Be Bold in All Things

A Video Recording of this Message

May 8, 2010 

I've being reading lots of books about our union with Christ,and have being greatly encouraged that God is not out to get me,I was brought up in a catholic family where guilt and condemnation were always very close...

    But I'm in confusion now about the following situation?

    I've being trying to get the attention of a certain young lady that I find very attractive,and now I feel i got her attention and she wants to get to know me,but I feel hampered by guilt because she has absolutely no clue about what it means to be born again...

    my quistion is I feel attracted and want to pursue her more but I got this inner guilt,and my local church would say don't even think about it she is an unbeliever what fellowship has light with darkness,but now after reading some of your material i'm wondering are they teaching separation that is not true?ie what I hear you saying is Jesus is right in the middle of my attraction to this young lady and is not condemning me for it?

    I'd like to hear what you have to say on this please?

    Regards John...

John,

I cannot give advice. I have no way of knowing what God intends for your life nor does anyone else. But by His grace, I can sometimes share perspective that may help shine a bit of light on the path forward.

First, we must begin with the certain knowledge that Christ is our life, we have no other life. This is not true because of wishful thinking, but because of the blood and cross of Christ. When you look inside yourself, it is impossible to see anything except the glorious and holy One sitting upon the throne of your heart.

But then the question comes in, "Can we still 'miss' God?" "Can we still go a way or make choices that end up bringing destruction into our lives?"

The answer to that question is both yes and no. No, in that God has His hand upon our lives and is directing us in all things, working the desire for His will and the doing of His will in our hearts, taking that which was meant for evil and working it together with us for good.

But that doesn't mean that there are not sidetracks, paths we can choose that, though God will turn them eventually towards Himself, nevertheless create unnecessary hurt in our lives, hurt that God would have spared us had we waited a bit longer for Him to show Himself inside that decision.

Now, let's look specifically at the verse you mentioned, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers." This is wise counsel and will prevail most of the time. But our lives are not led by the letter on the page, but rather by the present Holy Spirit. The use of that verse, though, is a study in hypocrisy. I suspect that the Christians who would point condemnation at one who marries outside the faith would still send their children into the US military. Of the two, being unequally yoked to the evil of the US military will do far more damage to one's life than marrying an unbeliever.

May I suggest that you read this article that touches on just the question you are raising.

http://www.dyordy.com/Articles/TrueFearOfGod.html

Now, here is the advice I give my 18 year old son. Your true heart is Christ in you. Listen, of course, to the wisdom others give, but in the end, you must follow what is your true heart. However, you must also consider this, that you don't fully know your true heart, not yet. When you are younger, you sometimes mistake passing fancies for your true heart, but as you grow older and are buffeted around by the failures of this world, you begin to know the difference between passing fancy and what truly remains unmoved inside your heart.

During the fourteen years I waited to be married, wanting to be married every single day, I got my eyes onto two or three girls who were not God's choice for me. In all such instances, God put a definite block, a lack of peace, against my "love" of that pretty face and engaging ways. But I paid no attention to God. I fought and argued. I knew that (each time) that girl was the one for me.

I am so grateful that God paid no attention to my cries and denied me what I so desperately thought I wanted. The second girl was when God made it known to me that if I got in my car to drive the thousand miles to take the life offered to me, that seemed to be everything I wanted, I would not make it there; He would take my life rather than allow me to get off the path He had appointed for me.

Now, thinking of how my dear and precious wife has borne with me and is so patient and loving and kind towards me, in spite of my idiosyncrasies and silly habits and inabilities and failures, I am so grateful that the Lord made me wait until it was His time and His choice for me.

All this, of course, says absolutely nothing about your specific situation.

It can't, because you are not me and God's path for my life is not His path for yours.

Marriage is a big deal, and I have seen Christian marriages, brought together by God, in which the husband and wife inflicted unending pain on one another until divorce or death. I lived in the home of one such for three years, and it was not pleasant. She was Scottish (with a fiery temperament), he was Tamil (dark east Indian). They were not equally matched, yet they were both elders in the church. But even still, that was God's path for them; I am so grateful it has not been His path for me.

One of my best friends in life married an unbeliever. After a hellish marriage, they divorced. She was determined to raise their two boys in iniquity. He ran off with them, was caught and sent to prison. By the time they were adults, they had no knowledge of God or their dad.

I do not envy you. Wanting to be married was a difficult, difficult fourteen years for me, more than for most (there is a reason for that which I won't go into here).

