ARE YOU READY FOR LOVE- (As in a relationship) by RC BLAKES

good evening good evening good evening good evening I'm ROC blake's and I hope that everybody is doing well I hope that this is a good time I had this I have this particular subject matter that I want to deal with this evening and I just decided to pop in and do it if this is your first time hello hello hello if this is your first time I'm RC Blake's I am a pastor and I'm a husband and I'm a father and I'm a man and I'm a student of life hello everybody thank you for coming in thank you so much for coming in those of you that get distracted by me speaking to people well this is a social platform and I consider this my community so when people come in I like to at least acknowledge them before I get started I'll try to I'll try to stick to the subject matter at hand as I go forth I'd appreciate it if you would give me some thumbs up yes of course it helps to build the platform you know somebody was challenging me on my asking you to give me everything in life is about growth and progress and if something is small as pressing a button increases our reach I'm not ashamed to ask you to do that but tonight I want to look at something I want to ask you a question and this is just something that it's really not I can't honestly say that it's fully developed thank you Miss D I can't say it's it's it's not fully developed because I actually wrote this while sitting in the movie with my wife this evening we went to see the movie the photograph I think it's called and it's a beautiful love story and we went to the movies after we had done some premarital counseling and I had done some pre premarital counseling earlier last week sometimes I get a chance to do that as a pastor I don't I don't offer counseling at large because I don't have the time to do it but this week I seem to have had two occasions to be able to do so and so the thought had been on my mind all week long to kind of deal with this relative to you my audience I call you my family are you ready for love everybody wants it you know everybody wants it but I think I think statistics prove that most of us are not ready for it and of course we know all of the bad things that happen and all of the toxic relationships and the toxic people that we might encounter but the reality is that there are some of us who are encountering great people and we are and we are making a wreck of those relationships and I think it goes back to in fact I'm certain that it goes back to the fact that quite often thank you I can't pronounce the first name Reid thank you it goes back to the fact that most of the time we are not ready for love we want it we desire it society and and Hollywood makes it glamorous even in terms of our ministry in terms of preaching about it or teaching about it it's glamorous but very seldom are we faced with the realities of the work that it requires and not only the work that the relationship requires but we are seldom if ever challenged with the self work it requires before you get into the us work the me work has to come before the us work and ideally the me work should take place that you work should take place before before we create the con texts of the US work and the reason the US work does not work many times even if you know nobody's cheating nobody's abusive nobody's a narcissist or whatever nobody is you know whatever whatever we can't seem to make it work and it's it's due to the fact my experience in my years have taught me that it's due to the fact that many of us are jumping in before we're actually ready and I thought about it and I have five things I want to share with you tonight relative to self-examination but I thought about you know you know Adam and Eve and how God created them individually I've talked about this extensively God created him individually created Adam at a certain point created Eve at another point and then it was a certain time that God said is not good that man should be alone but we see clearly that Adam was well along two-box evolution thank you Adam was well along in his personal development he had a relationship with God he had a self-awareness he had a place to live he had resources and means to support a woman and he was so personally hold that the Genesis account has it that God reached into his side and pulled out a rib and made a woman Adam was so personally hold that he was enough to provide the resources or the necessary material for the creation of his own woman but we do see where there was a certain point that God said it's not good that man should be alone so Adam clearly was ready in the eyes of God could it be that you've jumped in and out of relationships and they've all failed because you just weren't ready well let me get let me jump in number one here's a question I have for you have you okay this is self-examination Thank You Jennifer this is self I guess I would you know these would and I'm sure I'm certain that I can add because I just kind of jotted this down while I was sitting in the movie and thoughts were coming to me and number one have you processed the example be it poor good of your parents you know you you want a relationship but my question is have you processed the example of your parents be it good or poor sad to say in most cases it was a poor example so if your parents had a had a had a you know a good marriage or a great marriage have you taken the time just to step outside and to look back objectively at what worked for your parents why it worked have you asked the questions if you have you taken the time to ask your mother why was she happy with your father or have you taken the time to ask your father what made