices and none of them are good. Many choose abortion, thinking that this offers a quick and easy solution. It may be quick, but it is not an easy solution. Abortion is killing your unborn baby. This is a sin which can result in long-term guilt and mental agony.

• When she was 16, Tansy had an abortion while “stoned” on drugs. A year later, while in a hospital for surgery, she spent many hours thinking about her abortion experience. She felt that no one could love her because she had “killed her baby.”
• Joan, a 17 year old, had an abortion in the first twelve weeks of her pregnancy. She seemed to cope well. But during her second pregnancy she “heard” babies crying all night and all the pain came back to her.
• Miriam was brought into the emergency room after deliberately overdosing on drugs. The attending psychiatrist probed to find out why she, an apparently normal young woman, had attempted suicide. Finally, after several interviews, she explained that she had overdosed on the expected delivery date of her baby she had aborted six months earlier.

the bitter fruit of pregnancy
One of the “bitter fruits” of premarital sex is pregnancy. It is easy to think that it may happen to someone else but not to you.

Tonight, as she has for several haunting nights, 14 year old Denise lies awake rehearsing how she will tell her father. Repeatedly, her mind freezes like a video frame on stop-action. She imagines that some unknown force is manipulating her by remote control.
Denise does not know what to do next. Her jaw tightens as she thinks of Ronnie. He is gone. All his promises to pay for the abortion were just words that came as easy to him as his insistence that she “prove her love” by having sex.
Denise is an eighth grader trying desperately to hide the inevitable from her father. That night in Ronnie’s bedroom has played through her mind so many times. It has no color, no life, everything is just a pale gray memory. “Why me?” she wonders. Denise never thought this could happen to her. Never.

the bitter fruit of big problems for young mothers
A high percentage of unwed, pregnant teenage girls drop out of school and end up with low-paying jobs or on welfare. Those who decide to keep their babies find life is hard for unwed, young mothers.

Before the baby came, her bedroom was a dimly lighted chapel dedicated to the idols of rock ‘n’ roll. Now the posters of rock music favorites have been swept away and the walls painted white. Angela’s room has become a nursery for six-week-old Corey Allen.
Angela, who has just turned 15, finds it hard to think of herself as a mother. “I’m still as young as I was,” she insists. “I haven’t grown up any faster.” Indeed, sitting in her parents’ living room, she is the typical adolescent, begging her mother for permission to attend a rock concert, asking if she can have a pet dog, and complaining that she is not allowed to do anything.
Babies are a big step. I should have thought more about it.

The weight of her new responsibilities is just beginning to sink in. “Last night I couldn’t get my homework done because of my baby,” she laments with a toss of her brown curls. “I kept feeding him and feeding him. Whenever you lay him down, he wants to get picked up."
In retrospect she admits, “Babies are a big step. I should have thought more about it.”
The offspring of teen mothers have high rates of illness and mortality as infants. Later, as they grow up, they often experience educational and emotional problems. Many are victims of child abuse because of the immaturity of their parents.

the bitter fruit of problems after marriage
One of the most disastrous results of premarital sex is that a person can have a bad experience and get so turned off on sex, that when they get married, they do not accept and enjoy the sexual side of marriage.

Another disastrous result of sex before marriage is the problems caused by “flashbacks.” Whether you realize it or not, the sexual experiences you have before marriage are stored in your mind’s computer. Later on, even if you are happily married, you can have “flashbacks” in which you will remember vividly those premarital sexual experiences. Those reruns in the theater of your mind can cause serious problems.

A 33–year–old woman was having difficulties in her marriage. She was married to a man who was everything she had always wanted in a husband. They had two lovely children. He was a good husband all around, but she was so distressed by her “flashbacks” that she went to a psychologist. She told him that when she made love to her husband, as she looked into his eyes and felt his arms around her, the thought of one of her previous lovers would pop into her mind.

She said, “As I look into my husband’s eyes, I can see Jack or Ron or Steve. I didn’t even like Steve; it was a terrible relationship. But the thought of these men is affecting my desire for my husband. And now Michael and I are having tremendous sexual problems in our marriage.” This is bitter fruit.

the bitter fruit of sexually transmitted diseases
Every day hundreds of thousands of young people become infected with a sexually transmitted disease (STD). One problem with sexually transmitted diseases is that people can have them, not know it, and pass them on to others.

Usually, you cannot tell by someone’s appearance if he or she has a sexually transmitted disease. Often it is a person whom you would least suspect. It could be that clean-looking, well-dressed, church-going guy or girl—one you would trust the most. It only takes one encounter with the wrong person, and you are infected.

Some sexually transmitted diseases are incurable. STDs can cause blindness, brain damage, heart disease, and permanent damage to the reproductive organs.

STDs—Sexually Transmitted Diseases

It has been said that sex is spontaneous and is based on the passion of the moment and not on thought or reason. Young people do not worry about AIDS and the other STDs because they think it will never happen to them. Unfortunately, it does happen to them. Every day young people by the thousands become infected with one of the dreadful, sexually transmitted diseases. An authority on the subject says,

The extent of the epidemics is unknown, since only a fraction of the cases are reported to health officials. Experts think at least 25 types of STDs strike millions each year, primarily teenagers and young adults.
The STDs cannot be dismissed as a controllable collection of “social diseases.” The open genital sores that many STDs cause can be gateways for the AIDS virus.
Like everyone else, young people pay the price of immoral sex. Like others, they think, “This may happen to someone else, but not to me.” And like others, they are in a state of shock when they discover that they have an incurable, sexually transmitted disease.

Aside from the grief and tragedy that it brings to the person who has it, it is even sadder to think of the innocent babies who contract a sexually transmitted disease from their mothers and suffer from it all of their lives.

There are over 50 STDs, and new ones are cropping up each year. We will look at just 5 of the most common STDs affecting young people.

STD: Genital Herpes
Herpes is a relatively new disease which is highly infectious. Symptoms usually show up within 2 to 30 days after having sex. However, some people have no symptoms at all, yet they have the disease.

Herpes is caused by a virus entering the body through a break in the skin or a mucous membrane. It produces painful, itching blisters on the sex organs or mouth. Blisters last up to three weeks and go away. But you still have herpes and the blisters will come back.

Herpes cannot be cured. A doctor said, “Herpes will not kill you, but you will not kill it either.” A mother with herpes can give it to her baby during childbirth.

A 17–year–old girl contracted herpes on her first sexual encounter. In her case, the menstrual cycle triggers the outbreak of herpes. The blisters last about 16 days. She can look forward to having these painful, itching sores on her body for 16 out of every 30 days for the rest of her life.

Part of the pain for herpes patients is the conviction of being damaged goods. Along with intense feelings of guilt, they feel that they are unclean and dirty. One woman said, “We are looking for someone to love. In this world our chances are slim, but then you add herpes, and you think, ‘Why should anyone want me now?’” A doctor says teenage herpes sufferers come into his office, cry, and say, “No one will ever want to marry me now.”

STD: Syphilis
Syphilis is one of the older STDs, but it still does its deadly work. A painless, reddish-brown sore shows up on the mouth or sex organs within a few weeks after having sex. After one to five weeks, the sore goes away, but you still have syphilis.

