Christian Cafe has been around for a long time, and they are one of the largest (if not the largest) Christian singles site on the Web. When we say Christian, we are talking a true, Christian-owned-and-operated dating site. We have had numerous communications with Sam, the owner of the Christian Cafe and he is a believer.
When you first vist , you notice the warm "coffee shop" colors and feel. The next thing most people will probably notice are the testimonials. They have tons of them, going all the way back to 2002! This gives them a lot of credibility, because they have been around for quite a while and many Christians are no longer single thanks to them.
Once you create a profile and do a search, you'll find that there are LOT of single Christians there! You will most likely find many potential matches in your area, regardless of your age (although some age ranges will, of course, have more than others). The best thing about their FREE trial is that you get full functionality with it. Unlike some other sites, where you have to pay if you want to communicate, with ChristianCafe.com you can use all the features during the trial period. How can they do that? Because, obviously, they're sure you'll like it so much that you'll have to sign up for more! Here are the specific review categories: Price - Christian Cafe is somewhere in the middle if you only pay for one month at a time. However, when you pay for longer periods, the price comes WAY down! Right now, during their special promotion, you can get the monthly price down to $7.50/month if you pay for one year. Even if you just pay for three months, the monthly fee is only $13.32. That's cheap, especially when you consider the fact that finding your soul mate is the second most important thing in your life (second only to knowing Jesus). (5/5 stars) Customer Service - Although we only had limited exposure to their Customer Service, they did seem responsive and addressed our issues promptly. They have dedicated staff for Customer Service, which is a plus. (5/5 stars) Quality of Members - The people on ChristianCafe.com vary greatly but, in general, it is a high-quality group of people. One of us dated several women from there, in fact, with one of them there was talk of marriage! We have not seen a higher caliber of people on a Christian dating site anywhere. (5/5 stars) Ease of Use - Because we spend a lot of time on the Web, including designing and building websites, you'll never see us give anyone five stars for this one. Christian Cafe has a lot of great functionality, but at times it can be a bit slower than we would prefer (anything less than lightning fast is too slow for us). Some of the functions, like the Instant Messenger, could be improved. However, this site offers more features and better functionality than any of the legitimate Christian singles sites out there. (4/5 stars) Overall Rating - Overall, we give ChristianCafe.com five stars out of five. Even though they didn't get five stars for Ease of Use (even our own sites wouldn't), we think Christian Cafe is, by far, the best Christian-owned-and-operated dating site on the Web, period. (5/5 stars)
For those of you who have really entered into a true Spirit-filled, full-surrendered walk with the Lord where He is now leading your life in the direction that He will want it to go in – one of the first things that you will find happening is that God will start to prune out the people that He does not want in your life and start to bring in the people that He does want in your life.
The bible tells us to choose our friends very carefully in this life. These verses will tell us that he who walks with wise people will become wise himself, but that he who keeps company with fools will be destroyed. The Bible tells us that we are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, that we are to stay away from people who cause divisions and offenses, and to withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly.
This does not mean that we cannot work with the lost, the downtrodden and the people who need to find God and His message of eternal salvation. When Jesus came to our earth in the flesh, He always went after the sinners and the outcasts. But when Jesus went after these sinners, it was always for the express purpose of getting them saved and cleaned up.
Jesus did not chase after everyone. He ripped on the Pharisees and many of the high-ranking Jewish leaders. Some people are open to be helped, others are not. The Bible tells us to stay away from people who are considered to be “dogs” and to beware of people who are evil workers.
One of the first things that God will do with your life once you come into a full surrender with Him is to start to set some boundary lines. He will now decide the path that you will now follow in Him. He will now be leading you into the specific jobs that He will want you to have in this life. If you are single and have not married yet, He will lead you to the mate that He will want you to marry if it is in His perfect will that you get married in this life.
The Bible tells us that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. God’s ultimate aim for us is our sanctification – where He starts to begin to mold and transform us into the express image of His Son Jesus Christ.
The main reason that God will start to take out the friends in your life that He does not want you to have is because some of these people may be negative influences in your life. They may not be open to growing and maturing in the Lord like you will be, and all they will do is try and hold you back when you start your own spiritual journey and growth in the Lord. They will start criticizing and making fun of you and all they will end up doing is stunting your growth in the Lord.
God will not be putting up with this, and He will thus be taking all of these bad and negative influences out of your life very early on once you enter into this full surrendered walk with Him. For those of you who are married and have children – it is the same thing when you do not want your children hanging out with other children who you know would be a bad and negative influence on your child.
