Short Cuts

I am sharing this from a burden pressing heavily in my heart concerning the come we stay marriages.

Young people, (and the not so young), please avoid this at all costs as it gives the devil free reign in your lives from that point on.

You see, the devil only looks for the smallest of opportunities to maximize them for his own purposes which are diametrically opposed to God’s purposes.

Let no one deceive you that there is no problem since you are planning to get married ‘properly’ later. That is the most fashionable lie the devil has created to keep believers in captivity. Why break God’s laws to impress your peers? Whose approval do you really need? And who tells you that the money you do not have to impress your peers will come after you break God’s laws? Does it even matter what people think since they will forget your impressions almost immediately or after a more impressionable wedding?

What happens if the money refuses to come in time? Will you wait until your illegitimate children finish their schooling to give you a break to impress peers who will have outgrown those childish tendencies?

Please obey God and avoid fornication, and that even if you are planning to get married.

Let me give you a few scenarios I have witnessed.

The man dies leaving a pregnant girl destitute as nobody knows her and even those who know her decide to disown her especially if the man had a job.

Probably they get a child who develops very expensive medical conditions requiring assistance from friends. People start wondering where a pregnancy came from since the girl was single and it becomes very difficult to even look for assistance because you do not know how to respond to those questions, especially from concerned friends.

Or the girl develops pregnancy complications and they are at a loss to source for prayers since they won’t be able to answer those questions.

The worst, however is when you are teaching your children to obey God and they ask you why their birthday and your wedding date are confusing yet you tell them you got saved as a youngster.

It does not pay. And it will never pay for you.

Never give the devil this opportunity. Never allow him to finish your testimony and life that easily.

And this also goes to pastors.

Why are you lowering the bar that low so that you can get worldly status approval? Why load your young people with a burden you are unable to bear had it been you? Is fornication a better bargain than a simple and ‘cheap’ wedding?

I believe anybody can get married with what they have.

I remember when I asked friends to come help me plan my wedding I encountered some of this.

They suggested that since I was famous (working in a big company, preacher, singer, guitarist), they should organize a pre wedding party to raise money to plan a wedding befitting my status.

I refused and told them that she will be my wife and the money I had was enough to have the wedding. Incidentally it was not much as there was something I had committed it to. But it was enough.

I walked my wife from her place to church yet I had enough friends I could have disturbed to give me a car to do it.

You see, as a minister I needed to set a standard. I needed to demonstrate to people that a simple wedding was a possibility. And many young people in that church in the middle of nowhere started getting married in church. My wedding was the first church wedding that community I was ministering to had witnessed.

I recently attended a wedding that was most impressive. The couple didn’t even have the money to the government to be registered. But they told their pastor that they wanted to get married right. The church therefore organized a simple but proper church wedding where they were even given a church’s marriage certificate. They will look for the government’s certificate when they have the resources.

That is what churches should be doing instead of allowing sin to thrive in the name of fashionable and trendy weddings.

Why show off success in Mammon’s affairs by sacrificing God’s revelation? Why get into fornication just so that you get time to legalize that sin much later? Shame on pastors buy into that lie from hell!

Join your young people during church services, prayer meetings and any other church meeting. Just ensure that you have spent time with them and matured them to ensure they are getting into marriage for the right and scriptural reasons. Of course it is extremely difficult for someone to decide to go for a public wedding just for the fun of getting married (or getting a resident sex partner). Yet cohabiting can result from a simple crush. Make sure they are in God’s will and support them in that decision. Stand with them against their families that insist on perpetuating sin in the name of family status. Protect them against friends who think it is normal to cohabit before getting married. And of course take a very tough stand against the ones who fall the deceit of the world and decide against scriptural counsel to get into fornication, whatever argument they may use.

You realize that this could be the greatest stronghold against infidelity and divorce. Reporting to God far outweighs reporting elsewhere first before reporting to God.