him happy with your mother and have you asked them what are the the foundational principles that they've built their successful relationship on or you know if you have poor your parents that have a poor example Thank You Jacqueline have you processed that poor example I call this generational evolution it's when it's when watch this it's when you can look at your parents example the good the bad and the ugly and all of that is in all of us note no set of parents are perfect no marriage is perfect but there are people that are perfect for one another Thank You Jessica I call a generational evolution it's when you look at your parents example and you're wise enough to pull from it you know it's like eating fish with bones in it you know it's like you you separate the meat from the bones you can't swallow the bones could kill you so you separate the meat from the bones when you look at your parents example you separate the good from the bad and you take the good into the next generation and then you build you evolve you build on top of what has worked in the previous generation but there are too many of us they get to a point where especially when we get into you get into young adult years you know you in 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 you want to prove you're grown so the last advice you want is from your parents even though they may have had a great marriage or may have built a great life or you've not taken the time to really analyze where your parents failed and so in your generation you you're failing to what evolved in fact you can talk about it you can find yourself going backwards because thank you Valencia because whatever is in our parents shows up in our lives right and and especially the bad parts if if you don't take the time to recognize and identify the negativity that your parents may have deposited into you knowingly or unknowingly you'll find yourself becoming the next level version of which what you hated most about your parents the Bible says in Genesis 5 and 3 and Adam lived one hundred and thirty years and begot a son in his own likeness and in His image and called his name Seth we are all we all have the potential of being in the positive or the negative image of our parents and when it comes down to relationships you some of the self work you have to do some of the meat work that has to be done is you need to really stop and analyze what has been programmed into you by the example of your parents because if you do not and you rush into a relationship you find yourself repeating the same cycles so if your dad was a cheater as a man you find yourself you know sincerely wanting a healthy and loving relationship but because you've not dealt with that generational curse which I believe many times is just generational conditioning man thieves I think it is thank you so much generational conditioning you find yourself subconsciously reproducing that you know what I mean you found yourself subconsciously reproducing that so that's some of the what me work that has to be done before I even try to engage another person because another it's not fair for me to bring another person into that process that some stuff I should have worked out before I engaged another person you know what I mean I should have I should have done some self analysis and I should have possibly gone to some kind of counseling some kind of therapy and and gotten somebody to get into my head to help me realize that I've been programmed by a toxic father or a toxic mother or toxic set of parents and and I have some I have some subconscious thoughts that would raise their head heads and wreck any potential potential tensional potentially I can't believe I can't say that word potentially good relationship so have you have you processed the example of your parents have you taken the good from it have you learned from the bad have you have you done some self observation to see what your parents have deposited into you there's no way you could tell me that you have been under a person for twenty years Bernadette thank you there's no way you can tell me you've been under a person for twenty years and not have some of that person in you in fact about it you have a lot of them in you you know that's why I always knew that I was better than I then I was behaving because I had such a great example for father who was a great husband and was a great father and you know was a faithful man Tim to my mother most of their marriage he had his issues too and he was younger but he grew out of that as I did and by the time I was able to pay attention he was a great husband and so when I carried on with all of that stuff I was like something not right because this is not what I'm looking at every day you know and so there was a point where I paused I had wrecked enough people I had created enough bogus toxic relationships and then there was a point where I pause and I realized I didn't need to bring anybody else into my mess and I realized I needed to be closer to God and I needed to really pay attention to what there's my daughter Marcy I love you too what was modeled before me and when I started pulling that apart Thank You bunny and I started analyzing I was then able to begin to pick up on then my conversations watch this with my father changed you know I started asking him questions about how to possibly be a faithful man you know I was able to be honest with my dad and he was able to pour into me and I was able to hear and receive things he had always been saying but my heart was never prepared to receive so you know when the student is ready to teach you will appear the reality is that the teachers probably always been