If untreated, syphilis can cause paralysis, blindness, heart damage, brain damage, and death. A mother can give syphilis to her baby during childbirth. Syphilis can be cured, but you can catch it as many times as you have sex with someone who has it. Bitter fruit.

STD: Gonorrhea
Gonorrhea has been around for a long time. Symptoms usually show up 2 to 21 days after having sex. Most women and many men have no symptoms, but they have the disease and can spread it.

When symptoms do appear, men usually experience a burning sensation when urinating. Women may experience a slight burning and itching. In cases where there are symptoms, they frequently disappear for a time. That does not mean that the disease has disappeared. It has merely gone underground where it continues to do its deadly work.

If untreated, gonorrhea can cause arthritis, heart trouble, skin disease, blindness and sterility. Because of gonorrhea, many men and women are no longer able to have children.

At one time, gonorrhea was easily cured by penicillin, but now there is a new strain which is penicillin-resistant. You can be reinfected with gonorrhea as many times as you have sex with someone who has it. Bitter fruit.

I am a girl, eighteen. I had expected to get married this month. My boyfriend broke our engagement because I can’t have children. A few years ago I ran with a crowd. We were all promiscuous. I contracted gonorrhea but didn’t know it. Last month…the doctor found it. He said it will keep me from motherhood. I wish I were dead.

STD: Chlamydia
The fastest growing STD is chlamydia. Three to ten million people get this “new” disease every year. Most men and women have no symptoms at all. The only way they learn that they may have it is if a partner tells them.

Some men experience a burning sensation when urinating. Women may experience vaginal itching and low-grade fever. If you suspect that you may have chlamydia, the only way to be sure is to be tested by a doctor.

Chlamydia can be cured if it is treated in time. If left untreated, it can lead to more serious infection. Reproductive organs can be permanently damaged. Both men and women may no longer be able to have children. A woman can give this disease to her baby during childbirth. Her baby can be born with eye and lung diseases. Bitter fruit.

STD: HPV
“This virus is rampant,” says an authority on STDs. “If it weren’t for AIDS, stories about it would be on the front page of every newspaper.” The doctor is referring to HPV, a relatively new, fast-spreading disease that afflicts millions of people.

HPV (named after the virus which causes it) is a particular threat to teenage girls. It is sexually transmitted, painful, and often incurable. Its chief symptom in both men and women is genital warts.

What is it like having this disease? Ask any young girl who has genital warts. Who wants ugly warts? They can even show up in the vagina. It is possible for doctors to remove them by freezing, burning, chemical solutions, and surgery.

Conventional treatments cannot get rid of HPV. It can go “underground” for years; then the warts recur. Worst of all, some types of HPV have been linked to cervical and other cancers. Carriers of the virus who do not have warts are often unaware that they have the disease. They do not realize the risk to themselves or their sexual partners.

The Best Sex
If you had your choice between poor sex, good sex and the best sex, which would you choose? You would choose the best sex, of course.

What are the qualities that make for the best sex?

The best sex is when there is true love between a man and a woman. Loving someone and “making love” are not the same thing. “Making love” refers to the act of sex which can be performed without any real love.

Guys in a certain high school actually formed a club with the goal of having sex with as many girls as possible. They used “points” to keep count of their sexual encounters. The guy who ended up in first place claimed 70 points—meaning sex with 70 different girls. That is a lot of sex, but it is certainly not the best sex.

You cannot help wondering what a girl feels like when she realizes that she has been just another “number” on some guy’s list.

You may be able to have a lot of sex with a lot of different partners, but you will find that it will not satisfy your heart. Whether you realize it or not, what you need and what you are really looking for is not sex, but someone who truly loves you and cares about you.

Young people rush into sex, hoping to find real love, but it does not lead to real love. In fact, it can destroy your chances of finding real love.

The best sex is with someone whom you respect. It is possible to enjoy having sex with someone you do not respect or care a thing about. But that is certainly not the best sex.

The best sex is when you have complete freedom. You cannot enjoy sex to the fullest when you are fearful of getting some disease or fearful of the girl getting pregnant. The best sex is when there is no fear, no shame, and no self-consciousness.

The best sex is when there is permanent commitment between the partners. True love is committed—it hangs in there. You know your lover will be there when you need him or her.

Living together without the commitment of marriage has become popular among many people. Men usually like the “living together” arrangement. They have somebody to wash their dirty clothes, cook their meals, and provide sex when they want it—with little or no responsibility on their part. They can come and go as they please.

It is different for women. The most common complaint among live-in women is, “Sometimes I get the feeling that I am being used.” It is no wonder they get that feeling! They are hoping to get married some day, but their hopes are usually disappointed.

The best sex has time to get better. Sex is a sensitive art which takes time to learn. A man and a woman respond to sex differently. There are many ways in which they respond differently, but one simple difference is that men want to go fast while women want to go slow.

But the best sex is when each wants to please the other. And the best sex takes practice. Not practice with just anyone, but practice with your marriage partner.

The best sex takes place where there is security. Sure, you can enjoy sex outside of marriage, but certainly the best sex is within the security of marriage.

Pregnancy can be a catastrophe in a young woman’s life, or it can be a most wonderful event. An unwed girl goes to her doctor and finds out she is pregnant. She is devastated! She moans, “I’m pregnant. What am I going to do now?” She knows that she faces many tremendous problems. Her life will never be the same again.

A married young woman goes to see her doctor. She gets the same news—she is pregnant. But there is a big difference—she is happily married.

She is delighted! She cannot wait to tell her husband the wonderful news. And she cannot wait to tell her relatives and friends, “We are going to have a baby!”

 

[RiverOL]

AIDS—How to be Safe

A married man was unfaithful to his wife. He met a beautiful woman in a bar, and they spent the night together in a hotel room.

The next morning, when he awoke, she had already gone. But she left a message, written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. The message read:

What is AIDS?
The name “AIDS” stands for “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.” This means that the immune system has become “deficient”—unable to operate as it should.

Everyone has what is called an “immune system.” This means that our body builds a protection against diseases that could invade our body and threaten our life. The AIDS virus attacks this immune system and destroys it. The person is then left without the ability to fight diseases.

People do not die directly of AIDS, but rather of some infection or illness they cannot fight off. A “harmless” virus or a simple cold that would be no threat to a healthy person can be deadly to someone with AIDS.

How is AIDS transmitted?

AIDS is transmitted when infected body fluids of one person are introduced into the body of another person. AIDS is most commonly passed from person to person through sexual contact. It is important to understand that every sexual act provides the possibility for transmitting the disease.

It is also very important to understand that, when you have sex with someone, you are linked sexually with everyone that person has had sex with…and everyone they have had sex with! You are linked sexually with everyone in that “network.” If anyone in the entire network has AIDS, then you have been exposed to this deadly disease.

The old saying, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you,” is not true. What you do not know can not only hurt you; it can kill you! Most young people know how AIDS is transmitted, but they do not know how to avoid getting it.

Untold millions of people worldwide have AIDS! The numbers appear to be doubling every 10 to 12 months. Most of these people have no symptoms of AIDS; yet they are capable of spreading the disease. It is predicted that 75 percent of those carrying the virus will develop full-blown AIDS within ten years. Within 15 to 20 years, 90 percent of all AIDS carriers will have fullblown cases.

