Who Can I Marry?!

If everyone you see or know are somehow eligible for you to marry, then you can choose to marry anyone you want whether you like or love them. But not so in many cases.
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When it comes to choosing who to marry, there are lots of confusion in the hearts of many as to knowing whom they ought to marry.
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Several lies has been popularly promoted such as 'Marry your best friend', 'Marry in the Lord', 'Marry someone you can't live without' and so on. But are these ideologies truly right?
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I have met people who married their best friend but overnight, they turned out to be their worst enemy. See, marriage has a way of either changing you for the best or making you worse. Many married in the Lord (church) but later found out that they are married to a devil in the attire of an angel. If marrying in the Lord was right, then all Christian marriages shouldn't end in divorce. But not so my dear!
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The only person you can marry as a man is the person that would complement you - your life and destiny both now and in the future. This is why God said to Adam that He will make him a help meet (suitable). This has to do with all round compatibility and futuristic wise.
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As a lady, the man you can marry is not the one that buys you Pizza or Sharwama every time, although you need it once in a while but you need the man with whom you can help to fulfill God's purpose in his generation. If you're married to a man who is not doing anything for God, He'll do something for the devil. It's either he advances the devil's kingdom or prevents people from entering God's kingdom.
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If you'd be eligible to ask this question: "Who can I marry?", then fifteen things must have been established in your life.
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1. You must be genuinely born again. If you're not, you can't marry God's best or have the capacity to know the one He want you to marry. Also, the possibility of enjoying all that God intended for your life in marriage will be at stake. God designed marriage to be enjoyed, no matter the storms and not to be endured.
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O, how wonderful would it be to fight battles and celebrate success together in marriage! But not so with many marriages.
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2. You must have discovered God's purpose for your life. Marriage becomes exciting when it's done under the confines of God's purpose. Have you ever imagined how the marriage in Genesis Two was as compared to Genesis Three?
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3. You must know how God speaks to you personally and don't depend solely on a man of God to hear God for your life. That's confusion! If you hear Him yourself, you can confidently go to Him when storms arise. But woe betide whoever depended on a MOG to know whom to marry.
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See, you can't know who to marry or have God guide you if you don't know how He speaks to you. Marital decisions based on feelings, love or self-examination of the person you want to marry can never help you to know the right person. When you know how He speaks, you'll be able to know pretenders, deceivers and those who would be a pain in your neck in the future.
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4. You must have been fulfilling God's purpose for your life. Adam was fulfilling God's purpose for his life - naming the animals, cultivating and keeping the garden before God saw the need to create a help meet for him. So, what are you doing for God? If you're doing nothing for God in your generation, then your marriage will never achieve God's purpose but would be dictated by societal norm. Marry. Have sex. Make babies. Become parents. Grow old. And then die. What a wasted way of living!
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5. You must understand what marriage is, not the understanding you derive from Telemundo or from novels or movies but God's purpose why He institutionalized marriage. The wife is to help the man, not compete with him or live her own life. The man is to have the woman has his help meet, not a slave or a baby making factory.
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6. You must understand that God can bring you any of His children for marriage. Don't be limited by your cultural or denominational mentality.
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7. Aside having the understanding of number 6, you must have the fruits of the spirit manifesting in your life, if not all, at worst 60%. You don't marry someone who has the anointing but lacks godly character. You don't marry the container of a person but their content.
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8. Don't be under pressure to marry anyone even when it (pressure) comes from within or without.
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9. Don't be desperate to marry just anyone. Not everyone in church or you think is right is suitable for your life and destiny.
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10. That someone walks into your life with the appearance of Mr. Right or Miss Right shrouded in their personality doesn't mean you should jump at them without hearing from God.
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11. You must trust in the Lord when it comes to making marital choices rather than lean on to your own understanding. Even if you understand all the 101 Tips of attracting your soul mate, the God factor must NEVER be omitted.
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12. You must equally understand God's timing for your life even when you know that you're prepared for marriage. Also, God's purpose for you becoming married supercedes your timing. Be patient! God's never late.
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13. Work on yourself to be marriageable. If you can't marry you, then no one will marry you. Don't worry yourself about 'Who can I marry' when you haven't worked on yourself to be fit for marriage.
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14. There's nothing as a perfect partner, we're all raw materials to be refined into a finished product. With patience and love, your partner will become a better person.
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15. Now carefully read numbers one to fifteen again. You must prayerfully, carefully and patiently find who to marry so that who you marry will not frustrate your life and make you a philosopher for having a bad marriage.
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© Oluwamayowa Adeniyi 2017