Pure Bride

Much too often people view a single woman as though she should be pitied rather than envied. This is far from the truth. A single woman has the advantage of being able to develop her love relationship with Christ without the distractions that a husband or family brng to one's heart. God desires to know us as women. Satan's first attack upon the human race was sly effort to destroy Eve's confidence in the kindness of God. Satan is continuing to lie to Eve's daughters. This is alienating women from the One who loves them as they need to be loved. Deep within a woman's soul there is a longing for a gentle embrace of the God Who Is, not that God that the enemy has devised. Boaz spoke of Ruth's devotion to God when he said,

"May the Lord reward your work, and your wages be full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge." Ruth 2:12

Ruth clung to Naomi's God as her own even though her mother-in-law spoke negatively about him.

"And she said to them, 'Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara[bitter], for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.. the Lord has witnessed against me and the Almighty has afflicted me?'" Ruth 1:20-21.

Will you be devoted to God like Naomi? Naomi was very bitter towards God. "If we think of God as cold and exacting, we shall find it impossible to love Him, and our lives will be ridden with fear." Our past experiences, present circumstances, or parent's devotion or lack thereof may cause us to have an incorrect view of God. The only way we can discover who we really our and who God really is is by taking refuge and devoting our lives to him.

As a single woman, I have a wonderful oppurtunity to use my time to fellowship with God. When you love someone, you give them your heart, the center of your being. God asks for no less from us. He desires a totally devoted heart. Deuteronomy 6:5 says,

"Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."

He was us to love him with our hearts, our souls, and all our of strength.

In order for us to love Jesus with true love, we must know him intimately. In Philippians 3:10 Paul expressed the desire to "know" God. Paul was desiring to know God intimately. In Second Peter 1:3 it says that everything pertaining to life and godliness is yours "through the true knowledge of him." In Genesis 4:1 when Scripture speaks of the intimate relations Eve had when she "knew" or "had been with" her husband. Do you have a devotion to God that causes people to marvel at how intimately you know Him? Do you know God in a way that causes Him to be an intimate, personal part of your being as yu may desire a husband to be one day? I know that I desire that more than anything. I desire to know God intimately and personal.

As women, we have been created with a desire to be known, not just in a physical way, but deeply known and intimately known. Most woman believe that a man will fill this for them someday. I have believed this lie over and over again. I has searched for guys just because I wanted them to fill this part of my heart and I wanted them to fill my longings. The truth is no man can fill this. Only God can fill this deep longing. God knows our deep longings for intimate love. He is the lover our of our souls and can fill this need completely.

Our father is incapable of doing evil. He loves us and forgives us completely and forgets confessed sins and grievances. Is this the God that you know? If we retract in fear, try to hide things, and give excuses when we do something we feel God would not like, it shows that our knowledge of Chris is inaccurate. I struggle with this sometimes. Sometimes I feel so ashamed because I did things that God definitely would not like that I stop praying to him or start being more distant. This is not the way I should handle it. I should cry out to him and ask for his forgiveness.

God wants to do us good not evil. Jeremiah 29:11 says He wants to give us a future and a hope. Has your wrong picture of God been invented by the enemy in order to rob you of a true knowledge and love of God? Let us not be decieved like Eve in the garden. Get to know the One your heart truely desires to love. For us to love God we must know Him intimately, personally, and devotedly. This requires us to get to know Him by seeking Him.

Seeking God is very similiar to developing a friendship. We can talk to him, listen to Him, write eachother letters, think about eachother, and many other things. Jeremiah 29:12-13 promises that a woman who diligently seeks God with all her heart and will find Him. Our hearts are the key to devotion to God. To find God we must seek him with our whole heart. A halfhearted search is not sufficient. We can't being doing our own thing and trying to seek God at the time. We need to give up ourselves and seek God and only Him. We have to seek him 365 days our of the year. Not 363 or 364. Giving Christ your heart means you are not free to give it away to other things or people that come into our lives. If other people get in the way then we are making idols for ourselves. Devoting our lives to Christ means giving everything or nothing at all.

If we are to know God intimately, then we must seek Him, not only with a whole heart, but also with a clean heart. When we think of the word Bride we think, beautiful, clean, pure woman in white. No grime or dirt but the image of purity. As Christians we are part of the Bride of Christ. Any grime or dirt of sin will mar our image before him. In order to be the Bride of Christ we must clean up any blot of sin that may arise between you and your heavenly sweetheart. Sin causes God to back away from a person. Sin is disgusting to Him. He will not abide with it. If you want your devotion to God to be complete, don't merely brush at sin lightly. Get in there and confess it, clean it up, and clear it out. Get rid of it period. Psalm 51:10 says, " Creat in me a clean heart, O God. "

To grow in your knowledge of God, you must seek God correctly, which means you must also seek Him with pure heart. A woman with a pure heart for God does not focus on what He gives, but delights in who He is. I want to have a pure heart and delight in who He is. To find God, you must seek Him with pure motives. Seek Him for who He is, not just for what He can do for you. I struggle with this I focus on what he can do for me constantly but I want to seek Him for who He is.

If you want to get to know the Lord, you must seek Him not only with a whole, clean, and pure heart, but also with a listening heart. During your God are you learning to listen to God? When I would pray to Him I used to just ask for things and talk about myself but He is really showing me how to listen to Him and giving me a listening heart. As a result, my devotion to Him grows and grows and it can do the same for you.

Singleness is not a curse. Singleness puts us in a advantageous position because, more than likely, we are able to spend much more time to seek the Lord now than we ever will be when we are married. The word of God illustrates the advantageous position of the single woman in relation to life. "...An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of the world-how she can please her husband." -1 Corinthians 7:34. God says the unmarried woman has the advantage when it comes to her devotion to the Lord. A single woman can give the Lord what a married woman rarely can-undistracted devotion. The time to devleop a consistent devotional life cannot wait until we are married. Many single women waste valuable years as they "wait for life to begin". I myself have wasted time searching for guys and "waiting for my life to begin" but my life has already began.

I used to hate being single. I really really hated it. I felt like all my other friends were in relationships and I was being left behind. This is when God transformed my heart. God is blessing me with precious time. Once I have found "Mr. Right" I will never have this special time again. I want to come into His chambers, delight in His prescence. Im sorry this got long once I started writing I just couldn't stop.

In his love,

Grace



I took little bits and pieces from Lady In Waiting by Debby Jones and Jackie Kendall.