It is frightening to think about a deadly disease that can lie dormant in your body for a long time (15 years is an estimate) and then break out and destroy you. It is also frightening to realize that, during this time, you can pass this on to anyone you have sex with. It is likewise true that the other person can have it and not know it and pass it on to you.

Researchers compare AIDS with history’s worst killers, like the bubonic plague of the 14th century.

By the time the epidemic subsided a few years later, at least a quarter to a third of all Europeans—perhaps 25 million—had perished. Researchers predict a worldwide death toll in the tens of millions in the near future.

Statistics do not tell the story of how terrifying and tortuous AIDS is to its victims.

• Frank lies in bed and waits to die. He weighs only 93 pounds. His bones stick out of his body and his eyes are sunken in dark sockets. Beneath him in bed are towels soaked in sweat while he waits for an occasional visit from a friend bringing food or money. He is thirty-eight years old. While most of his friends are succeeding and enjoying life, he is near death. He wants to die. “I look forward to it,” he says. “I wish it would happen tomorrow. I have no life.”
• "We’re all going to die,” says a team leader at an AIDS hospice in San Francisco. Others in the center just lie silently hugging teddy bears and smoking cigarettes. Ed smokes three packs a day. His room is furnished with fresh flowers and a picture of his parents. Ed, like many others, is waiting. He virtually disappears among the covers, his body has now become so shriveled.
• David’s days start with shaking and trembling. He piles blankets high to keep warm. By the afternoon, the covers are kicked off, as he sweats with fever: “I really do not care about anything. I soak my bed in night sweats. You just drip. You move from spot to spot on the bed looking for a dry place. You sleep in a pool of sweat.”

Of all the sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS is the most feared. With good reason, too. If you get AIDS, you usually die. It is just that simple.

Most young people think, “But I don’t plan to have intimate contact with anyone who has AIDS.” The problem is that 90% of those who have the AIDS virus do not even know it yet. It can be years after a person is exposed before he or she sees some signs of the disease.

However, the moment a person gets the AIDS virus, he or she can give it to others. There may be no feeling of sickness or any symptoms, but that person is a carrier. So looking at a person’s health is no indication of whether or not that person has AIDS.

Condoms do not prevent STDs
Condoms may reduce the risk of STDs but they do not prevent them. Doctors warn that condoms give a false sense of security. Reducing the risk is not the same as eliminating the risk…The truth is, doctors cannot fix most of the things you can catch out there. The truth is: There is no “safe sex” with condoms. We should stop kidding ourselves.

Condoms are no guarantee for preventing pregnancy. They can and do fail many times. Couples who use condoms to prevent pregnancy discover the failure rate is 10 percent or more per year.

Depending on condoms to prevent AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases is much riskier. A woman can get pregnant only two or three days in a month, but STDs can be transmitted 365 days in the year. If condoms are not used properly, or if they slip or break just once, deadly viruses can be exchanged. It takes only one exposure to the virus to develop a disease.

Regardless of who you are, if you are sexually active, you are at risk of contracting an STD. It is also true that condoms offer no protection at all from a broken heart or shattered dreams.

The incredibly small AIDS virus
One thing that makes AIDS so deadly is that the HIV virus that causes AIDS is incredibly small. The HIV virus is one twenty-fifth the width of the human sperm. It can easily pass through the tiniest imperfections in surgical gloves…or condoms.

Researchers studying surgical gloves made of latex, the same material recommended for use in condoms, found “channels of 5 microns that penetrated the entire length of the glove.”

A micron is one millionth of a meter. An imperfection of 5 microns would be about one twelfth the width of one of your hairs. But the HIV virus that causes AIDS is only one-tenth of a micron! Like a teacher said, “Fifty AIDS viruses could tap dance through a five micron defect holding hands!”

The smallest detectable defect in a condom is one micron, but remember that the AIDS virus is one-tenth the size of that hole.

A study was made of married people in which one partner was infected with the AIDS virus. Within a year and a half, 17% of the uninfected partners using condoms for protection caught the disease. That is one out of six.

Look at it this way: If you were considering joining a sky diving club, and you were told that the failure rate on parachutes was one out of six, would you jump? Probably not. When it comes to something that is a life or death matter, we do not want to take any unnecessary risk.

At a conference of 800 sexologists some years ago, the question was asked, “Would you trust a thin rubber sheath [a condom] to protect you during intercourse with a known HIV-infected person?” Guess how many hands went up? Not one!

I'll miss out on all the fun"
“But if I don’t have sex, I’ll miss out on all the fun.”

No, you won’t. It is like putting money in the bank. You are not throwing your money away when you put it into a savings account. You are saving it for a future time when you can draw it out and spend it with pleasure.

Saving sex for marriage is building a “love savings account” to be withdrawn at the right time and spent with great joy with the right person.

Speaking of fun, sex is not much fun when you are sick or dying. Sex is no fun at all when you are dead.

Enjoy 100% Safe Sex
According to the dictionary, the word “safe” means, “freedom from danger; involving no risk.” Being safe means absolutely no risk. You are either safe or you are not. If there is any risk involved, you are not safe.

Sometimes young people are told that the best they can do to protect themselves against AIDS is to “know their partner” (whatever that means), wear a condom during intercourse, avoid anal intercourse, and not make sexual decisions while using drugs or alcohol.

That is NOT the best they can do to protect themselves. There is something far better—something that carries a 100% guarantee of safety. It is abstinence—saying no to sex before marriage.

The young person who says no to sex before marriage, and marries someone who has made that same choice, does not have to worry about AIDS and the other STDs. As long as the couple remains faithful to each other, they can enjoy sex that is truly 100% safe. AIDS and the other deadly STDs have made this a dangerous world in which to live. Abstinence before marriage and faithfulness in marriage is the way to enjoy truly safe sex.

You will be tempted
Satan is not only a liar, but he is a murderer. Our Lord Jesus said that Satan “was a murderer from the beginning…” (John 8:44).

Satan wants to destroy you and he has many ways of doing this. He destroys some people with drugs and alcohol. He destroys others by sexually transmitted diseases.

You will be tempted! Satan wants to deceive you with his Big Lie: Sin will make you happy and there are no bad consequences. But you do not have to be deceived by Satan. You do not have to give in to sin.

In His Word, God gives us examples of young people who faced temptations, the decisions they made, and the consequences of those decisions. There were two young men—Joseph and Samson—who faced really strong sexual temptations. First, we will consider the example of Joseph; then, that of Samson.

Joseph—chose obeying God over temptation
Joseph was the eleventh son of Jacob, born to him in his old age. Jacob loved Joseph more than all his elder brothers. This caused the older brothers to hate Joseph.

When Joseph was seventeen years old, his father sent him to a distant land where his brothers were taking care of their flocks of sheep. The brothers saw their chance to get rid of Joseph, so they sold him as a slave to a caravan of traders going to Egypt. The brothers told their father that wild animals had killed Joseph.

Through no fault of his own, Joseph ended up as a slave in the house of a wealthy Egyptian named Potiphar. Joseph was diligent and he served his master well. Soon Potiphar made Joseph his overseer and put him in charge of all that he had. God prospered Joseph in all that he did. But Satan was laying a trap for him.

Joseph was a strong, handsome young man. Potiphar’s wife was attracted to Joseph, and she determined to have sex with him. She said, “Lie with me.” But Joseph refused.

