David was a beautiful baby boy who grew to be an incredibly handsome man. In his eyes, his good looks afforded him none of the perks that most of us assume. When he looked in the mirror, he didn’t see handsome, but rejection and sometimes anger. He was continuously bullied and made fun of for being slow in his earlier school years, so his Uncle Joe taught him how to box. By the time he was 11, he had already been expelled from grade school three times for fighting. One day, when he was sitting in detention, a sweet little girl walked up to him and asked if he knew Jesus. Up to that point, he didn’t, and even though he pretended to ignore her, the love in her heart had caused his to skip a beat, and he was never the same.
It was something about that name, “Jesus”, and he played the question that the little girl had posed over and over in his young mind.
Financially, things at home were tough, but there was lots of love in his family. His father passed away shortly after David was born, and his mother and grandmother raised him and his two other sisters. The other siblings were smart as a whip, and even though David wasn’t ‘book smart’ like them, he could take apart anything and put it back together better than it was.
When his Uncle Joe went to prison, it tore David up inside. His mother could hardly work a week without getting a call from David’s school about all the fights he was getting into. Shortly after his 12th birthday, the school recommended he receive a battery of tests, including a cognitive assessment for ADHD. He didn’t quite understand what was happening at the time, but he saw the look on his mother’s and grandmother’s faces, and it scared him. He felt as if people outside his family were looking for a way to dispose of him the way they had done with his Uncle Joe.
The night before he was to be tested, David panicked. He felt the burden of taking care of his family without his Uncle Joe and was terrified of being sent away. He laid awake in bed running all kinds of terrible scenarios in his mind, and he felt as if he were about to explode, but then something happened. Like oil being poured all over his body, a peace blanketed his entire being. He heard the words, “I have a plan for you, David, and everything is going to be alright.”
The tests proved there were no cognitive issues with David and that he was highly sensitive and intuitive. This was partly because he was deaf in one ear and had never been properly diagnosed. When he returned home, he was changed. A door had been opened and he had a kind of confidence he had never known. He was given a special hearing aid, his grades improved, and he grew into a wonderfully empathetic and dutiful young man.
His freshman year of college, after his 19th birthday, David gave his life to the Lord, and with a few of his other Christian friends, he took a vow of celibacy. He was extremely thankful for what God had done in his life, and the words the Spirit spoke to him when he was 12-years old were branded on his heart. He knows that God has a plan for his life, and he is determined to marry and have a family with a woman whose commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ mirrors his own. Almost seven years later, he had no idea how challenging it would be to find the right woman.
When he met Yasmine, there was an instant connection and they seem to share a love of Christ, but Yasmine has not taken a vow of celibacy. The first time she tempted him to stumble, he told her, “Yasmine, I value my body temple as much as you should value yours.” She was offended and a little ashamed, but it would not be the last time they crossed that bridge. After a few months of seeing the strength of David’s commitment, Yasmine decided celibacy wasn’t for her and thought it was best if they parted as friends.
Whether or not you believe it, there is a match for every person that exists. There’s someone in the world today that in some way equals your strengths, weaknesses, and commitment to God. In many ways, David is an absolute dream. He’s not perfect, but he’s committed to receive what God has planned for him. He believes the discipline and commitment that he has chosen to demonstrate at this time in his life will soon pay off in a great way; he’s very confident in this.
Being in a relationship outside of marriage can present many challenges, this is why it’s so important to have a strong, made up mind about knowing how and when to say no if ever you’re in a situation that’s tempting. As women, we rarely think of a man standing for Christ the way David is. “Something must be wrong with him in that area.” We think. This shows us how far away from God’s standard we have moved. A simple but meaty truth is that our eyes will not be able to land on a person like David unless we’re a match. That may be an ‘ooch!’ for some, but it is very true.
1 Corinthians 6:18(NLT), tells us, “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.” God makes it very plain that sexual intimacy with anyone that isn’t your spouse is a sin. He tells us to run from it because it harms us and most severely, it harms our relationship with Him. When we commit this sin, we sin against our own bodies, which means our own bodies will betray us. Like many of us, David has witnessed in the lives of his sisters and friends what happens to us spiritually when sex is taken outside the boundaries of God’s love. Often, in the relationship that we hoped would last, something is lost, and it cannot be regained.
2Chronicles 16:9 tells us that the Lord searches the entire earth looking to strengthen those who have a heart that is fully committed to Him. Oh, how we’ve underestimated this verse. God is the One who has all power. He’s the One who blesses, not us. He puts the man and woman together. He strategically positions them so that they are in the right place at the right time. The magnet that draws them is their passion for Heavenly Father. We must be passionate about pleasing God. When we are, our faith is activated in a remarkable way.
Sexual sin is the culprit of a kind of cynicism and darkness that has wrecked the blessed potential for significant relationships in the lives of many believers. The sweet fragrance of repentance and sacrifice does not emanate from them. It does not float up to heaven and out to others because they continue to allow the trap of sexual sin to hold their faith captive. Because so many are blinded by lust, most women can’t even imagine that such a man as David exists, that’s he’s living in the earth today and waiting for a woman who matches his commitment to Christ. Sadly, they can’t imagine it because they themselves will not be equal to it.
We can’t be involved in the lust of this world because we represent Christ and the virtue of God should flow from our pores. 1Corinthians 6:20(NLT) states, “for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” God paid the price of our sin with the life of our beloved Savior’s sacrifice on the cross, and in gratitude for all Heavenly Father has done, we should want to keep ourselves spiritually pure before Him. This is David’s heart, and it should be ours as well. God has visions of radiance for our body temples. He has visions of grandeur for them, because they were created to house His divine glory. By this we should realize that changing the way we think, behave, and treat our bodies makes a statement for all eternity. It will either open doors of beautiful possibilities or keep them closed. It’s all up to us. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“When A Man Stands for Christ”, written by Kim Times for Springfield Fellowship, Inc.©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!
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