2Corinthians 6:14(ESV) says, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” Many single believers struggle with applying the discipline and wisdom of this verse to their own lives. The challenges of being a single person that is looking to cross paths with a compatible partner are notorious in our current environment. If done without prayer, careful thought, and consideration, dating can become as hazardous as walking a tight rope without a safety net. A single person can be deceived by someone that looks the part but isn’t at all what they seem. And not only this, their hearts can be broken to such an extent that they become insecure and filled with fear, and they may lose out on finding the right person for them altogether.
Unbelievers are individuals that do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God; many of them do not even believe there is a One True God. They don’t believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross, shed his blood for the remission of our sins, and was resurrected from the dead by the Holy Spirit. They do not believe in the born-again reality through Jesus Christ. God warns us not to be yoked together with such individuals. He is not trying to make our pleasure any less. Nor does He intend that we should be unkind to those who do not honor Him through the Lord Jesus Christ. He is giving us the wisdom and truth that will preserve our relationship with Him and therefore keep us from being demolished by darkness and evil.
It used to be that disappointing God was the biggest fear in a believer’s life. For many this has now been replaced. Loneliness has become the biggest fear for women especially. The waiting feels to them to be exhausting, and they are perplexed because they don’t know what to do to move themselves closer to their dream. When someone comes along and checks off all the main boxes except “Saved, Sanctified, and Spirit filled”, many women will still think that they’ve scored.
The danger that some believers have failed to realize is that loneliness can be a tool of satan, and he will use it to coerce people into idolatry. The simple definition of idolatry is when people place anything above their allegiance to God through His Holy Word. When we put pleasing a person over pleasing God through obedience, we will have bowed to satan by idolizing the person. Consider the temptation of Christ. Our Lord and Savior had been fasting in the wilderness for forty days and nights, and Matthew 4:2 tells us that he was hungry. It was in this state, when satan presumed Jesus to be his most vulnerable, that the devil tempted our Redeemer by trying to get him to bow to the kingdom of darkness. Matthew 4:8-9(NLT) says, “8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Hunger is the condition of being deprived of food. Loneliness is a condition of being deprived of companionship. Both are conditions of lack, deprivation, and desperation. The game plan of satan hasn’t changed. It has always been to use these conditions to cause people of God to stumble. So, when a woman meets a man that seems like a good match and is good to her but doesn’t love Jesus Christ as the Lord of his life, she can’t imagine saying ‘NEXT!’ She is swayed towards him because of the deprivation she’s experienced through loneliness.
The methodology of satan is to first minimize God’s influence through the emotional pull of an unbeliever, and the devil moves to methodically and slowly squeeze Heavenly Father out of the woman’s life. 2Corinthians 6:15(NLT) asks, “What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever?” This is an extremely important question for the woman of God. There is no harmony between Christ and the devil, none whatsoever. When a woman thinks that her emotional needs are being met, she is often blinded to the extent to which she can be bamboozled and torn apart by satan’s tricks. She refuses to accept that demons work through people, and when we abdicate our authority in Jesus Christ and do not stand on God’s Word, demons wage war against our lives through our emotions.
1Corinthians 10:21(NIV) warns, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.” An unbelieving man may say, “Babe, I would never do anything to hurt you.” You must then ask yourself if you will take the word of the man over the Word of the Lord. Relationships are not child’s play. They are doors by which we bring in and let out Godliness or sin. The choice is always ours to make.
If you are just beginning a relationship, ask yourself how can a man respect your stand as a Woman of God if you refuse to STAND as a Woman of God? What are you clinging to if a mere mortal can cause you to relinquish the very foundation of your existence? We must be wise and guard our hearts as God tells us in Proverbs 4:23. We have no glue. We can’t hold a relationship together. Jesus Christ is the glue. Colossians 1:17(NLT) tells us, “He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.” Our Master Jesus must be the head, and it is up to us to decide if we want our lives and our relationships to be held together by his love. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
“You Love Him, But He Doesn’t Love Jesus” written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!