The Soul Mate Myth

The common idea of a "soul mate" is that for every person, there is another person who is a "perfect fit," and if you marry anyone other than this soul mate, you will never be happy .

SO...Is this concept of a soul mate biblical?

The Greek Mythology of "Soul Mate" is that humans originally consisted of four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces, but Zeus feared their power and split them all in half, condemning them to spend their lives searching for the other half to complete them.

If Someone buy into the notion of a soul mate, then he believes destiny has preordained just one person for him. Only one. Anyone else would obviously make him unhappy and unfulfilled. After all, it's been laid out for him already. He has no choice.

Wrong!

What if he lost his wife tragically? He would hope that the Lord would bring someone for him to marry again in time, but if his first wife was his "soul mate", then what would that make his second wife "soul mate part 2″?

See what I mean here

So The Concept of a Soul Mate is not biblical , Unfortunately Many believe that God chose our husband/wife for us and If we didn't marry that specific person , then marriage would fail. !!

Many People then ask me what about God who gave Eve to Adam as a helper comparable to him (Gen 2:18 ).

The answer is Adam and Eve are special case .God had two purposes in mind when he created Eve. One was procreation of the human race. The other was companionship. so it was the only case when God chose Eve for Adam but this doesn't happen with us.

On the Other Hand, God gave us Principles to Follow in choosing our mates and these principles exist in Bible. God does bring people in and out of our lives. He providentially works out circumstances. He gives us choices, and he even helps in the decision making process.

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Should Christians Judge ?

When the self proclaimed Religious leaders of that time brought a woman before Jesus, to be judged for a sin that she had committed. They asked Jesus what should be done to her, knowing that the LAW said that she should be stoned to death, Jesus said "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her". (John 8:7)

When we look at the Pharisees in Jesus' day, we do not see law keepers who were condemned for striving for the letter of the law. Instead we see hypocrites who usurped the law with the traditions of the elders. They lifted themselves up above others, and picked at the law, choosing only what they wanted to keep for themselves.

"For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men; the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do." (Mk 7:8)

But this doesn't mean Jesus didn't care about the law. Many Christians, have wanted to paint Jesus as anti-law and use that picture as an excuse for dissident and maverick attitudes. But in reality Jesus cared very greatly for the law. He said that he came not to destroy it but to complete it, and when it came to the civil law he was happy to 'render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's'.

So what's his point? When asked to name the greatest commandment he replied: to love God and your neighbour as yourself'; because love is the spirit of all positive human interaction. You might say he was big on morality and the roots of morality. He wanted to distil the spirit of the law, and free it from all its accumulated trappings and impurities. He said 'You have heard it said thou shall not murder but I say to you whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement'.

When we keep the letter of the law, we must also keep the spirit of the law. To keep the letter of the law, but ignore the spirit, is death. Likewise, to keep the spirit of the law, but ignore the letter, is death. It is not possible to do one without the other, and yet be justified in God's eyes. For those who believe it is possible to disregard the letter of the law, yet keep the spirit of the law, at the same time, please explain how it is possible to disregard the "letter of the law" forbidding physical adultery, yet keep the spirit of the law while committing physical adultery. Or to disregard the "letter of the law" forbidding stealing, yet keep the spirit of the law while committing theft.

The law of God is a lamp and light to guide us as God would have us walk, and we must use it just as He has given it. Never use someone else's lamp to light your path through life. And never stop seeking the light which is only found in the Word of God, the Bible.

The scribes and Pharisees were bad examples because they expected more of others than they did of themselves. They set heavy burdens on others, yet they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

The burden of the religious leaders contrasts sharply to Jesus' burden. His burden is light, and His yoke is easy (Matthew 11:30). These religious leaders were burden bringers; Jesus was a burden taker.

It is very sad that these individuals, who consider themselves to be better than another of God's children (even though, they know in their hearts that they were also forgiven of their sins of the past, and received God's Grace and still sin) and that these people would find it necessary to judge another, in some vain attempt to appear to uplift themselves.

The problem is ... Their view makes the Cross, of no effect.

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Sex Before Marriage

"Is it ok to have premarital sex?" That is a common question among teens and engaged couples. Perhaps you are in a relationship that is progressing in that direction, but you're not sure what to do.

It's a fact that persons and couples who have premarital sex are more likely to have extramarital affairs as well.

In discussing premarital sex, we often focus on the "recreation" aspect of it. Yes, sex is pleasurable. God, our Creator, designed it that way. It may be hard to think of God creating sex, but He did! In God's plan, sex was designed for married couples to enjoy the pleasure and excitement of sexual relations. The Bible talks about this in Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral."