But if I were to give counsel it would be this, regardless of who it is, set yourself to wait - at least a year - to give it time. Time has a way of revealing what is truly in our hearts and what is truly the Lord. If you were to do that, give it time, then you would have the opportunity to know her as she truly is and she you. It would no longer be the impulse of the moment, but a true decision based on friendship. In fact, you owe it to her, if you are truly committed to the Lord Jesus Christ, for her to know what that means. It could be that she would chose not to marry you for that reason. If that were so, it would certainly be painful, but your heart would be at peace.

But let's say, for the sake of discussion, that you don't wait, that you rush out and marry this girl before she has a chance to know your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ and to also give her heart to Him.  There are three possibilities.

One, though you go through difficult times, she eventually gives her heart to the Lord and you walk on together in Him.

Two, you have a wonderful couple of years that turn into a couple of years from hell and then divorce.

Three, you have a wonderful time together, she has no interest in Christ, and you yourself lose any interest in the Lord and live the rest of your life without acknowledging Him.

(Though in the impulse of the moment we give no thought to the children of our union, God gives  far more thought to them than He does to the momentary crying of our own hearts. - At this time in my life, the fact that my children love and walk with the Lord is more important to me than all the rest of my life in this world put together.)

In all these things, God still has you in His hand. He is still drawing you to Himself, conforming you to the image of His Son, though you know it not. You may miss out on knowing Him in all fullness in this age and on this earth, but He will win in you. He has made it clear that He will.

But in all of this there is no condemnation. All of our sin, Jesus has already taken into Himself. He carries it and He never places it back upon us. That does not mean that our decisions cannot make life more difficult for us than was needed. But even that does not bring condemnation. Always, we enter boldly into the very presence of God, with all joy and confidence, whether we have just blown it or not, because of the blood of Jesus.

Now, concerning this particular girl. Romance is the joy of God's heart; it is God singing inside His creation as are the begetting of children that grow up strong in the Lord with hearts given wholly to Him. Both of these are in God's heart and both of these are in your heart, for you are created in His image and are more like Him than you can possibly understand.

So ask God. Get alone where you can speak out loud to Him and ask Him out loud. (The 'out loud' is important.)

"God, I ask you to lead me in all things; I know that your intention towards me is unending favor and goodness, that you rejoice in giving me all good things. I know that the right woman is a gift of God, the crowning joy of all Your creation. And in asking You to lead me in this, I believe that You have already given me my request; I know that You are leading me."

"God, if this sweet girl is not Your choice for me, than I ask you to block this relationship in a gentle way, in a way that gives no hurt to her. And in asking You - in obedience to Jesus, I believe that I have already received what I have asked for."

"God, if this girl is your gift to me, then I ask that You also reveal Yourself to her. Help me to give this relationship time so that she might know how much You truly mean to me and how much You truly love her. I believe, with all my heart, that because I have asked You, you have already done all that I have asked."

John, whatever happens, condemnation of any kind has no place in our hearts. So what if you blow it totally - and I mean totally. How does that keep us from getting back up and walking forward in all the presence of the Holiest of All in full confidence in the blood of Jesus? It can do that only if we allow the pinny anny whining of one who is already crushed and defeated to get our eyes off of the glorious One who fills our heart and onto the meaningless mutterings of delusion and nonsense.

In all that we do, we walk boldly. Martin Luther said, "If you sin, sin boldly, and more boldly still apprehend His grace to turn from the mistake and walk in the light." (I paraphrase). We do not "sin" willfully, but the greatest sin of all is to fail to walk boldly in the ongoing presence of God covered with all confidence by His blood.

Life is messy and we make mistakes. But all of it is God working in us the nature and glory of His Son, and more than that, all of it is, if we have given our hearts to Jesus, His life working itself out in the messiness of our humanity in this world.

If you love this girl, you will not want to impose on her a life she herself would not chose. But you walk forward boldly, confident that God is fulfilling in you all that you have asked Him to do. If there is pain ahead, there is pain ahead. But there is also joy, and all of it, both pain and joy, is God.

He has seized you in His hand. He is determined to conform you to the image of His dear Son. The only thing that can slow Him down is fearfulness and unbelief.

Be bold. (This is the only advice I can give.) Embrace whatever pain may come with all joy.

Trust utterly in God in all things. He is directing your path.

In Him,

Daniel Yordy