Joseph said to her,

“...my master has committed all that he has to me. There is none greater in this house than I, and he has not kept back any thing from me but you, because you are his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:8-9).

Many times, Potiphar’s wife begged Joseph to have sex with her, but he refused. He would not even be alone with her. One day, when there were no other servants in the house, she caught him by his coat, and boldly commanded him, “Lie with me!” Joseph ran out of the house, leaving his coat behind.

Potiphar’s wife was furious! She called the other servants together and told them that Joseph had tried to rape her. When her husband came home, she told him the same lie. Potiphar had Joseph put in the king’s prison.

Again, through no fault of his own, Joseph was in terrible circumstances. But God was with him.

In time Joseph was exalted by Pharaoh to be made the ruler over all the land of Egypt. Pharaoh gave Joseph a beautiful bride who bore Joseph two sons. In time, Joseph brought his father, Jacob, and his whole family to Egypt to save them from a famine.

God says, “…them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed” (1 Samuel 2:30).

The lesson God wants us to learn from the life of Joseph is this: If we honor God, God will honor us. Joseph chose to honor God. He ran from the temptation to sin. He ended up with a beautiful family and a lifetime of happiness with God’s blessing.

Samson—chose temptation over obeying God
God chose Samson to be a deliverer of His people. The children of Israel had done evil and God had allowed them to be defeated by their enemies, the Philistines. God raised up Samson to deliver His people.

Samson was like other men, but when the Spirit of God came on him, he had incredible, superhuman strength. He carried no weapons, but he was a one-man army! On one occasion, using the jawbone of a donkey, Samson killed a thousand armed Philistine warriors!

But Samson had a fatal weakness—he did not control his desire for sex. Samson began having sex with a Philistine beauty named Delilah. Samson knew he was disobeying God, but he continued to have sex with Delilah.

The Philistine leaders learned about Samson’s sexual relationship with Delilah. They promised her a huge sum of money if she discovered the secret of Samson’s power.

Delilah was an agent of Satan. She knew how to use her sexual charms to discover Samson’s secret. She pushed him daily. Finally Samson gave in and told her that, if his hair was cut, he would be as weak as any man.

Delilah knew that Samson had told her his secret. When Samson was asleep on her lap, a man crept in and shaved his head. Then Delilah woke Samson, saying, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!”

Samson thought he could go out as before, but he discovered that the Lord had departed from him. This time he was as weak as any other man. The Philistines captured him.

The first thing they did was to gouge out his eyes. Then they bound him in chains and led him off to prison in Gaza. Samson spent the rest of his life, blind and in chains, grinding grain for his enemies.

The lesson God wants us to learn from the life of Samson is this: When we choose to disobey God, there are always bad consequences!

(For more about the stories of Joseph and Samson, see this series: Moody Bible Stories.)

Stop! Think!
When you are tempted, stop and think. Ask yourself these seven questions before you act:

Is this temptation a violation of God’s law? You need to know what God’s Word says. Whatever your temptation, see what the Bible says. There are many verses that deal with sexual immorality.

All sexual immorality is a violation of the will of God. This includes fornication, adultery, and homosexual acts. The Bible says, “…they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:21).

Over and over again, God says that sex is for married people who are faithful to each other. The Bible says,

“Marriage is honorable in all, and the [marriage] bed undefiled: but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4).

What have been the consequences in the lives of other people who have yielded to this sin? Some of the consequences in this life are pregnancy, guilt, shame, loss of self-respect, the feeling of being dirty, STDs and AIDS.

There is also the matter of the eternal consequences. The Bible says,

“It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

If I yield to this sin, how will it affect me? There is no such thing as sinning against God without bad consequences. It will affect my schooling, my family, and those who love and respect me. It will also affect God’s will for my life and my whole future.

Am I willing to pay the consequences of giving in to this temptation? The momentary pleasure is not worth a lifetime of pain and regret. Two of the saddest words in the human language are, “If only… If only I had not done that!”

The Bible says,

“Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death” (James 1:14-15).

Will yielding to this temptation satisfy me? Satan’s lie is, “One time never hurt anybody.” That “one time” is how people get hooked on smoking, drinking, drugs, gambling, and sex.

The more you yield to the temptation the stronger the temptation. Once you get hooked on sex, you will do almost anything to get sex. The more you yield to the temptation, the stronger the temptation, and the less it satisfies you. When a person gets hooked on drugs, he will do almost anything to get more drugs. The same thing is true of sex. It is also a fact that many who indulge in excessive sex end up impotent—unable to have sex at all. This often happens at an early age.

Is the decision to say yes to this temptation a wise decision? Will this decision please God? No, it will displease Him.

Every command of God is an expression of His love for us. Satan wants you to believe his lie: Sex is fun and there are no bad consequences.

The truth is: If it is God’s will for you to be married, He wants you to enjoy sex to the fullest and over the longest period of time. That is why God tells you to say NO to sex outside of marriage.

How can I do this great sin against God? Satan wants you to focus on the object of your temptation and keep your focus there. He wants you to think that you must have this thing. He does not want you to think about God.

That is what happened to Samson. He did not think about God and the consequences. The object of his attention was sex. He ended up blind, in chains, grinding grain for his enemies.

Joseph kept his attention on God. He said, “How can I do this great evil and sin against God?” He honored God and God honored him. He ended up as ruler of Egypt, with a beautiful family and the blessing of God on his life. Think what Joseph would have lost if he had given in to an evil, scheming, seductive woman.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are indwelled by Christ. He is living in you by His Spirit. He has promised that He will never leave you.

This means that Christ sees everything you see, He hears everything that you hear, and He is with you in everything that you do. When you have sex with someone who is not your marriage partner, you are taking the Son of God with you.

The Bible says,

“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot? God forbid!” (1 Corinthians 6:15).

When you have sex with someone, you become one with that person. How can you commit sexual immorality and involve the Holy Son of God in it? How can you do this great evil and sin against a holy, loving Father who hates sin because He hates the consequences of sin?

If you yield to sin, you will lose your joy as a child of God. You will have guilt and shame. You will be chastened by God.

If you honor God and obey Him, you will be honored by God. God pours blessing upon blessing on His children who obey Him.

God says,

“Blessed [happy] is the man that endures temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love Him” (James 1:12).

 

[RiverOL]

Love is more than a Beautiful Feeling

Test yourself! Mark each statement “True” or “False.” Then check your answers by reading the lesson.

T F 1. A girl “owes” a fellow something for a wonderful evening.

T F 2. Necking and petting are okay as long as it does not go any further.

T F 3. The time to decide how you will handle a problem is when the problem comes up.

T F 4. Christian teenagers do not have the same temptations as other teens.

T F 5. Love at first sight is usually true love.

T F 6. If you have strong feelings of love for someone, you will always have these feelings.

T F 7. Saying “Yes” to a fellow and having sex with him will cause him to love and appreciate you more.

T F 8. It is not wrong to have sex with someone if you love each other and have a meaningful relationship.

T F 9. A good sex life is all that is needed for a happy marriage.

T F 10. It is easy to distinguish between infatuation and true love.

