Don’t take advantage of the opposite sex
As we begin our teenage years, we become more aware of the opposite sex, and of our own ability (or lack thereof) to attract the opposite sex. This awareness will remain for decades, and may never fade out at all.
Now some of you may be born with genes that make you extremely attractive to the opposite sex. This attraction may be physical or mental or emotional or whatever else may draw the opposite sex to take notice of you and desire you. Such a gift, if you have it, must be handled with care and responsibility if you want to live a life that is pleasing to God and receive a great eternal reward.
I say this because there is a great temptation to use that gift for selfish and personal gain. For example, an attractive woman may use it to get powerful men into giving them high positions in the corporate world. Or maybe an attractive woman may use her gift to get men to become so attached to them that whenever she needs money to buy clothes or anything she just has to ask the men in her power to buy them and they do it gladly. Or may be an attractive man may use his gift to seduce many women to meet his sexual needs.
Often, the man will promise the woman love and faithfulness to receive sex or money, and the attractive woman will promise the man sex to receive love or affection or power or money.
God may have a great plan for you in His kingdom, but if He sees that you have not been faithful with the non-spiritual gifts that he has given you then He will not see it fit to entrust you will spiritual gifts (which are true riches because of their eternal value) that He had planned for you.
Here is what Jesus said in Lk 16:11…
Lk 16:11 "Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you?
To be faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth means to use the gifts that God has given you for the purpose that God intended (such as drawing people to God) rather than to use them for selfish reasons (such as meeting your physical desires and pleasures).
There are many people today who are in their thirties and forties and fifties who find that God has not entrusted them with any responsibility in His kingdom, and they wonder why. They go to church and they pay their tithes and their pastor entrusts them with responsibility in the church. But just because your pastor gives you responsibility in his church it doesn’t mean that God has entrusted you with anything. For all you know, your pastor’s church may not even be recognized by God.
Yes, it is possible that a church in existence on earth may not be recognized by God. It is even possible that a church may once have been recognized by God but is no longer recognized by God. We read of such a possibility in Rev 2:5.
Rev 2:5 Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place – unless you repent.
The lampstand symbolized a church that God recognized, and the removal of the lampstand symbolized the removal of such recognition of the church in God’s eyes.
So coming back to the original point, if you want God to use you to build His kingdom, use your gift of physical attraction wisely. If you’ve used people and taken advantage of them when you could, and left a trail of broken hearts and unkept promises, don’t expect God to entrust His true riches to you. You will need to set things right first by going an apologizing to those people whom you’ve taken advantage of, and you will have to make restitution to them as well.
If you are young, and your slate is clean, then make sure that it remains clean so that you don’t have to suffer the ignominy of having to apologize and make restitution so that God can use you as He meant to.
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