You know that if your children start hanging out with the wrong type of crowd, they can become very easily corrupted in a very short period of time. As a result, you will become very protective with your children and you will watch them very closely when they are old enough to start choosing who their friends are going to be.
It is the exact same way with God the Father! This is why God will be moving very early on to take out these negative influences in your life. Once this starts to happen, you have to go with the program or you could cause God to start pulling back on you. And once that starts to happen, you could then start to backslide and everything could then start to shut down.
If you will allow God to prune out the people that He does not want you to have in your life – then what He will start to do is to bring in the people that He will want to have in your life. I call these types of friends “God-friends.” These people will be other good, godly, Spirit-filled Christians who are truly walking in good stead with the Lord and they will now be the people that He will want you to share your walk with!
You will know some things about God they may not know and they will know some things that you may not know. You thus are able to help contribute to each other’s storehouse of knowledge in the Lord.
One of the verses listed below state that two friends can help sharpen each other up like “iron sharpens iron.” Just like one piece of iron can make the other piece of iron extremely sharp by rubbing up against it – two solid Christian friends can also have the same type of positive effect on one another by sharing their own personal walks in the Lord with one other.
How many of these types of God-friends can you expect God to bring in? Only God will be able to answer that for each and every one of you. Some may only get one or two to start off with, others may get 5 or 10. Let God make the decision as to how many and when they will be brought into your life.
Sadly, what you will find out very early on, is just because someone may be a saved and born again Christian does not mean this person has their act together in the Lord. Some people have become too judgmental and too critical in their walks with the Lord. Some have become too arrogant and pompous, thinking that they have all the answers to everything. They will tend to look down on anyone else who is not operating at the knowledge levels they are operating at.
Some have become so flaky in their walks with the Lord, that they have lost touch with reality and you won’t be able to connect with any of them. God knows best as to who will be best suited for you at your current level of spiritual development with Him – so let Him guide you to the ones that He will want you to connect with.
I have seen God do this so many times for others, that I literally consider it a miraculous piece of work – especially as to how He gets you to meet some of these people in the first place. Some of these chess moves are quite incredible, as most of these people will be total strangers to you until God moves in to match the two of you up.
The other thing that could occur besides God matching you up with total strangers is that He may move on someone else you may know, but that you are not particular good friends with. That person then gets saved and plugged in, and then they find out that you too are saved and plugged in – and now a good God-friendship can start to build up as you now have something in common with one another to start to build a good, solid friendship with.
This could be another member in your family, someone that you may work with, a friend who you may have known from your past, or someone you may see at church from time to time but never really talked with. The possibilities are endless as to where these people may come from. These God-friends can come from anywhere and at anytime – so keep your radars up – as you never know when God may move to bring one of them into your life.
1. Choose Your Friends Carefully
This first verse is the one that will tell us to choose our friends very carefully in this life. This verse should literally be burned into your memory banks so that you never, ever forget this basic, fundamental command from the Lord! Here it is:
A righteous man is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray (Proverbs 12:26)
A righteous man is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray. Proverbs 12:26
Notice this verse is specifically telling us that if we do not choose our friends very carefully in this life, that we could end up choosing the wrong type of people to become friends with and they can then end up leading us astray from God and with what He wants to do with our lives. Many of God’s people have lost their calls in Him because they chose to hang out with the wrong type of people or the wrong crowd.
2. Benefits of Choosing Good God-Friends
Here are six very interesting verses showing you why God does want you to have other good, solid Christian friends to share your walk with.
These six verses will show you that there is safety in the multitude of counselors, that plans can go awry without having other people to hash things out with, that war is waged by having wise counsel with others, that learning is increased by listening to wise counsel, and that if you cease to listen to wise counsel – that you will start to stray from being able to acquire more knowledge in God.
For lack of guidance a nation falls, but many advisers make victory sure. (Proverbs 11:14)
A wise man has great power, and a man of knowledge increases strength; (Proverbs 24:5)
Make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain guidance. (Proverbs 20:18)
Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.(Proverbs 15:22)
Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise. (Proverbs 19:20)
Stop listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge. (Proverbs 19:27)
Once you turn the reigns of your life over to God for Him to fully handle, He will now make sure that you get matched up with the right kind of people that you can become true God-friends with.
