5 Things Christian Women Should Look for in a Mate

5 Things Christian Women Should Look for in a Mate
(Reposted from Kim Brook's Blog)

Ladies, you may have had conversations with your girlfriends about what you're looking for in a mate. Well allow me to share a list of 5 things a Christian woman should consider looking for in a future spouse. Looks aren't everything (but it definitely helps! Lemme stop...) BTW – I'm not insinuating a woman go chasing after a man, this list is just a guide that describes certain character traits within a man that a woman of God should look for:

1. He may be fine, but make sure that man is saved!

Single Christian women should make sure that their future spouse is Christian as well because God admonishes believers to not be unequally yoked with unbelievers according to II Corinthians 6:14. You want to be in a relationship with someone who shares the same value system and beliefs as you do. In doing so, you create harmony in the relationship, and operate in God's perfect will for your life. Also, according to Amos 3:3, it is better for two people who are in agreement to walk together.

2. He may be saved, but make sure that man is for real!

Nowadays, it is not enough to make sure someone confesses Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior according to Romans 10:8-10. You want to also make sure his lifestyle lines up with his faith confession, and that He fears God by not desiring to break God's heart -which happens when we disobey His Word and His will. Also, how can a man love you like Christ loves the church if he doesn't know how to truly love God? Make sure that he is not only saved but that his mind has been renewed and changed by the Word of God (Romans 12:2). A man who fears God, or reverences and respects God so much that he has surrendered his own will to God's will, proves that he sincerely loves the Lord, and love must be vertical first, before it can ever be horizontal.

3. Make sure he has a vision, and knows his purpose.

The Word of God in Habakuk 2:2 commands us to write the vision and make
it plain. You want a future mate who has a vision and knows his purpose in life. Men are called to be leaders in the home, and a man who doesn't know his purpose will be leading his future intended down a path that leads to no where. When a man and a woman both know their purpose they can better envision a future together and can see how they fit into one another's lives.


4. Make sure he loves people and wins souls.

Unfortunately, there are some who call themselves Christians yet do not love people. Make sure your future spouse is not one of these persons. God's second commandment to Christians is to love their neighbors as themselves, and the best way to show that love is to tell someone else about Jesus Christ. The same way that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son is the same way, ladies, you should want to make sure your future spouse loves people so much that he willingly shares his testimony and witnesses to someone else. The Word of God, in Psalm 107:2 says, Let the redeemed of the Lord, say so, so your future mate should not be ashamed to tell it!


5. Makes sure that pleasing God is his #1 priority.

God is pleased when we, His children, obey His Word (John 14:15). For example, He is pleased when we honor our parents (Eph. 6:1), when we tithe to our local church (Mal. 3:10, Heb. 2:4), when we love one another (1 John 4:7), and when we esteem others higher than ourselves (Phil. 2:3). So it is important now, ladies, to make sure that your future spouse makes pleasing God his #1 priority, because in doing so it shows that he has the potential to love you the same way that Christ loved the church.

*Please note: Out of the 5 things listed, woman of God, it is important that you, also, possess the 5 characteristics included on this list. That way you both can be an extreme blessing to one another in your relationship.

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Licensed minister and speaker, Kim Brooks, is the author of “He's Saved...But is He For Real?” which is the sequel to Black Expressions Bestseller, “He's Fine...But is He Saved?” and non-fiction mini-book, “The Little Black Survival Book for Single Saints.” Kim publishes a monthly E-newsletter for singles entitled, “The Single Heart.” Check out free excerpts, or sign up for a free subscription to her
E-newsletter on www.Kimontheweb.com
Her books are available in bookstores nationwide

Exclusive dating-How much are you worth?

Real talk. Quality time IS essential for dating Christians. This is where the search for compatibility is done. Most people would agree that people hold back some of who they are, making the search for compatibility tougher. This is one reason why society prescribes exclusive dating, or boyfriends & girlfriends as a system to learn, love, and discover the truth in the people we date. In theory, you are supposed to date one another exclusively, and meet each others family, and loved ones. The hope is that somewhere in the process of doing this, that a person will drop their guard long enough for you to see their true self. We are supposed to use these moments of clarity to choose whether or not we have compatibility or not. For the person who is living their lives for the Lord, there are a couple of major problems with this approach:

Intimacy. Intimacy is great, it's a gift from God. Some mild forms of it are even necessary when dating. The problem with intimacy and exclusive dating is that men often become aroused in intimacy with women, and women on the other hand begin to feel secure in intimacy with men. Ya'll stop me when i'm lying. So you take a women that is feeling all warm and secure, and a man that is aroused, and then you add the dynamic of "your my boyfriend" and what we get is what we see in the church today; men and women exploring sex in all it's forms before marriage.

Timing. Another problem with exclusive dating is that many people dating this way in the church discover that the person they dated, sometimes for years, is not going to be their spouse. Now here is the thing, during the time a woman is a man's boyfriend, she doesn't know that man is NOT her husband, but God does. So being the good and righteous God that he is, he sends good men, Godly men your way. Now the woman calls it bad timing, because she has a boyfriend. We can only imagine God's perspective as he tried to bless her, but she was unavailable.

"We all know that in every case but one, exclusive dating concludes with a break - up" ,the exception of course being marriage. Seeing that marriage is what dating Christians ultimately seek, why not make marriage the centerpiece of dating, without all the ties? In the Bible, exclusivity before marriage was granted with a price. When Jacob told Laban that he wanted to marry his daughter Rachel, they agreed on a price before she was set-aside for him. Today, with our boyfriend and girlfriend culture, exclusivity costs nothing and is given freely therefore it means next to nothing, especially to men. It is Biblical for a man to collect his savings, buy a diamond and offer it to a woman as a sacrifice and a promise to marry her. No matter what our society says, the Bible does NOT support the process of women setting themselves aside exclusively before a sacrificial offering has been made. Imagine Jacob asking Laban to marry Rachel without a sacrificial demonstration of his love. Jacob worked 7 years for the hand of Rachel. How much are you worth?

-James is the host of FindingMorris.com, an online singles ministry radio program that is available 24/7

The next live taping is Saturday January 31st, 2009

How sistahs can truly "Find" Morris, Part 1

(Reading time: 2:00 minutes)

Here’s the deal and you know it’s true. Many "sistahs" are often wrapped up into this one guy. Maybe he’s the dude from college that she just loved so much, complete with soul-ties and all. Other times he’s this great guy, handsome successful, and committed in year one, two, a promise in year three and year four…ahem…all without a ring. Sound familiar?

What if you could discover a way to "find" the Morris for you without having to put up with “Mr. Can’t Commit?” Interested? If you’re a woman who desires to marry God’s choice, take a look at the crude little chart and read on.

The circle represents all of the unmarried men. As Christians, we are gonna believe and pray that all that read this are NOT dating married men. Amen. Of the unmarried men, the blue section represents the men around you that are trying to "Holler" (as we say in the South). Holler of course means a man that is asking you out, or coming on to you. These men are the nice guys who ask for your number, or for a dinner date, and yes this also includes the men who scream, "Hey shawty" at the gas station. Thank God for our men in the blue section.

Now the red section represents the men that you actually like. The key to this little exercise is simple. Notice that some of the "red men" are actually interested in you (inside the blue section), and some are not (outside of the blue section).

The challenge is that some sistahs are willing to pray for God to give them the man they are attracted to, even if that man is not coming on to them. They’ll stand on Psalms 37:4, “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart,” and ignore the very next verse, Psalms 37:5, “Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." So what is an eligible Christian woman to do? Should you just accept whatever comes along? Well come back next week as we bring it all together.

~James and Kanika