S.C.A.R.F 2021
Love, Sex & Relationships
Today was an historic day for my church based here in Accra, Ghana, the Accra Ridge Church. Before COVID hit, teen camps were organised outside of Accra hosting about 150–200 kids during the summer talking to them about their faith in God, personal, academic and spiritual growth. It’s normally planned to run for about 5 days filled with activities that engage them and get them to make new friends and learn about God. Since COVID hit last year, camp for 2020 didn’t happen but this year a one day retreat was planned and I volunteered to be a facilitator speaking on Love, Sex and Relationships.
This was an interesting topic for me because it’s been one of the areas I have studied that deepened my relationship with God. I had fallen for so many traps that confused me about love, sex and relationships and the Word of God gave me a better understanding that changed my perspective. I hope sharing this goes a long way to helping someone out there.
IDENTITY
Being very young it’s easy to fall for what your people say about you and taking that as your identity. It’s so hard to let go even when I look at myself in the mirror I didn’t appreciate how wonderfully i had been created until I saw it from the perspective of the Word of God. My first point is your identity is in Christ (based on what GOD says about you), every other thing comes second. Let’s break it down, the Word of God says in Genesis chapter 1:26:
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over a]” all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
This scripture unearths the initial creation of humans here on earth as man. Man (Adam)was made in the image of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. It was a combined effort of the Trinity and we were made according to their likeness. A simple google search of likeness means we were made to have similarities like the Trinity. What those similarities are is a mystery that I believe is uncovered to you as you study the Word, commune with God and believe in what you have read as yours.
Like our parents who we see here on earth, we see a physical resemblance between us and them. We see that in Jesus, God as man on earth. God our Father is a Spirit but came to earth as the second Adam (man) known as Jesus Christ the Son of God. His coming to earth was prophesied in Isaiah, Matthew and John respectively:
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel.
“Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel” (which means, “God with us”).
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Jesus was God living amongst flesh , He performed miracles and showed characteristics that showed He was not of this world. He had power and left the world with His Word that when declared in His name, every knee bows and every tongue confesses that He is Lord.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
We read about His LOVE, PATIENCE, FORGIVENESS, KINDNESS and FAITHFULNESS towards us and for us to have been made in His likeness this means I will also demonstrate similar characteristics!
In the book of Psalms, David writes in chapter 139 verses 13 and 14:
“for it was You who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise You because I have been fearfully and wonderfully made”.
Fearfully when translated from the Hebrew means with great reverence, heart-felt interest, and with respect. Wonderfully when translated from the Hebrew means unique and set apart.
We are reflections of God’s glory. Halleluyah!
We are unique and set apart! Made with so much love, respect and great reverence! A child of a King! The King of all kings!
We are the children of God and we are heirs of God because of Jesus.
Praise be to His Holy name!
I strive to love as Jesus does, I strive to be patient as He was, I strive to forgive as He forgave, I strive to be kind as He was kind and I strive to be faithful as He was.
Jesus demonstrated REAL Love for us. He sacrificed himself for us so we could be reconciled back to God, our Father. He came to earth for us and did so much for us to see how powerful we are as children of God.
Love is our greatest gift as John describes it:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For me REAL Love is found in God which defines love as having someone willing to give freely to the point of self sacrifice for you. This is why marriage is juxtaposed to loving as Christ loved the church.
Love is a powerful feeling that can’t easily be quenched! It’s expressed so intimately and passionately by lovers in the Bible, the one that tops it for me is is between a young woman and Solomon:
Put me like a seal over your heart,
Like a seal on your arm.
For love is as strong as death,
Jealousy is as severe as Sheol;
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
The very flame of the LORD.7“Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor will rivers overflow it;
If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love,
It would be utterly despised.”
The flashes of fire cannot be compared to the butterflies we feel for crushes and boyfriends but can mature to that level if only we can endure the characteristics of love explained below. Read this carefully before you say you love someone:
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not b]” 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
INTIMACY & RELATIONSHIPS
How can you love God as He loves you? Why will He sacrifice His best for you just because He loves you?
My response: Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all other things will be added unto you.
God was not joking when He said this, I became so engulfed in finding more about the Kingdom of God because I indirectly found more information about who I was and what i was capable of. It took my mind over things from my past that didn’t make me feel valuable, that made me feel unloved, unwanted and ashamed of myself. My singleness took a different turn when I surrendered my love to God. I didn’t feel like i was losing out when I single, there was so much to learn about God’s love for me, it helped me easily identify the man who loved me as God did. I am still discovering more even as I am married, that’s another story for another day.
You can’t identify that kind of love if you have not experienced it from God. You can’t be confident and not care what people say if you don’t know God created you as a woman to be sought for not to go seeking for men. And when you meet “your lover” your relationship will be tested based on the standards of God and not man. It’s emotionally draining but refreshing to be “found” as a woman and be loved. Nothing can surpass that.
God’s love for me made me feel warmth, excitement, hope, pain, brokenness, refilling, joy, anxiety, everything you can think about but it placed my focus on Him. I looked to Him and not man. I trusted Him and not man.
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
God desires to have a relationship with you so He can love. God is love. There is no way you can engage with God and not feel REAL Love. Our relationship with God is based on love and in getting to know someone you have to spend quality time learning about the person, observing and understanding their values, wants and desires. Our intimacy with God grows based on how much information we know about Him. When you read His word from this perspective it changes how you see His word. It’s life changing.
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
TEMPTATION
Temptation is meant to be tempting, it questions the instructions of God and breeds disobedience. Like Eve in the Bible, she disobeyed and accepted the apple from the serpent thinking she was now going to have access to what she felt “she was missing out on”. The devil gave her wrong information about her identity and she accepted His substandard ways. She began questioning God and added her own interpretation of what she thought God meant when He asked her not to eat of the fruit of knowledge and evil. Instead of responding with only what God said, she added her own thoughts to make it look right and like some of us when we are tempted we only rely on the thoughts that make us look like our actions are right.
Don’t be like Eve, read your Bible, have information so when the devil comes knocking you can fight it off with God’s word.
Satan made Eve think SIN was good, pleasant and desirable. Having sex when you’re unmarried may look good pleasant and desirable but what is the end goal of your actions. Do you really feel joy at the end or guilt? Is it worth the guilt? Your actions will definitely come with consequences and the most assured of them is death. The Bible says that the wages of SIN is death, doesn’t mean your whole person will die, but having pre marital sex, a part of you dies that you can’t seem to be comfortable with. You open yourself up to other temptations that don’t really help you and you end up with regret.
SEX within marriage is complete ecstasy! Be patient and don’t put yourself in situations that will lead to sex. Today it may be fun but tomorrow it will be another story. Prepare yourself for attractive temptations that may come your way. We cannot always prevent temptation but there is always a way of escape.
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
Feed your mind with the right information so when temptations come your way you can fight it with God’s Word just like Jesus Christ did on the mountain with the devil. Surround yourself with God’s people as well to help you stand against temptation.
But if you come into contact with temptation and all else fails, RUN!
Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
In our generation, information is easily accessible and there are so many mixed standards out there but I will encourage you to stick with the standards from God based on Jesus’s Words! You will not regret it.
Be inspired by people around you, your friends, couples in church, join fellowships and be active. Be interested in your relationship with God and grow it because all other relationships stems from that. Enjoy your singlehood, real love exists and men are not trash.
If you read this far, God bless you and Always Remember, God loves you.
With love,
Lady-Omega
Written on 7th August, 2021.
#love #sex #relationships #faith #singlehood #biblestudy
