[1]GLORIETA, N.M. (BP)–At a time when they are making decisions about career and marriage, Christian college males must give top priority to seeking wisdom, more than 700 men attending Student Week, Aug. 7-13, at Glorieta (N.M.), a LifeWay Conference Center, were told.
Gregg Matte, director of Breakaway Ministry at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, said, “if you love Jesus, you love wisdom. If you don’t love wisdom, you don’t love Jesus, because he is wisdom incarnate.”
In what was believed to be a first for Student Week, the 1,600 participants attended separate sessions for men and women on Tuesday, Aug. 10. Matte, who speaks weekly to more than 3,500 students at Texas A&M, addressed the importance of wisdom and the problem of lust during a two-hour session.
Matte said wisdom is the most important quality for a Christian man. “If we’re wise, everything else takes care of itself.” He is author of “The Highest Education: Becoming a Godly Man,” slated for release in February 2000 by national student ministry of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Matte listed three sources of wisdom, the most important being God himself. “Pray for it (wisdom). Admit you don’t have it.”
Second, he encouraged students to seek wisdom in the counsel of godly people. The third source of wisdom, Matte said, is simply living life. “We learn to make good decisions by making bad decisions.”
Wisdom is of ultimate importance for college men who are in the process of deciding who they are going to be and what they are going to do. “The stakes get really high.”
In the second half of the men only session, Matte said every Christian man faces the problem of lust, which he said should be a topic of open discussion. He used Solomon’s admonition in Proverbs 5 to stay away from the adulteress (lust): “do not go near the door of her house.”
“We’re smart enough not to go in the house,” Matte told the men, “but we love the door. The door is those second looks, those glances.”
Matte gave four practical steps for dealing with lust:
1. Stay in the word
2. Identify your weak points
3. Look away
4. Pray for the object of lust
Matte warned that when a man lusts, he is already committing adultery against God and his future wife.
In a later message to the entire conference, Matte said Christian dating begins with a relationship with God.
“What does God want in your dating life?” Matte said. “I don’t know, but he wants it laid at his feet. If you’re not in love with Jesus, you’re not going to make a good wife. If you’re not in love with Jesus, you can hang up being a good husband.”
Using the Bible story of Abraham’s servant searching for a wife for Isaac, Matte outlined godly principles for dating. The first requirement that Abraham gave was that Isaac’s wife be a member of the family. Christians should only date Christians, Matte said.
He also encouraged collegians not to take dating relationships too fast. “What you need to decide on the first date is whether there’s going to be a second date,” not whether this person is the one you will marry, he said. He advised them to take time and get to know the other person.
Matte said that it is important to wait for God’s leading in dating and marriage. “I’m not talking about waiting on God’s gifts,” he said. “I’ m talking about waiting with God. We think waiting is passive. Waiting is active.”
Collegians should always be focusing on their own spiritual growth to prepare themselves for a future marriage relationship. “Become the person you want to marry,” he said.
LifeWay Christian Resources sponsored student week.