1. A girl “owes” a guy something for a wonderful evening.
FALSE! A date is time spent together to enjoy each other’s company. It is customary for the guy to take care of the expenses involved, but this does not entitle him to any special favors. Any fellow who spends a few dollars on a girl and then spends the rest of the evening trying to “collect” for it, is a cheapskate. If a girl enjoys the evening and wishes to express her appreciation, she can do so in two simple statements: “Thank you. I had a wonderful time.”

2. Necking and petting are okay as long as it does not go any further.
FALSE! Necking and petting are dangerous because they excite you sexually and lead you to do things you never intended. Like marijuana, they lead to stronger stuff.

3. The time to decide how you will handle a problem is when the problem comes up.
FALSE! Guys and girls need to determine beforehand what their standards are and then stick with them. You should set your standards by what God’s Word says, not by what other people are doing. Determine ahead of time that you will keep yourself pure for the one you hope to marry some day.

4. Christian teenagers do not have the same temptations that other teens have.
FALSE! Christian teenagers get the idea that they are immune to the problems that other young people experience. But they have the same sex drive that others have. They face the same temptations that others face. And when they fall into sin, they, too, have to suffer the consequences. Here is what one girl wrote to the editor of a youth magazine:

“In our church youth group I was supposed to be a committed Christian girl. Unfortunately, giving in to temptation changed my whole life.
“I guess I just had to learn the hard way…Maybe this could help some other young person faced with the same problem.

“Next week I will move to an unwed mothers’ home to spend the last month of my pregnancy and await the arrival of a baby I can never keep. If I had known all this would come from having a few minutes of physical ‘love,’ I would never have done it.
“I can say to teens anywhere, Christian or non-Christian, keep your virginity. Getting pregnant is like being in a prison—you are not free to date and have fun like others around you. When you see the harm you have caused your parents as well as yourself, you want to cry yourself to sleep every night.
“When I go to the clinic, I see these girls who already live at ‘the home.’ I see the hurt in their eyes they cannot hide. After this is over, I want to go to college and later marry, but I am sure I can never forget this baby.
“What does it do to a guy? I’ve seen him hurt, too. He can’t go out but one night a week and he has to pay all my expenses. It has put an extra burden on him and his parents. It isn’t any fun for either side.
“It takes from six months to a year completely out of your life and you just exist in your own little corner. You wish time and time again that you could live that day over—but you cannot and now you face the consequences. You live with a little human being growing inside you for nine long months, then have to give the baby up because you cannot take care of it.
“It does happen to Christian teens and God will not take that baby out of you because you say you are sorry. It is a problem you must face and pay for, even though God is in your heart.
“Maybe this letter will keep some other Christian teens from giving in to temptation when their emotions get high…
“I hope I have learned my lesson. I was one of the teens who said, ‘It can’t happen to me,’ and I also criticized others who got in that kind of trouble. I only hope to get my life back on track again.”
5. Love at first sight is usually true love.
FALSE! You cannot possibly love a person at first sight. How can you know someone at first sight? You may be attracted to a person at first sight. Your heart may skip a few beats, but that is not real love.

Many of the wrong ideas concerning love come from popular songs. One song says, “I woke up in love today ‘cause I went to sleep with you on my mind.” Another says, “Before the dance was through, I knew I was in love with you.” Still another song says, “I didn’t know what to do, so I whispered, ‘I love you.’”

These song writers are using the word “love,” but they are not talking about real love. What they are talking about is the feeling of romantic infatuation. Romantic feelings can be generated very quickly, but such feelings are not genuine love.

6. If you have strong feelings for someone, you will always have these feelings.

FALSE! Feelings are never permanent. Emotions or feelings swing from high to low and back to high in cycles. When you are on a “high,” you feel like you are on top of the world. A few days later, for no apparent reason, you may be in a “low.” Before long, your feelings change again, and things look bright once more.

Romantic feelings follow highs and lows. Even when a man and woman love each other deeply, the feelings of love vary. At times they are supercharged in their romantic feelings toward each other. At other times the romantic feelings may not be there. But this does not affect real love. Real love is based on commitment, not feelings.

An actress was asked why she had been married seven times. She replied, “You fall into love, but you also fall out of love. When you fall out of love, it is better to change partners and remain friends than to stay together and grow to hate each other.”

Real love does not act like this. You do not fall in and out of real love. Real love is a lifetime commitment.

7. Saying “yes” to a guy and having sex with him will cause him to love and appreciate you more.
FALSE! A guy may seem to love and appreciate you for the moment because you are satisfying his sexual desires. But that is not real love and it will not last. The following letter illustrates this point:

“I went steady for seven months with a guy I thought was the most wonderful person in the whole world. I thought I’d always stay decent. After a while we weren’t satisfied with just kissing.
“He asked me to prove my love. I thought as long as we planned to be married in a few years, what would it matter?
“I gave in to him, and I found out it mattered a lot. He lost all respect for me. He started going with other girls. He even talked about me to the other guys.
“Please print this for all the girls to see. Maybe it will help someone who is tempted to prove her love like I did.”
—Sorry Now
8. It is not wrong to have sex with someone if you love each other and have a meaningful relationship.

FALSE! Many young people accept this idea, but God says that sex outside of marriage is wrong. In fact, the Bible says that fornication is one of the most damaging sins a person can commit. (See 1 Corinthians 6:9,18.)

Sex is a wonderful gift from a loving God, but it is for the marriage relationship. God gives us rules concerning sex, not to keep us from enjoying it, but in order that we might enjoy it to the fullest and over the longest period of time.

9. A good sex life is all that is needed for a happy marriage.
FALSE! It takes more than a good sex life to make a happy marriage. There are 168 hours in every week. The total time spent in having sex for the average married couple amounts to less than thirty minutes a week. If you marry for sex, what will you do the rest of the time?

If you want a happy, successful marriage, look for a life partner, not just a sex partner. You need friendship love as well as sexual love. You need to like and respect each other as well as love each other.

10. It is easy to distinguish between infatuation and real love.
FALSE! It is NOT easy to distinguish between infatuation and real love. Most young people in this country grow up believing “The Wonderful Romantic Myth.” It goes like this:

She was a beautiful girl, though a bit shy. She was kind and sweet and unselfish. She had always stayed near home, helping with the housework, learning to cook and to sew, and always obeying her mother.
He was tall and handsome, with laughing eyes and the build of a star athlete. Girls were attracted to him, but he never seemed to take much interest in them. He was waiting for that one and only girl who was just right for him.
Then it happened! Though they had never seen each other before, it was love at first sight! The minute they met, they just knew that they were made for each other.
It was a whirlwind romance! Everyone commented on what a good-looking couple they were. In four short weeks they were married, and they lived happily ever after.
This is a beautiful story, but there is one thing wrong with it—it is not true. It is a myth—a make-believe story which we hear over and over until we think it is true.

Did you notice the last phrase in the above story? It was this: “And they lived happily ever after.” That is the way all fairy tales end, but life is not a fairy tale.

Real life is working hard day after day, paying bills, cooking meals, washing dirty clothes, changing diapers, getting up all hours of the night with a sick baby, and a multitude of other unromantic things.