3. As Iron Sharpens Iron
This next verse is extremely fascinating as it tells us that two friends can help sharpen each other up as iron sharpens iron. A true God-friend can help keep you sharp in the Spirit, let you know when you are getting too far off track, help you get through and make sense of some of the downswings that can occur in your walk, confirm and help bear witness when you are on the right track, give you pep talks when needed, and help keep you in the game when you start to get too mad and too frustrated when things do not go your way.
You each serve to help keep each other up in the Lord so that you both can continue to stay on the straight and narrow road that God now has you set up on. You can also help each other out if one starts to be tempted to do something they should not be engaging in. Here is the verse:
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.(Proverbs 27:17)
A true God-friend will always be honest and straight forward with you. You cannot help keep each other up and sharp in the Lord unless you are both willing to be totally honest with one another.
4. Do Not Be Unequally Yoked With Unbelievers
These next seven verses will tell us not to be yoked together with unbelievers, foolish men, dogs, evil workers, those who are disorderly, reckless, contentious and always causing trouble and strife.
There is one verse in particular that tells us that “evil company corrupts good habits.” This verse perfectly shows us what can happen to any of your children if they start hanging out with the wrong type of people.
Here are 7 good verses telling us to stay on our side of the fence, and to stay away from all of the bad apples who have no desire for God or anything that He stands for.
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?(2 Corinthians 6:14)
He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.(Proverbs 13:20)
The mocker seeks wisdom and finds none, but knowledge comes easily to the discerning. (Proverbs 14:6)
Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. (Philippians 3:2)
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.(2 Thessalonians 3:6)
I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. (Romans 16:17)
Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character.(1 Corinthians 15:33)
All of these verses are giving us major warnings that we are to stay away from all of the bad apples in this life who will do nothing but try and bring us down to their lower way of living in this life. Many Christians have had their lives totally ruined and destroyed as a result of marrying the wrong people or choosing the wrong kinds of friends to hang out with.
Conclusion
Just as God saw fit to create Eve for Adam in the Garden of Eden when He first created the first man – God still places an extremely high value on personal friendships, and He will make sure to bring the right people and the right number of people in your life so you can each help each other out to go farther and fly higher in the Lord.
When Jesus first started to send the 12 apostles out to walk with His anointing, He would always send them out two-by-two.
Once you enter into a real supernatural walk with the Lord, you will go nuts if you do not have someone to share your walk with. There are simply too many good God things that will start to happen in your life and you will need others to talk with, to vent with, to share with, to learn from one another, and to help keep each other on track.
I believe Jesus was giving us a major piece of revelation when He started sending the apostles out two-by-two instead of by themselves.
For those of you who have not been matched up with a good God-friend at this time – just go to God the Father in prayer and ask Him to bring you the right friend that would be best suited for you at your present level of spiritual development in Him.
Unless God is keeping you all to Himself for a reason and a season, there is no reason that God will not want to move on this request to bring you a true, special God-friend in order to help accelerate your spiritual growth in Him.
Stop, drop, and roll do not work in Hell. Therefore, we need to make sure that we all have fire insurance. That insurance of course is having Jesus as your personal savior. You are truly in good hands with God.
A man is in bed with his wife when there is knocking on the door. He rolls
over and looks at his clock. It's half past three in the morning.
"I'm not getting out of bed at this time," he thinks, and rolls over.
Then, a louder knock follows.
"Aren't you going to answer that?" says his wife.
So he drags himself out of bed, and goes downstairs. He opens the door and
there is man standing at the door. It didn't take the homeowner long to
realize the man was drunk.
"Hi there," slurs the stranger, "Can you give me a push?"
"No, get lost, it's half past three. I was in bed," says the man and slams
the door.
He goes back up to bed and tells his wife what happened and she says "Dave,
that wasn't very nice of you. Remember that night we broke down in the
pouring rain on the way to pick the kids up from the baby-sitter and you
had to knock on that man's house to get us started again? What would have
happened if he'd told us to get lost?"
"But the guy was drunk," says the husband.
"It doesn't matter," says the wife. "He needs our help and it would be the
Christian thing to help him."
So the husband gets out of bed again, gets dressed, and goes downstairs. He
opens the door, and not being able to see the stranger anywhere he shouts,
"Hey, do you still want a push?" and he hears a voice cry out, "Yeah, please!"
So, still being unable to see the stranger, he shouts: "Where are you?"
And the stranger replies: "I'm over here, on your swing."
(5/5 stars)
(4/5 stars)