there the students heart has just not been prepared to hear receive number two have you grown past the pain of your previous situation these are questions you need to ask yourself when you're contemplating love have you process number one have you processed the poor or even good example of your parents have you grown to past the pain of your previous situation and I call this reflection have you truly reflected have you looked in the mirror of honesty and transparency and have you grown beyond the pain of your previous situation or your previous relationship your previous toxic relationship whatever you want to call it because when you've not grown when you have not evolved or you've not grown beyond the pain of the past situation and then you you're trying to jump into a new situation some of the baggage that you bring into the new situation that's unfair to the new person is you bring trust issues and you bring a lot of unwarranted suspicions so you know on the surface you you you you caught up in this whirlwind love affair and you know you feel in this person and you want this to work but the moment it really gets serious and you really put your heart on the line that person is gonna realize that you have a real problem trusting or you have a real problem with being suspicious about everything or you have a real issue with fear of abandonment and if the person doesn't call at a certain time you're flying off the handle because you're still dealing with some trauma from your past situation that you've not healed beyond and look what the Bible says in Hebrews 12 and 15 and this is the amplified version it says see to it that no one falls short of God's grace that no root of resentment King James says bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many be the foul when you have when you have anger and unresolved pain you know your soul this stuff springs up in your life at the most inopportune times to dismantle anything that would be could be good and so you have to ask yourself have I truly grown past the pain of my previous situation now let's say you you encounter someone that is is of interest to you and you're in you're interested in them and they're interested in you and you're still in that process where you're trying to move beyond that pain or let's say you're still at point one where you're still trying to process the poor example of your parents and you realize that there was some stuff that you observed that you've probably in taken that's not healthy well how do you handle that do you dismiss the person do you avoid the person do you just sabotage the relationship no I don't think you do that but I think you have to be what honest you have to be honest you have to be honest and you have to say well you know I'm still getting over such I'm still dealing with this I'm still hurt behind this I'm still hurt behind that and then if the person is is man enough or woman enough they're able to what walk you through it they're able to you know stick close and to what helped you through the process but don't don't engage somebody as though you're whole and healthy and then they get you know they make all of the emotional investment and then they get out there in the middle of the water with you and realize that you have a whole lot of brokenness that you didn't disclose my wife shared her story with me before we got married so when we got married I knew exactly what I was dealing with I didn't know how to deal with it but I knew I loved her enough to figure it out so it wasn't like you know she painted this picture of of health for me and then we got married and then I discover this is a broken woman that's over trying to overcome a lot of trauma and has now brought all of this trauma into my life and created this drama I knew what I was getting into I knew what I was getting into because she knew what she was dealing with number three which kind of leads out of point two number three only have five are you whole enough to be honest about your insecurities in other words are you are you whole are you all are you a whole enough woman are you a whole enough man to be able to say this is my truth I called this self acceptance this is my truth I'm not perfect I've not had the perfect life these are some of the mistakes I've made I've accepted myself and because I've accepted myself because I'm whole within myself I'm able to be completely honest with you about my own personal insecurities because my insecurities have absolutely nothing to do with my value on my worth it just happens to be what I've gone through in life it happens to be what I'm working my way through all of the mistakes I've made don't define me you're not defined behind me how many people you slept with before you realized it was wrong you're not defined by that and anybody that can't accept your truth is not man enough or woman enough to be a major part of your future I've been able to be completely honest with my wife my wife my wife knew who I was she knew who I was you know she was able to be completely honest with me I knew what I was dealing with I knew I knew the pain that she had gone through but you have to be whole within yourself to be able to be honest about your own personal insecurities insecurities if you don't accept yourself let me just read this like I wrote it if you don't accept yourself you always hide yourself from others this makes you the if you don't accept yourself you will always find yourself hiding yourself from others you'll always hide behind a facade and you you'll create what's supposed to be lifelong committed relationship with someone but you'll be hiding behind some false facade and this makes you