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Unevenly
Yoked
By Jo-Anne Leroux
2 Corinthians 6:14-18 NIV
Do Not Be Yoked With
Unbelievers
"Do not
be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness
have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is
there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an
unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we
are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and
walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
"Therefore come out from them and be separate," says the Lord. "Touch no
unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will
be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."
Many Christian women today
are falling in love with non-Christian men. They often say these men are more
loving, gentle and kind than any Christian they have met. What is happening
here? What deceptions are these women falling prey to? How are they being
seduced?
Characteristics
|
Christians |
Non-Christians |
|
Worship God |
Worship idols |
|
Dependent on God – connected to source of love |
Independent of God –separated from source of love |
|
Loves God - Christ centered |
Loves self - self centered, self serving |
|
Receives unconditional love from God and extends it to others. |
Only
knows conditional love. Gives to get love from others and fill the void
in heart that God must fill. |
|
Motivated by Father’s love |
Motivated by un-met needs |
|
Surrenders self to God |
Strives to gain self esteem |
|
Hope
of glory in Christ |
Hope
of glory in world |
|
Heart protected by Jesus |
Heart protected by self and demonic spirits |
|
Spirit alive |
Spirit dead |
|
Listens to voice of God |
Listens to voice of father of lies |
|
Known by fruit of the spirit |
Manipulative, seductive and controlling |
-
Since the unbeliever cannot
relate to a believer who is in Christ (the kingdom dimension), the believer
must relate at the worldly level in order to have a relationship. Several
factors can be at play that will cause a Christian woman to be tempted and
ultimately be seduced in love by a non-Christian man.
-
She can be attracted
because her own wounded heart is unhealed. Thus she relates to a wounded
man.
-
She can be deluded into
trying to save or fix the other in the name of evangelism… a superior heart
position. This is a place of control and conditional love. She withholds her
heart while feeding off the love of the other while she waits for him to come
round.
-
She rationalizes the
relationship because the numbers of male Christian are less than women and
prays for his salvation so she can justify her choice.
-
Her desire to marry
supercedes her relationship with God.
-
Her desire to have children
supercedes her relationship with God.
-
Her hope of glory is still
in the world… looking for her reward this side of eternity. Rather than
trusting God to fulfill the desire of her heart, she is seeking to have it
fulfilled… a form of self-seeking.
-
She may be driven by sexual
desires.
-
She may be seduced by the
special attention paid to her by this man... by his acceptance of her.
All in all, regardless of
how wonderful this relationship starts out to be, when the honeymoon is over,
the misery and loneliness of being unevenly yoked becomes very real. The
illusion cannot be maintained.
Psalm
10: 1-4
Men of perverse heart will be far from me.
I will have nothing to do with evil.
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