Stay single!!!!

I am at home by myslef this week as my family has went with a youth singing group called Christians in Action as they go on a week long tour every year. It has made me think about a couple of passages of scripture. Here they are and then I will comment more:

Matthew 19:7-12
7 They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”
8 He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”
10 His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry."
11 But He said to them, “All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given: 12 For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.”

1 Corinthians 7:6-9
6 But I say this as a concession, not as a commandment. 7 For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that.
8 But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; 9 but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

I have found that being home alone makes me have much more time do one of two things. Do as I wish. Basically anything I want to. I can go fishing til dark. I can watch a ball game with no interuptions. I can eat at any given time. I think you get the picture. OR I can spend some time drawing closer to the Lord. By spending time in Bible reading and meditation. I can spend time in prayer. I can go visit or call folks on the phone with no time tables. I can give God a great amount of time. I guess as I think about it I do have third option and I can split time down the middle....serve Tom and serve God. As we look at these scriptures up above I believe you will see what I am getting too.

The scriptures encourage us to stay single. I can sum it up pretty easily....the reason being we can be more in tune with God when we are single for the simple fact that we don't have the responsibilities of marriage. In other words we can give more of our time to God, growing in our relationship to Him and serving Him with our lives!

God knew many can not hanlde being single, basically we don't have enough self-control is what it boils down to and Paul told us the same in the Corintians verse. Just think for a moment on Paul...he was a single man....what did he do for the Kingdom of God??? Many great things. A great deal of the new testament is written by him!

Just for informations sake here is what a eunuch is:

eu·nuch (yōō'nək)
n.
A castrated man employed as a harem attendant or as a functionary in certain Asian courts.
A man or boy whose testes are nonfunctioning or have been removed.
Informal An ineffectual, powerless, or unmasculine man.

To make it simple....a man who can not have sex.

I have found this very interesting as i think on it....it makes so much sense that we can serve God in ways that we can't if we are single. For those of us that are married it means we have to be sure to use our time wisely so we can serve God like he deserves!

God bless....Tom