Premarital sex is not love, it only leads to pain and disappointment for those who are seeking that love. The Bible says that when two people are married, they become one flesh (Ephesians 5:31). Sex is consummation of that union. When two people break off their relationship after having sex, it is like ripping apart flesh.

Those who have sexual intercourse outside marriage are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union. The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again.

The first thing to remember is that no sexual sin is beyond God's forgiveness. Thankfully, He doesn't withhold forgiveness or grace from those who ask for it.

1 John 1:9 promises that if you confess your sins, that He is faithful to forgive and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Note: This includes all sin, and does not exclude sexual sin. Psalm 103: 12 also promises, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions [sins] from us."

It's because Sex creates an unbreakable bond for eternity with the sex partner. (1 Cor 6:16) That's why it needs to happen only within the eternal bond of marriage. One reason so few people are capable of intimacy today is because that spiritual centre of union with another person has been scattered in bits and pieces all over their previous partner's lives. They have been hurt and with each hurt they close down a little more.

So Keep in mind that You should Build a Friendship, NOT a Sexual Partnership. If someone isn't interested in you without the physical, you can be assured that he or she does not after love but sex and is not worth gambling your reputation on.

Only date people who share and respect your views, you need them to work WITH you, NOT AGAINST you. This one is ENORMOUSLY important, a definite key to abstinence.

Lastly but one of the utmost importance is to pray for strength from Him [God]. You will not be able to "go it alone" without His help, and He is willing to help. The only thing that you need is ask.

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Salvation for Non Christians

In ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.

Some people have never heard of Jesus as the Son of God (if they've ever heard of him at all in most Muslim countries evangelizing by Christians is illegal) or have grown up with tremendous prejudice against Christianity. These are quite different from those who knowingly and willingly reject the truth available to them either by refusing to embrace it or by abandoning it later on.

In 1 Peter 1:20 and other places in Scripture we read that Christ's redemption was planned even before the creation of the world. Peter notes that the revelation of this redemption wasn't given until "at the end of the times," so there is an immense span of time between creation and the time when God's plan of salvation would be fully revealed. What about those who lived before this revelation was given? Are they simply out of luck, without any hope of salvation, because they lived before the time Christ would be fully revealed?

God gave hints from the very beginning of a Savior (Gen. 3:15), but they were only hints and not full revelation. There would have been no reason to give people these clues if their salvation did't depend on the future work of the Savior. But their salvation didn't depend on explicit faith in Christ because he had not yet been revealed to them.

Paul declares in Acts 17 that from the very beginning God's intention was for men to seek and find him. Paul says even those without any direct revelation of God still have his moral law written in their hearts (Rom. 2:14-15) and can know much about God through the witness of creation (Rom. 1:20). God has made it possible for every person to have knowledge of him, which makes faith in him possible. No one is totally "in the dark," and, as Isaiah attests, those who seek God and find him will find mercy and forgiveness (Is. 55:66), two necessary components of salvation.

The first covenant God makes with man after Adam and Eve's fall is with Noah. "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God" (Gen. 6:9). Noah didn't know of Christ, but he did have faith based on the knowledge of God he possessed at the time.

What was the point of giving the law if it couldn't save anyone? Why didn't God just reveal Jesus right then and there instead of waiting another 2,000 years to reveal him? As Paul explains, the Law was a shadow of the reality to come; it was preparatory in nature (Heb. 10:1-3). "So that the law as our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith" (Gal. 3:24). The law was never intended to be the means by which people could "save" themselves (as many first-century Jews erroneously concluded) but was given in part to show them what God's holy standards truly were, even though they weren't meeting them.

Paul distinguishes between three kinds of people. Those who knowingly reject God receive God's condemnation (Rom. 1:18-21). Those who try a do-it-yourself way of salvation through following the law will be judged by the law and condemned, since they fail to keep the law perfectly (Gal 3:10, Rom. 3:20, Gal. 5:3). Both of these groups of people have rejected the merciful initiative of God's grace in offering them salvation.

There is the third group, which actively seeks God and finds salvation in him (Acts 17 says that these can be Gentiles as well as Jews). They are responding to the initiative God makes in anyone's salvation (John 6:44) by drawing them to himself. Just as people who lived before Christ was revealed didn't have to know about him specifically to receive salvation, neither do people who have lived since the time of Christ have to specifically know about Christ in order to be saved if he hasn't been revealed to them yet.

