You were created to reflect the femininity of God as the man was created to reflect the masculinity of God. They are different sides to the same God. Do you know that you were also created in the image of God just as the man was? The woman was created to help the man take care of the earth. More importantly, you were created also to fellowship with God. You and the man were created from the same essence of God. The Spirit of God dwells in us both. The Spirit dwells in you to help the man to be fruitful and multiply in a Godly relationship. From the beginning of time it has been this way and will continue until the end. In God’s perfect design for us just as it was not good for the man to be alone so it is not good for the woman to be alone. Only men and women were designed to fellowship spiritually with God and with each other. That fellowship was broken by the “fall” in the Garden of Eden. Not only was the fellowship with God broken and damaged, but also the spiritual connection between man and woman. This damage persists to this day. We do not relate to each other the way God originally intended for us to.
Just as the command of God represented a choice to them in the Garden of Eden, so we have choices today. God could have created us to worship Him without choice, but that would not be true love. That would be like the animals worship God. The animals worship God by being what God created them to be, the fish worships God by being a fish. True love is when we can love anybody in the world but choose to love the person we are with. I can eat from the tree you commanded me not to eat from, but I choose to obey you. Thus, I demonstrate my love for you in the choices I make. Christ Jesus told us, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”[1] So love requires action on our part. If we profess love for God we are required to keep His commandments. There are no loopholes. I remember being in church and seeing the same men and women every Sunday taking the altar call to repent or rededicate themselves. There should come a time in the life of a believer when his life begins to manifest the life of Christ. Some would say these are backsliders. I would venture to say that you cannot backslide until you have truly repented and been saved. We cannot continue to commit the same sins weekly or daily and claim salvation. True salvation requires, no demands a change in our lives. God loves me too much to leave me the same way He found me. It becomes a matter of my choices. Am I choosing obedience to God or obedience to Satan? Christ Jesus says, “Whoever commits sin is a slave to sin.”[2] A slave means that sin is my master and has control of me. A slave loses control of his life and all that entails when he becomes a slave. We of ourselves can do nothing against this addiction to sexual immorality. In the final chapter we will discuss the ways to break this cycle and begin to stop this epidemic.
When it comes to making choices, we demonstrate our love based on our choices. We demonstrate our love to our wives and husbands not because we cannot commit adultery, but by choosing not to. By choosing the love of our mate over the momentary urge to satisfy our selfish desires we show our love. We may say we love someone or something, but it is our choices that reveal our true feelings. Love requires sacrifice, when we decide that we love someone we make a conscious decision to be with that person, forsaking all others. By our being with our mates we are choosing not to be with anyone else, there in lies the sacrifice. For many today they want the relationship, but without the sacrifice. The choices give love meaning. If I can continue to be with others and still be with you where is the sacrifice and the choice. Without choices there is no meaning to love. You can make someone do what you want them to do, but you cannot make someone love you. Sometimes we don’t even know why we love what or who we love, we just know we do. Our choices in this life say much about who we truly are, not who we claim to be. The key to many of the bad choices we make is a spirit of rebelliousness. The world calls it independence, but it is rebelliousness to God. Anything I do independent of God is a sin, no matter how noble it may be. We are saying we know better than God what is best for us. I know better than my parents what is best for me. If you choose to harm yourself this is probably not a rational or sane decision. If you are making these choices it is probably not you who is making them but the sin that dwells in you. Normal people usually do not make decisions that they know will lead to harm for themselves. Choosing to have sex as a young teen is a harmful choice, it can and usually does lead to pregnancy. An unwanted pregnancy has “harmed” a large number of young women and men. Any woman who is not married at any age choosing to engage in sexual activities is making a harmful choice. The harm is not only the possibility of pregnancy and sexual disease, but also the harm that the sin does to the spirit and the fellowship with God.
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