incapable as long as you're hiding your true self this makes you incapable of a real healthy relationship because people cannot fully love you when you hide see I don't know how much you love me until I can see you accept me and accept the worst parts of me not-not-not the fictitious parts that I fabricated or embellished but the raw nitty-gritty truth about me Who I am what I've gone through and what I'm dealing with and my flaws that yet exist I don't know how much you love me until I can see you unconditionally accept me and I can't I have to first of all give you the opportunity to be that person to me as long as I'm hiding and as long as I am incapable of being honest about my own personal insecurities maybe that's not a good word actually but my own personal flaws of failures I mean I'll never give you the opportunity to prove to me that you you will be there and can be there no matter what and some of you are in you know full-blown relationships right now you have you have engagement rings you've planned the wedding and you're still hiding that there are a lot of things about you that this man or this woman does not know a lot of things about you that this man or this woman does not know anybody that cannot and I cannot read all the things but I'm imagining some of the questions that are probably coming out I'll say this anybody that cannot accept your truth is not designed to go into your future not on that level so if I sit down and I and I bare my soul which is which is what healthy for me necessary for you and you can't handle that well doesn't matter but you know what I'm feeling you have demonstrated that you are not equipped to go into my future look what the Bible says in James 5 and 16 confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much confess your faults one to another pray for one another that you may be healed there is no healing without confession if I'm incapable of confessing my faults the worst parts of me there can never be healing and and the only people that can aid or assist me in that healing or that evolution or that development or that growth is the person that I can confess that to their home our confidence and their their perception of my value will never shift right so number one number one we said have you processed the example of your parents in most cases the poor example of your parents if you process that really thought that through and really analyze your life alongside it number two have you grown past the pain of your previous situation and in number three are you whole enough to be honest about let's say I put in securities but let's say are you whole enough to be honest about failures flaws however you want to put it because the mere fact that your your your whole and you're able to be honest means you're no longer insecure about it you've accepted your truth and now you're trying to see if this person is of enough stature to be able to deal with your truth and in and let me say that somebody said I think it was a lady that said just now this was a problem in my marriage I think men have this problem more so than women because the world has conditioned us to believe that it's less than masculine to communicate so we we're number one we're guarded in terms of communicating number two the world makes us believe that we have to paint this false picture of you know consistent strength that we we can never show weakness you know like we live in the jailhouse or something you know it's like even Superman went into the booth when he needed to be Superman and when he was done being Superman he went back to the booth and put on his Clark Kent suit because you know all of us have a have a real side and we have that stuff we try to project and we're if we fail to be honest with our women in fact about it I think for us as men many times it remains as an insecurity because we fail to accept ourselves we don't want to accept the parts of us that are less than I'm in control or less than you know I'm the man in reality is I say it all the time some people disagree with me but I believe it men are as emotional as women we just do it on the inside well as a woman will fall out in the floor managers keep all of that pressure on the inside and he turns it turns it into a heart attack a woman gonna create a ruckus in the room but a man gonna create a ruckus in his own soul because Society has built us to believe that we should never be honest about anything that is less than stellar and we got to teach our sons better than that you know we got we have to teach our sons better than that okay number four only have five are you mature enough these kind of lead one out of one into the other actually are you mature enough to handle another person's truth when you get through asking yourself now can they handle my truth you have to ask yourself and I am I'm mature enough to handle their truth you know if a person really gets down to the nitty-gritty you know can I still feel the same about them let me let me give you an example of what I mean by that it's like a man meets it's like a man that meets a brilliant woman that knocks him off of his feet and it's like I've never met a woman like this you know this woman does something to me that nobody else does and it's not it's not sexual and you know I feel like she has everything I need to go to the next level and then you get into you the relationship grows and then you get into this place of honesty and transparency and then you know you know you know the question that we as brothers typically like to ask when we really think is getting serious I mean how many men have you slept with every man go at some point gonna try to get