How can I Get Him to Notice Me?
Elisabeth Elliot says that she is often asked the question, “What can I do to get him to notice me?” Note carefully the advice she gives.
My answer is, “Nothing.” That is, nothing toward the man.
Don’t call him. Don’t write a little note with a smiley face or a flower or a fish under the signature and put it in his mailbox. Don’t sneak up to him in the hall and gasp, “I’ve just got to talk to you!” Don’t look pitiful, don’t ignore him, don’t pursue him, don’t do him favors, don’t talk about him to nine carefully selected listeners.
There is one thing you can do: Turn the whole business over to God. If he’s the man God has for you, “...no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).
Direct your energies to obedience, not to nailing the man. God has His own methods of getting the two of you together. He doesn’t need any help or advice from you.
Infatuation is based on romantic feelings

Infatuations start fast. A fellow may be attracted to a girl, so he smiles warmly at her. She gets the message and responds. The thought of being attractive to the other person builds romantic excitement. Before long, each is saying, “What is happening to me? I’ve never felt like this before. It must be love. I think I have found the perfect person for me at last!”

Such a person has not fallen in love with the other person—he has fallen in love with love! It is a wonderful feeling, to be sure, but it is all wrapped up in the person himself—“I have never felt like this before…I must be in love…I think I have found the perfect person for me.”

That wonderful feeling of being in love is NEVER a permanent condition. It is a feeling and feelings go up and down. You may be on the mountain top with a wonderful feeling, but if you expect to live there the rest of your life, you are in for a big disappointment. That feeling of romantic excitement will not remain constant. Emotions swing from high to low and from low to high in cycles.

There are two serious mistakes that people can make when they are infatuated:

They may become involved sexually. This can cause a great deal of heartache, not only for the couple, but for their families as well.

They may rush into marriage. Far too often a couple will marry before they have had time to determine if their romance is real love or infatuation.

If it is infatuation and they do get married, they will wake up one morning without those wonderful romantic feelings. They conclude that they no longer love each other. The fact is that they never had real love in the first place. They were simply fooled by all the wonderful feelings that go with infatuation.

Real love is more than a beautiful feeling

Real love is more than a beautiful feeling—it is a commitment. A commitment is a choice which is backed up by actions. The Bible says, “Husbands, love your wives.” It doesn’t command a husband to have romantic feelings toward his wife. It commands him to love her.

When you marry, you make a commitment to love your life partner. You are to keep a commitment, whether you feel like it or not. In real love, the husband loves his wife, regardless of his feelings. He loves her, regardless of whether or not she is particularly lovable at the moment. The same is true for the wife.

There will be plenty of mornings when they will wake up with no romantic feelings, but they will not head for the divorce court. They are secure in their love for each other, regardless of the presence or absence of romantic feelings.

The amazing thing is that when a husband and wife are faithful to keep their commitment to love one another, the feelings of romantic love are never far away. Your feelings will follow the choice of your will. That is why it is so important to stick with your commitment and back it up with actions.

The test of time

The best test as to whether your “romance” is real love or infatuation is the test of time. Infatuations usually start fast and there are many “highs” and “lows” in the relationship. It is like a rollercoaster ride—it is great while it lasts, but it soon comes to an end.

Real love, on the other hand, starts slowly. Usually it is just a friendship at first. But the friendship grows, and one day you discover another element in the friendship—the element of romantic love. You realize that your hearts have grown together.

Real love will grow with the passing of time, but infatuation will fade. For this reason, time is your best friend in determining if your “romance” is real love or just a passing infatuation. Generally speaking, couples should know each other well for at least two years before getting married.

Expect romance ... and be patient
Sooner or later almost everyone is involved in a romantic experience. If romance has not reached you, just be patient. If it is God’s will for you to be married, your time will surely come.

Remember, there are two big mistakes that your strong romantic feelings can lead you into. They can lead you into sexual involvement which will mess up your life and greatly reduce your chances of having a happy marriage. Or those romantic feelings can lead you to rush into an early, premature marriage that you will regret the rest of your life.

Do not make either of these mistakes. Guard your affections! Wait for the right person, the right circumstances, and the right time.

17 and pregnant
No easy answer
by Penny Mathewson

“How can you know someone for an entire year and never really know them?” I asked myself that question as I looked at my boyfriend.
He just stared at me, his eyes void of any emotion. “How can you look at me like that?” I cried. “As though I were a total stranger! Don’t you care? Don’t you care that I’m breaking apart?” He looked at me for a long time, then said quietly, “I guess I just don’t feel anything anymore.”
I had to ask the next question, though in my heart I already knew the answer. Still, I had to hear him say it, or I would keep living my life with the hope of an empty dream. “Do you still love me?” He just looked at me with no expression and said, “No.” Then he walked out the door, and out of my life. I stared at the door, numb with pain. The person to whom I had given everything I had, just left me…alone and pregnant.
The following months passed slowly. Every day was edged with the sharp pain of rejection and the anger and bitterness that followed. Memories of his warm eyes smiling down at me pierced my heart; laughter and love that promised forever…promises that now lay broken at the bottom of my empty heart. The painful end of our relationship was tearing me apart, and I was filled with fear and loneliness as I looked ahead to the coming months.
“Oh, God,” I cried, “what am I going to do?” Being a mother at 17, and raising a child alone frightened me. And placing my baby up for adoption after seeing the miracle of this little life within me was too painful to even think about. I heard so many voices shouting the “easy answer,” but abortion would mean the death of my child.
I had already witnessed the death of a dream—to see my baby die as well would be too much. Yet to have the life from a lost love growing inside me seemed unbearable. Pressure to have an abortion began coming from all sides. Family and friends were overcome with grief on my behalf, and felt abortion would be the easiest way out of a seemingly hopeless situation.
There were times when, overcome by fear and pain, I would consider the “quick” end to this nightmare: “It could all be over within just a matter of hours.” “You could just forget about this whole thing, and start a new life.” “If you go through with this pregnancy, then it will never be over; you’ll either be stuck with a kid, or haunted by unanswered questions about your own child…a child that calls someone else ‘Mommy.’” “Oh God,” I cried again, “What am I going to do?”
Amidst the turmoil, I had somehow managed to make a decision; a decision that I was bound to live with for the rest of my life.
During the months of my pregnancy, I had decided not only to give my baby life, but to give him the best chance in life that I could. I chose adoption. I wanted my child to have a Mommy and a Daddy. Though in my heart of hearts, I wanted to raise him as my own, deeper still was a desire for him to have the best. I was beginning to learn that love meant self-sacrifice.
I had come in contact with a wonderful Christian couple just two weeks before Michael was born. We were introduced by mutual friends, and I knew in my heart that I had just met Michael’s parents. At first I felt apprehensive about knowing where he would be. I had always heard it was better to never know, never see…that it was better just to forget all about it.
But society had lied to me before, when it tried to convince me that abortion was right, so I decided to listen to the little voice inside my heart instead. The more I thought about it, the better I felt about this couple adopting Michael, so we proceeded with the legalities.
The day finally arrived…the day to check out of the hospital. The couple came to pick me up, and from there we would go to the lawyer’s office to sign the release forms and adoption papers.
Almost four years have passed since that day. So much within me has changed. As I’ve come to know God’s healing love, I’ve come to know the value that He places on each life. I don’t regret the choice that I made. Michael has life and love, and a family to share it with.