We are speaking here of those who through no fault of their own have no way of knowing of Christ or have not heard of him in a way that they can clearly understand who he is. If God commanded explicit faith in Christ and baptism as the only ways to be saved even for those who have no way of knowing about Christ then he would be commanding such people to do something they're not capable of doing. This would be unjust and incompatible with his character. God doesn't give us commands that we are not capable of obeying.

Through Christ God has provided the redemption necessary for salvation even to be offered, and that redemption is for all men without exception. Now all that needs to be done is to apply that redemption to each person, which is a way of describing salvation. It is repeated throughout Scripture that we are saved by grace through faith. As Hebrews 11 testifies, this saving faith doesn't require explicit faith in Christ when there has been no revelation of Him.

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How (Not) to Raise a Pharisee

One dynamic of Children’s Ministries at Grace Community Church is that most of the children we minister to come from Christian families. Many of them are blessed with the sound and systematic teaching from God’s Word both at home and in the church, and even sometimes in school. This is something to be grateful for, but it also presents a unique challenge to those of us in Children’s Ministries. While the world breeds rebels, the church can unwittingly breed hypocrites.

It is the sad testimony of church history that the works and expressions of sacrificial love and devotion of one generation of Christians can quickly turn into legalistic rules and regulations for the next. The convictions of the first generation become the caprice of the second. It is sad and shameful how quickly the Object of wonder and worship of a generation can become the boredom and betrayal of the next. Hypocrisy is an imminent and evident threat to the church of Jesus Christ.

Churched children are seldom given to outright defiance of authority; they are much more susceptible to the poison of Pharisaism. Hypocrisy in the heart is much more difficult to spot than disobedient behavior. The Bible gives us some definite character traits of the pretentious pietist, and here is what they may look like in a child:

His outward behavior and adherence to rules are driven by a desire to please men, not by a love for God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength (Mk. 12:30).

Doing good works and having them observed by adults is more important than the action itself (Mt. 6:5).

The child is openly obedient and responsive — asking to pray before bedtime with you — while maintaining a quietly deceitful and rebellious attitude (Gal. 6:7).

He scrupulously observes the letter of the law — like religiously bringing his Bible to church — but neglects the weightier spirit of the law — like sharing his favorite toys with his siblings (Mt. 23:23).

He craves the verbal praises and tangible rewards of his parents and teachers, but cares little for the approbation of God Himself (Jn. 12:43)

Left unchecked by the grace and Word of God, by the time such a child reaches his teenage years, hypocrisy can have entrenched itself.

This teen prefers well-defined, black and white rules, for they give him a sense of certainty that God must surely reward those achievements (Lk. 18:12).

He adds a layer of rules to the Word of God (like not watching any movies, not listening to popular music, et cetera), giving the impression that he holds to a higher standard than Holy Scripture (Mt. 23:4).

He tends to propose personal preferences as, or elevate them above, divine imperatives (Mt. 15:2-3).

He pursues perfectionism (Phil. 3:6), not excellence (Phil. 3:12-14).

He separates himself from others he considers of lesser cultural morality — people whose table manners, courtesy of speech, and refinement of mannerisms do not match middle-class norms (Lk. 15:1-2).

He is judgmental — he excels at fault-finding, he loves to pick verbal fights — and the standard by which he condemns others is not primarily biblical, but personal, preferential, or traditional (Mt. 7:5). He fights against many people, against many issues, but he does not know who he is fighting for.

Hypocrisy is the pretense of virtue or piousness that is contrary to one’s real character. And make no mistake, hypocrisy spreads like an unseen cancer. Everything appears alive and spiritually vital, then suddenly, the person is dull –and soon dead. The Lord specifically warned His disciples, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” (Lk. 12:1) Since hypocrisy is hidden deep within the recesses of the heart, it goes on unchecked and will hollow out its victim from the inside.

One of the dangers is that these outwardly compliant children receive much approval from parents and teachers. So they are encouraged to continue the duplicity unless anti-hypocritical measures are employed. We can certainly teach and militate against hypocrisy in the following ways:

Instead of just dealing with external behavior issues, we should seize every opportunity to help children understand that it is their hearts that generate their actions (Mt. 15:19). In His judgment of man, God looks at the heart (1 Sam.16:7). We should never equate occasions of good behavior (professions of love for Jesus, acts of compliance, et cetera) with saving faith in Jesus. We need to go beyond fixing wrong behavior to helping the child understand that his evil heart can only be changed by the Lord in regeneration.

Emphasize the affections of NT religion. Make sure that we are not just aiming at a young person’s understanding, but that we reach for the heart and its affections.

Do not encourage children to exhibit their talents and gifts to impress others. They should be reminded that all that they are and have are gifts of grace from God (1 Cor. 4:7), and they should not regard themselves more highly than they ought (Rom. 12:3).