around to that question huh how many men have you slept with it did you start going to another dude was it one two three four nine brother getting you know you're getting a little nervous now because he's struggling with halan her truth now what what's going on is he's getting ready to judge her based on her past and it's a past experiences that have that have come together to make her a woman she is now and so now his maturity level is challenged when she gets past five or she gets past ten oh my god she's being honest she's being honest she's telling him the truth but now he's discovering and I'm really not as mature as I thought I was and watch this most of the time her number doesn't even compare to his number but he'll when he's immature he'll judge her because he's not eat okay let me read this for you if you can't support a person emotionally you're not ready this speaks of what empathy empathy I used to always make this statement you know I wouldn't deal with a woman cheating on me and all that kind of stuff and then you know one day I grew up and I realized how many women have dealt with me cheating on them and then you know I grew up and I said you know god forbid but if my wife were to ever cheat on me we've been married not twenty five years been together but 30-some years I said my wife will never cheat on me I can honestly tell y'all it's over I can honestly tell you it's over because the empathy empathy the ability to connect with another person is so great in me now because of what the maturity now mature enough to handle another person's truth and sometimes people this may help somebody sometimes people cheat this may help a man who's struggling with maybe your wife sometimes people cheat and it really has nothing to do it has absolutely nothing to do with you sometimes there's some stuff they're working through and sometimes it's not necessarily abandonment that they need sometimes they need you to draw in closer I'm a pastor I've done a lot of marital counseling and I've seen a whole lot of marriages where somebody cheated and they wanna cheat it's not like the world you know just a chronic cheater like like I was or like a whole lot of these other people it's a whole different ball game now you got a chronic cheater just a professional cheater I ain't telling about that but sometimes people make mistakes and if they're able if they're big enough to be honest with you you need to be big enough to be able to handle that truth even if you have to say let me step away from it for a minute and think think and pray about this but don't don't get emotional and cop out on an otherwise great relationship oh no how I got off on all of that watch this here first Corinthians 13 7 says that love and read the context of this verse first Corinthians 13 in verse 7 it's talking about love and it says of love love beareth all things believes all things hopes all things endures all things when you are truly equipped and you're mature enough to handle another person's truth and to love them properly you're able to bear it you're able to believe you're able to have hope you're able to endure certain things if I'm not equipped to handle your truth I'm not man enough to go into your future and and watch this there's a beautiful illustration in Genesis between Adam and Eve and the Bible says they were both naked and not ashamed I love that meaning what they were able to bear it all and because of the love factor they were not ashamed now let me see number five his mouth is the fifth one in and I'm out of here I've been only too long are you established in who you are to the point you know who fits I call this self-awareness and what are we answering are you ready are you really ready for love have you processed the example of your parents have you grown past the pain of your previous situation are you hold enough to be honest about your personal shortcomings are you mature enough to handle another person's truth and number five are you established in who you are to the point you know who fits self-awareness are you so self-aware that you can ohm you almost can immediately detect if a person fits our name this is why I say this is just me this is not for everyone if god forbid something were to happen to my wife and I were in a situation where I you know maybe considering another wife which I don't know if I would don't know if I would even have a time but if I were I don't think it would take me you know I don't I don't think it would take me a whole 100 years to figure out if you know this works or not I think once once I get through discerning and analyzing and doing the background check that I'm gonna do praise the Lord I know who I am I'm so self-aware I'm so in tuned to my purpose and Who I am I can almost automatically tell you who fits into my life or not but you cannot get there until you are established in who you are and the mistake that most people make is that you pursue relationships before you have completely discovered yourself and when you pursue relationships before you have had self-discovery what happens is you become an actor you begin to act the way the person or the persons desired you to behave so that you could win their approval this is why it's never a great idea to run off too early in life sometimes it works most times it doesn't talking about you head over heels in love with somebody and you just got out of high school you don't even know who you are this part of your brain is not even formed yet you don't even know who you are how do you know who fits into your life when you don't know who you are yet you know yeah I'll do talking that's all dude that's been young been exactly where