Single Again

Singleness

• Singleness is more important than marriage. Marriage depends on singleness.
• Our culture built us to get along with others. We were trained to focus on other people. That is why we are not equipped to have relationships with others.
• The most important relationship in life should not be inter-personal relationship. It should be intra-personal relationship. You cannot have inter-personal relationship until you have settled the intra-personal relationship. I need to love myself.
• If I don't know and love myself I cannot love another person.
• The most important pursuit in life is self-knowledge. Singleness is about finding myself, loving myself, valuing myself, accepting myself, understanding myself and then appreciating myself so much that I can now share myself with another person.

Some Notes:

1. People think they need to get married to be complete;
2. You don't need to be married to fulfill God's purpose;
3. Get busy fulfilling God's purpose and stop looking for someone to marry;
4. Failure in marriage can derail your purpose;
5. It is better to be unmarried and happy than to be married and depressed.

Divorce

• Don't just get custody of the kids. First get custody of yourself.
• The ultimate trauma in life is divorce (Mal.2:16);
• Divorce is a violent act.
• You don't want to develop a level of bond that you are not responsible for.
• Divorce is traumatic.
• There is no cure for the broken heart. God hates divorce because it creates a wound that no medication can cure. Only a personal encounter with Jesus Christ can heal the broken heart.
• Despite God hating divorce, He still loves the divorcee.
• Divorce is tragic because it is the death of relationship.
• It is impossible to get divorce unless you are married. Marriage is the prerequisite of divorce. Hence singleness is the most important pursuit in life.
• The ingredient determines the product. 
• We want perfection with defects;
• We expect success while building with failure;
• Divorce: something went wrong at the foundation level - the male and female was contaminated.

Marriage

• My marriage is only as good as the single me.
• I bring into the marriage only that which I am a single. No more, no less.
• Whatever I am, I create. 
• It is more important that I bring the best to the relationship. I should work on becoming the best.
• Marriage is like an omelette. It is only as good as the eggs. Omelettes are determined by the quality of the eggs.
• Do not be unequally yoked because you cannot unyoke the individual eggs from the omelette.
• You carry your life with you, so make sure it's one you want to carry.
• If you knew all you know about you, would you marry you?
• Are you the kind of person I can enjoy living with for 90 years?
• What do you have that I can live with forever?
• Take care of your life first.
• Are you a gift or a curse?
• Are you a promotion or a demotion to me?
• What is it that you have that will improve my life?

The Myth of Singleness

• Are you single or merely unmarried?
• To be single should be the goal of even the married because it is the singleness that keeps the marriage together. It is singleness that makes the marriage possible. Marriage is two whole people coming together. If you are not whole and get married to a whole person, you become a parasite. You suck life out of him/her. You use them to try and get complete. You are no longer a blessing; you are a curse.
• Most married people have never been single. Unmarried is a state while singleness is a disposition. It is an assessment of your entity.
• It is OK to be single but not to be "alone".
• Adam did not even know he needed someone. 
• Relationships are for sharing your victories and success with; not to bring on your burdens and depression.
• If you don't need to be married, you are probably ready to be married.
• Love is a decision to share with someone.
• You don't love someone because you need something from them.
• If you are not complete, marriage will expose you.
• Don't use your time looking for somebody, use your time becoming somebody.
• Unity in vision is more important than unity in love.

LIFE after Divorce or Separation

Isaiah 61
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners

• God does not encourage nor enjoy division. He is not in favor of broken fellowship. He is God of unity.
• God is not the author of destruction.
• Divorce - release a commitment that you had made for life. When you come into marriage, there is a war on to destroy you. Satan instigates everything to destroy it. We commit to each other to defend each other for life. Divorce is thus apostasy. 
• Promises are made to humans - vows are made to God. A vow is unto death. (Eccl.2). Built into a vow is the penalty. My making a vow, it allows God to judge you if you break it.
• Marriage is not made for divorce.

Separation

• If you are not able to handle the effects of a divorce/separation, you will eventually die.
• A key problem with divorce/separation is denial. Healing starts with acceptance.

Psalm 43:5

Why are you so downcast oh my soul, why so disturbed within me?

• Depression is a result of disappointed expectations.

How to Recover from Divorce/Separation

1. Where are you in your recovery? Did you avoid it (emotionally and mentally). This is avoiding it.
2. Others escape it by getting into another relationship too quick. There is no escape from the real feelings of trauma. The best way to deal with it is look at it straight into the eye.
3. Denial. Mentally block it and assume it didn't happen.
4. Acceptance. Others accept and deal with it.