 

[RiverOL]

10 Pitfalls and how to avoid them

Most young people spend considerable time daydreaming about getting married some day and having a happy home. But the road that leads to a happy, successful marriage has many “pitfalls” along the way.

A “pitfall” is a carefully concealed trap. On the surface, it looks harmless, but when you walk on it, you fall into a deep pit.

Satan is an expert at building “pitfalls.” His carefully concealed traps look innocent enough, but they are deadly. Some of these “pitfalls” can keep you from ever having a beautiful marriage and a happy home. Let us consider ten of them.

Pitfall #1: Living for the moment
The “live for the moment” philosophy is everywhere! We are bombarded with the idea: “You only go through life once, so grab all the pleasure you can!”

Satan has always tried to promote the idea of living for the moment because it causes people to do things they would never do if they considered the future. A nineteen-year-old girl with two illegitimate children said, “When you are young, all you think about is the weekend.”

But life is more than a weekend. It is the rest of your life here, and forever in the next world. If you reject Christ and end up in hell, you are not there for the weekend. It is forever!

Avoid this pitfall:

Recognize the seriousness and sacredness of life. What you do now affects both this life and your life hereafter.

Pitfall #2: Living for good feelings
The slogan, “If it feels good, do it,” expresses another philosophy which has permeated our society. The whole drug scene is based on the idea: “Get a good feeling now, no matter what happens later.”

Some people who should know better think that almost anything is all right if it gives them a good feeling. There is even a song which promotes this idea with the line: “It can’t be wrong when it feels so right.”

Do not believe this lie! Just because something gives you a good feeling does not mean that it is right. You might get a good feeling out of stealing a new car and riding around in it, but that would not make it right.

Avoid this pitfall:

Do not let your feelings control your actions.

Pitfall #3: Sexual immorality
It is easy for young people to fall into the pitfall of sexual immorality. Many are involved in sexual sin, and they seem to be getting away with it. But no one can violate God’s moral laws without sooner or later paying a terrible price. A single act of immorality can have tragic consequences.

A young man, the son of Christian parents, had sexual relations with an immoral girl. From this one-time sexual relationship, he contracted a sexually transmitted disease. He received medical attention, but the disease was not brought under control. In less than a year, he was dead.

Avoid this pitfall:

Keep yourself pure. Immorality is not worth what it costs you.

Pitfall #4: Teen marriage
Those who marry in their teens are asking for trouble. Teen marriages are twice as likely to end in divorce as those of couples who were in their twenties when they married. The odds are even worse when the bride is under eighteen.

There are at least two major disadvantages to teen marriages. First of all, if you try to choose your marriage partner while you are still in your teens, you will probably make a wrong choice.

Secondly, most teens are not mature enough to handle marriage. It requires large amounts of unselfish, caring love to make a marriage work, and it takes a lot of “growing up” before a person has that kind of love.

Avoid this pitfall:

Take your time about getting married—lots of time. Do not marry too young!

Pitfall #5: Marrying to escape the problems of being single

Girls need to get over the idea that the chief end of life is marriage. The fear of missing the last chance for marriage causes many girls to ignore their better judgment and jump into a disastrous marriage. A girl may see a number of warning flags, but she thinks, “It probably will not be the best marriage in the world, but what could be worse than living alone?”

The answer to this is: A bad marriage is much worse than living alone. Many women could tell you that a bad marriage is one of the most miserable experiences that anyone can have on this earth. It is filled with hatred, rejection, resentment and hurt feelings. Children are the innocent victims of such a marriage.

Avoid this pitfall:

Learn to be happy and satisfied while you are single, and you will not feel pressured to rush into an unwise marriage.

Pitfall #6: Marrying with the expectation of changing the other person

Marrying someone with the expectation of changing him or her is about like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. The chances of a safe landing are about the same in both cases.

As risky as it is, many girls are still willing to gamble on their future happiness by marrying a fellow in the hope of changing him. A girl may argue with herself, “I know he drinks too much and chases other girls, but I think he will change after we are married.”

This is wishful thinking and it is 100% wrong. You do not change a person’s basic nature by marrying him. If there are problems before marriage, they will likely be much worse after marriage.

Avoid this pitfall:

Do not expect to change someone after marriage. What you see is what you get!

Pitfall #7: Trying out sex before marriage
Trying out sex before marriage is often presented as a very reasonable course of action. A guy will say, “You wouldn’t buy a used car without driving it around first, so why marry without trying out sex!”

Marrying someone cannot be compared to buying a used car. A woman is not to be thought of as a piece of merchandise to be “tried out,” but a life partner to be loved and cherished. She is precious and priceless in God’s sight, and she should be the same in your sight. Remember, you are looking for a life partner, not just a sex partner.

Furthermore, a before-marriage test of sex is NOT a valid sample of what sex will be like within the marriage.

Avoid this pitfall:

Do not accept the foolish “try out sex before marriage” idea. If you have real love going for you, you do not need to worry about your sex life being good. It will be!

Pitfall #8: Living together
Living together without being married has become popular among many people, but it is a sinful lifestyle which God can never bless.

Men usually like the “living together” arrangement, but women say, “Sometimes I get the feeling that I am being used.” They put up with it because they are looking forward to getting married, but their hopes are often disappointed. The men usually reason, “Why should I marry her when I am getting all the benefits of marriage without the responsibilities? Besides, I may want a change some day and it will be much easier this way.”

That is pure selfishness! Even if a woman manages to get such a man to marry her, she will not have much of a marriage.

The false idea that marriage thrives best when it is on a “come and go as you please” basis is expressed by the popular song entitled, “Gentle on My Mind.” In this song, the man says that it was not the “ink-stained signatures on some old marriage certificate” that kept him coming to his lover’s home. It was knowing that he could leave anytime he wanted to. It was his freedom to come and go as he pleased that kept her “gentle on his mind.”

How foolish! And how selfish! He does not say anything about the woman and how she feels watching him come and go “as he pleases.” And the song says nothing about who pays the bills in such a home, nor does it take into account the little children who may be born to such relationship—children who would always be wondering, “Where is Daddy? When is he coming home?”

A successful marriage and a happy home are based on unselfish love and commitment between husband and wife. You will never have such a home with the “come and go as you please” arrangement of living together.

Avoid this pitfall:

Do not accept a cheap, sinful “play-marriage” which God will never bless.

Pitfall #9: Christians marrying non-Christians
In His Word, God commands believers not to marry unbelievers. The Bible says, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers…” (2 Corinthians 6:14). Many Christians are bound in miserable, unhappy marriages because they disobeyed this plain command of the Lord.

Christians who are contemplating marriage to unbelievers usually feel that somehow their particular situation is different and that this command does not apply to them. But God’s Word plainly says that Christians are not to be yoked together with unbelievers.

A yoke is a device used to join together two work animals for a common purpose, such as pulling a plow. Thus, to be “yoked together” with another person means to be united or joined with that person for a common purpose.

When a Christian marries a non-Christian, he or she is “unequally yoked together” with an unbeliever. This is never God’s will. You should settle this in your mind, once for all: It is never God’s will for a Christian to marry an unsaved person.

God has good reasons for telling His children that they must not marry unbelievers. God’s ultimate goal for two people in marriage is to achieve oneness. Jesus said, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and they two shall be one flesh.” Complete oneness in body, soul, and spirit can never be achieved when one marriage partner is a believer and the other a nonbeliever.