you are and made these very same mistakes not knowing who I was and trying to pull somebody else into that are you established in who you are to the point you know who fits you got to know who you are and see a lot of times sisters think that it's just you you know brokenhearted and all of that but there's a lot of dudes that are brokenhearted there are a lot of guys that really meant well mean well not cheetahs every man is not a cheetah every man not a dog dude some of y'all had is this opinion of men at all men are dogs that's cuz that's all you've dealt with because you keep on going back keep fishing in the same pond wondering why you keep coming out with catfish maybe you need to try some different kind of okay let me leave that alone but back to my point there are a whole lot of men who are not established in their own identity and try to create relationships with women and end up brokenhearted because it doesn't necessarily mean that the woman is a bad person doesn't this mean that the man is a bad guy just not the right fit for you and you keep making that choice you keep choosing the wrong person because you don't really have any self perspective yet you don't have any self definition and so you keep you keep trying to fit around peg in a square a square peg in a round hole and the Bible says in 2nd Corinthians 6:14 be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship what communion what do you have in common what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion hath light with darkness don't be unequally yoked together don't tie your life down now now the point of 2nd Corinthians 6:14 I will say this in an hour I'll be out the point of 2nd Corinthians 6:14 is that when he says be not unequally yoked together the point of the text is that is not to get yoked and then discover that we are not equal that's not the point that's chaos the point is to know that this person doesn't fit into my life before you yoke up with them but you don't know if the person fits into your life or not if you unless you know exactly who you are you can't tell me who fits until you know who our most folk have not done that work you just followed those pubescent impulses of sexuality and you started developing relationships from early on based on sexual attraction nobody ever taught you about emotional intelligence you never learned anything about relationships you don't even know anything about yourself many times there's a man or woman you have no clue and you are you're trying to make trying to formulate relationships because are you established in who you are to the point you know who fits so those are my five for right now those are my five for right now and I think I'll be adding to this discussion actually I'm certain that that you guys have put a lot of stuff in the comments that it's probably good a good resource as well but I want you to ponder this man are you ready for love everybody wants it but everybody not ready for it you know what I mean everybody wants it but everybody's not ready for it so I hope you got something out of this let me pray for your father I thank you for this time thank you for this conversation this truth god I pray that you will stir something in your people to begin to go deeper to look deeper to begin to see life through the lenses of wisdom as opposed to impulse and God I thank you for opening our paths and making our paths plain and giving us their God the insight to make sound and wise decisions in Jesus's name Amen all right hey don't forget to go by and check out my check out my books at Amazon you know I got a I have I have a number of books on Amazon going go and check them out also those of you that are in Europe in the UK and particularly we Lisa and I will be there March 27th and 28th that's a Friday night and a Saturday morning we will be in London and all you have to do is go to RSC Blake's dot-com and look under live events and you'll get all of the information if you have any other questions that you need to ask you can reach out to us at pasture RC Blake's at gmail.com those of you and your please share this so that my brothers and sisters in Europe can know that I am coming also those of you that may have need of counseling I get a lot of emails people wanting needing professional counseling well I'm not a counsel and always tell you all that I'm not a counselor but recently I was able to create a partnership with with a group called better help and they provide I think they're the the largest online a provider of online counseling and I will put a link in the description for those of you that may be interested or may have need of that that you can go and check it out and see if you think it's for you and not I think well in fact I know that there's a secular aspect for those of you that are Christian and desire a counselor a Christian counselor that's available as well so I thought it was a wonderful fit for what I do because it answers it answers a problem that I've had and that I've not been able to bring people to the next level and so this will this will help us to get to the next level I'll put the description in my I'll put I'll put the link in my description I love you all I thank God for you I hope you got something out of this please share it on all of your platforms and give me some old thumbs before you leave me I love you have a great night and know that Lisa and I are praying for you all right have a great one now it's been it's been a joy

Channel: RC Blakes, Jr

Views: 126,611

Keywords: Dating Advice, Relationships, Christian, Narcissist

Id: 4U48moLTG1A

Length: 44min 7sec (2647 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 17 2020