Kingdom Citizenship: Success Laws of Marriage

• We want to rediscover the authority of the marriage covenant.
• We are citizens of the Kingdom/Nation of God. As citizens, we must obey the laws of our Country.

The Paradox of Marriage

• Marriage is the greatest attraction and distraction in life. It can enhance or destroy your destiny.
• The most beautiful and dangerous thing in life is Marriage.
• The greatest source of joy and frustration is Marriage.
• Is the greatest dream but could also be a nightmare.
• Is the greatest source of hope and fear.

Marriage is an option given by God.

The Divine Option

1. Marriage was created by God.
2. It is a divine product.
3. It is a divine option. You should be preoccupied fulfilling God's will other than spending time chasing the prospect of marriage.
4. It is not necessary to fulfill God's purpose for your life.
5. It is a choice and not mandatory.

• Your education does not equip you for marriage.

The First Kingdom Institution

1. Marriage was the first institution God created.
2. The foundation of this institution is the single person.
3. Kingdom relationships are regulated by the standards of Heaven.
4. A successful marriage is only possible within Kingdom culture. 

• Cleave means to chase. Cleave to your wife - not just chase the woman and stop once she is married. Keep chasing her, learning her, with no one else in front of you. She is the only one you are to chase.
• The two shall become one flesh. This implies process.

Marriage-Foundational Institution

1. Marriage pre-dates all other institutions.
2. Marriage is the first foundation of the family.
3. Marriage is God's ideal context for human social development and relationship.
4. A nation is a collection of communities, which is a collection of families which is a product of marriage.
5. Destruction of marriage is the destruction of a nation.
6. Marriage is the context for successful human relationships intimately. You should only be intimate in marriage. Marriage is a safety net. He brought them together because he desired a godly offspring. Marriage is not for the people in it, it's for the product it produces.

The Principle to Marriage

1. A successful marriage has little to do with love.
2. Love does not guarantee success in marriage.
3. Love brings happiness but it does not make marriage work.
4. The thing that makes marriage work is [applied] knowledge.
5. Success depends not on what we know or what we feel.

What is Marriage

1. Marriage - "gameo" - "gem" - TO FUSE TOGETHER.
2. GEMS - diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds are all products heat, pressure, time and fusion.
3. Marriage is the fusion of two distinct human elements into one. True marriage doesn't become weak under pressure, it becomes stronger.

Waiting and Dating-Part 1

• Habits and attitudes established during the dating years generally carry over into marriage.

Principles of Dating Readiness

1. You are not ready to date until you are fully aware of both the benefits and the dangers of dating. Human beings interact with each other in the spiritual, soulical and physical dimensions. Healthy relationships should always begin at the spiritual and intellectual levels - the levels of purpose, motivation, interests, dreams and personality. The physical dimension is the least important.
2. A good understanding of God's standards for relationships. This requires a certain degree of spiritual maturity.
• There are only 2 choices: either you will follow God's standards by deliberate choice, or you will follow the world's standards by default. Unless you plan ahead to keep yourself pure on a date, you probably won't.
• Dating is no place for trial and error.
3. Resolve in your spirit that you will not lower or compromise God's standards for any reason, even if it means losing dates. Standing firm on what you believe is a sign of both spiritual and emotional maturity. There are no second-class areas of life to God. He is after your best. He wants you to obey Him, follow His Word, and stand firmly on His standards. Anything less and you cannot expect to receive His best.
4. YOU ARE READY TO DATE WHEN YOU DON'T NEED TO
• If you feel that you need a date in order to be complete or fulfilled personally, you are not ready for dating. Need involves demand and implies that there is something lacking in life. As long as you perceive lack or incompleteness within yourself, every relationship you enter will be, to one degree or another, an effort to supply that lack or bring a sense of completeness.
• You are ready to date only to the extent that you feel whole and complete within yourself, apart from any other person (except God). When you regard dating as a matter of choice rather than necessity, you are ready.
• Before Eve came along, Adam was alone, but he was not lonely. Loneliness is a spiritual disease. Adam was alone because he was the only one of his kind, but he was completely fulfilled as a person. In tending the garden he had meaningful work to do. In his authority over the living creatures, he was exercising his God-given dominion over the created order. He enjoyed full and open fellowship with his Creator.
• The time you are most prepared for dating is when you don't need anyone to complete you, fulfill you or instill in you a sense of worth or purpose. You are ready to date when you have first learned how to be single.

Waiting

Those that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.