God does not say, “Do not marry an unbeliever because you cannot fall in love with an unbeliever.” You can fall in love with an unbeliever.

God does not say, “Do not marry an unbeliever because you cannot enjoy sex with an unbeliever.” You can enjoy sex with an unbeliever.

God says, “Do not marry an unbeliever because you can never achieve complete oneness with an unbeliever.”

Marriage is the most intimate of all human relationships and there is no way a believer can have the perfect and complete oneness with an unbeliever. In His Word, God gives five reasons why a believer should never marry an unbeliever (2 Corinthians 6:14-16):

1. "What fellowship [oneness] has righteousness with unrighteousness?”

The answer is: None. The believer is righteous in God’s sight because he has taken Christ as his Savior and he is clothed in Christ’s righteousness. The unbeliever is unrighteous in God’s sight because he is rejecting Christ. Therefore, there can be no oneness between them.

2. “What communion [oneness] has light with darkness?”

The answer is: None at all! There can never be any “oneness” between light and darkness.

The believer was once in spiritual darkness, but he has come into God’s marvelous light. The unbeliever is still in spiritual darkness and, unless he comes to Christ, his future is eternal darkness. Just as there can be no oneness between light and darkness, so there can be no real oneness between a believer and an unbeliever.

3. “What concord [oneness] has Christ with Belial [Satan]?”

Again the answer is: None whatsoever. There can never be oneness between Christ and Satan. And there can never be real oneness between a believer whose spiritual father is God and an unbeliever whose spiritual father is Satan.

4. “What part [oneness] has he that believes with an infidel [unbeliever]?”

The answer is: None. The Christian’s interest is God, in His work, and in the glorious future that awaits him in Heaven. The unbeliever’s interest is in this world and the things of this world. There can be no real oneness between them.

5. “What agreement [oneness] has the temple of God with idols?”

Again, the answer is: None. The Christian’s body is called “the temple of God” because God dwells in him and he worships God. The unbeliever’s body is called “a temple of idols” because he puts other things ahead of God in his life. Just as there can be no oneness between God and idols, so there can be no true oneness between a believer and an unbeliever.

When you come right down to it, someone who loves Jesus just does not have enough in common with someone who does not love Him. You may enjoy doing some things together, but when it comes to the things that really matter, you will be far, far apart.

Sometimes, in order to get a Christian girl to marry him, a fellow may make a “commitment” to Christ. He starts going to church with his girl because he sees that it makes her happy. He may even be baptized and join the church. But unless he is genuinely born again, his “commitment” will not last. Once they are married, she will discover that he has not really changed at all.

Jesus said that we can distinguish between real Christians and false Christians by observing the fruit of their lives. He said, “By their fruit you shall know them.” This means if a person is truly born again, there will be evidence of this in his life, in the things he says and the things he does.

Before considering marrying a fellow, a girl should ask: Is he a sincere lover of God? Can I clearly see the evidence of genuine faith in his life? Does he have the kind of fruit in his life that a real Christian should have? Is he a committed Christian?

The tragedy is that most young people do not take time to ask such questions. They do not have the patience to carefully examine the fruit.

If you make the mistake of marrying an unbeliever, you cannot say, “I made a mistake so I’ll get a divorce.” It does not work that way. Marriage is for life. If your unbelieving mate is willing to remain with you, you must stay with him or her no matter how difficult it may be. (See 1 Corinthians 7:10-15.)

Avoid this pitfall:

Determine that you will never, under any circumstances, marry an unbeliever. Deliberately disobeying God will bring serious consequences.

Pitfall #10: Believers dating unbelievers
Christian young people should not date unbelievers because dating often leads to engagement and marriage. If you do not date unbelievers, you will not marry one.

You may not realize it but Satan is quite a matchmaker. He loves to mess up the lives of Christian young people by getting them married to the wrong persons. He does this by encouraging them to date non-Christians.

Most Christian young people do not see anything wrong with dating non-Christians. But remember, a pitfall is a concealed trap. You do not see the danger of it until you fall into it, and then it is too late.

An older man of God heard that a Christian girl was going with an unbeliever and considering marrying him. He asked her if what he had heard was true. When she admitted that it was, he replied, “Remember this, if you marry that man you will be joined together for life with one who is a child of the devil, and for the rest of your days you will have Satan for your father-in-law.”

Pastors by the thousands spend much of their time counseling Christian young people who have become emotionally involved with unbelievers through dating them. Invariably these young people lament, “I didn’t intend getting so involved. Now I can’t give him (or her) up!”

Many do not give them up. Instead, they make the tragic mistake of marrying an unbeliever. There is virtually no sadder situation than that of one who loves the Lord and wants to serve Him being married to someone who cares nothing about spiritual things.

The Christian who says “I have no intention of marrying an unbeliever, but I think it’s all right to date one” is overlooking the fact that every such date has the potential of a disastrous lifelong relationship. Someone has well said, “Any Christian foolish enough to date an unbeliever is foolish enough to marry one.”

Even if the dating does not lead to marriage, it causes problems. Spending time with the wrong person is opening yourself up to an emotional involvement that will not be easy to get out of. Once you have given your heart and emotions to someone, it is difficult to take them back, even when you know you should.

Avoid this pitfall:

Do not date non-Christians. If you do not date unbelievers, you will not marry one.

Break Wrong Relationships...NOW!
If God has shown you that you are now involved in a wrong relationship, do not go around asking your friends what you should do. You do not need to go to your pastor to ask him. You do not even need to pray and ask God to give you “wisdom” to know what you should do. You just need to obey what God has shown you. Break that relationship…NOW! One day you will be glad you did!

9 Known Facts...concerning premarital sex and marriage
FACT No. 1
Couples who engage in premarital sex are more likely to break up before marriage than those who do not.
The young woman who is considering giving in to her boyfriend to keep him would be more likely to keep him if she did not give in.
FACT No. 2
Many men do not want to marry a woman who has had sex with someone else.
Since this is true, being a virgin will greatly enhance your chances of being chosen for a mate.
FACT No. 3
Virgins tend to have happier marriages than non-virgins.
Your chances of being happily married are definitely better if you wait until you are married to have sex.
FACT No. 4
Those who have sex before marriage are more likely to split up or be divorced after marriage.
The more premarital sex the individuals have had, the greater the chance of divorce.
FACT No. 5
Non-virgins are more likely to commit adultery after they are married than virgins.
Again, the more premarital sex the individual has had, the more likely he or she is to commit adultery.
FACT No. 6
Non-virgins are more likely to be fooled into marrying the wrong person than virgins.
Sex can blind you. You may think that you have found real love, when in fact it is only sex which has held you together.
FACT No. 7
Persons with premarital sex experience are less likely to be satisfied with their total sex life after marriage.
FACT No. 8
Having sex before marriage can push you into a poor marriage.
Often a couple becomes serious and think that they will marry, so they have sex. Later, they have misgivings about marriage but may feel duty–bound to marry anyway because they have had sex. Their guilt pushes them into a poor marriage.
FACT No. 9
Having sex before marriage tends to spoil sex after marriage.
The guilt, fear and loss of self–esteem associated with sex before marriage will carry over and tend to spoil the sex life of the couple after marriage.