Teach the truth about integrity — which comes from the word for “integer” or “whole.” For a child with integrity, whichever way you turn them, they look they same. Who they are at church, is who they are in school, is who they are at home. This is what our kids should be.

Do not be afraid to share our spiritual and moral failures with children in instances where they can identify with our shortcomings. This allows us to be authentic with them. It also allows us to demonstrate our response to God when we have done wrong, and our reliance on Him to continue molding our hearts.

Be authentic in your love for Christ. Genuine desire for Christ is not easily faked. Let your zeal be a barometer by which they measure their own affection for Christ.

Hypocrisy is an insidious danger in Children’s Ministries today. It also threatens each individual home. As parents, it is our job to honor the intention of Psalm 78:4-6:

We will not conceal [the Word of God] from their children, But tell to the generations to come the praises of the LORD, and His strength and His wondrous works that He has done, that they should teach [the law] to their children, that the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, That they may arise and tell them to their children.

Salvation for Non Christians

In ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.

Some people have never heard of Jesus as the Son of God (if they've ever heard of him at all in most Muslim countries evangelizing by Christians is illegal) or have grown up with tremendous prejudice against Christianity. These are quite different from those who knowingly and willingly reject the truth available to them either by refusing to embrace it or by abandoning it later on.

In 1 Peter 1:20 and other places in Scripture we read that Christ's redemption was planned even before the creation of the world. Peter notes that the revelation of this redemption wasn't given until "at the end of the times," so there is an immense span of time between creation and the time when God's plan of salvation would be fully revealed. What about those who lived before this revelation was given? Are they simply out of luck, without any hope of salvation, because they lived before the time Christ would be fully revealed?

God gave hints from the very beginning of a Savior (Gen. 3:15), but they were only hints and not full revelation. There would have been no reason to give people these clues if their salvation did't depend on the future work of the Savior. But their salvation didn't depend on explicit faith in Christ because he had not yet been revealed to them.

Paul declares in Acts 17 that from the very beginning God's intention was for men to seek and find him. Paul says even those without any direct revelation of God still have his moral law written in their hearts (Rom. 2:14-15) and can know much about God through the witness of creation (Rom. 1:20). God has made it possible for every person to have knowledge of him, which makes faith in him possible. No one is totally "in the dark," and, as Isaiah attests, those who seek God and find him will find mercy and forgiveness (Is. 55:66), two necessary components of salvation.

The first covenant God makes with man after Adam and Eve's fall is with Noah. "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God" (Gen. 6:9). Noah didn't know of Christ, but he did have faith based on the knowledge of God he possessed at the time.

What was the point of giving the law if it couldn't save anyone? Why didn't God just reveal Jesus right then and there instead of waiting another 2,000 years to reveal him? As Paul explains, the Law was a shadow of the reality to come; it was preparatory in nature (Heb. 10:1-3). "So that the law as our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith" (Gal. 3:24). The law was never intended to be the means by which people could "save" themselves (as many first-century Jews erroneously concluded) but was given in part to show them what God's holy standards truly were, even though they weren't meeting them.

Paul distinguishes between three kinds of people. Those who knowingly reject God receive God's condemnation (Rom. 1:18-21). Those who try a do-it-yourself way of salvation through following the law will be judged by the law and condemned, since they fail to keep the law perfectly (Gal 3:10, Rom. 3:20, Gal. 5:3). Both of these groups of people have rejected the merciful initiative of God's grace in offering them salvation.

There is the third group, which actively seeks God and finds salvation in him (Acts 17 says that these can be Gentiles as well as Jews). They are responding to the initiative God makes in anyone's salvation (John 6:44) by drawing them to himself. Just as people who lived before Christ was revealed didn't have to know about him specifically to receive salvation, neither do people who have lived since the time of Christ have to specifically know about Christ in order to be saved if he hasn't been revealed to them yet.

We are speaking here of those who through no fault of their own have no way of knowing of Christ or have not heard of him in a way that they can clearly understand who he is. If God commanded explicit faith in Christ and baptism as the only ways to be saved even for those who have no way of knowing about Christ then he would be commanding such people to do something they're not capable of doing. This would be unjust and incompatible with his character. God doesn't give us commands that we are not capable of obeying.

Through Christ God has provided the redemption necessary for salvation even to be offered, and that redemption is for all men without exception. Now all that needs to be done is to apply that redemption to each person, which is a way of describing salvation. It is repeated throughout Scripture that we are saved by grace through faith. As Hebrews 11 testifies, this saving faith doesn't require explicit faith in Christ when there has been no revelation of Him.

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