The ultimate purpose for living is not to get married, Bishop Charles Agyinasare of Perez Chapel International (PCI) has said.

“The essence of life is not just to get married,” the PCI founder told his congregation at the Perez Dome on Sunday, 25 February when he taught them about ‘Finding And Locating Love’.

Marriage, he said, “is good and honourable, but it’s not the reason why we live”, adding: “We don’t live because we want to get married inasmuch as marriage is good.”

“The purpose of our living”, he noted, “is to worship God and to fulfil His plans for our lives and for our generation”.

Bishop Agyinasare also encouraged single people to not allow the pressures of society to force them into marrying when they may not be ready for it.

“Don’t be rushed into marriage”, he said, warning: “If you allow yourself to be rushed into marriage, you will end up sorrowing because you may make a mistake. So don’t be rushed into marriage. Don’t let anybody pressurise you to get married, no”.

Additionally, he said single people should never buy into the “misconception” that they are “incomplete” until they get married. “It’s important to note that celibates or single people are complete. Because if they are not complete, are we saying that the men, who, in the olden days were called eunuchs and bathed the queen, are we saying that they were not complete? Are we saying that Jesus was not complete? Are we saying that Daniel was not complete?”

Another misconception about singleness, he said, is its equation to loneliness. “Some associate singleness with loneliness but singleness is not loneliness,” he told the audience, stressing: “And singleness is not incompleteness. Because it is not only single people who are lonely, or can be described as lonely. You can be married and still be lonely and there are a lot of married people who are lonely”.

“…In our cultures and religions, some think that once you are not married, you are incomplete or once you are single, you’re incomplete. Well, Jesus was single, will we say he was not complete?”

In his view, the misconceptions about singleness force people into marriage when they may not have been ready for it.

“There are three major wrong perceptions about singleness: … Some want to marry because [they say] when they marry, it will help them to serve God. …That is a wrong perception because Jesus never married, he served God; Jeremiah never married, he served God; Daniel never married, he served God; Paul was not married, he served God; Barnabas was not married, he served God; John – the one who wrote the book of Revelations – was not married but he served God faithfully. So, you don’t have to marry to be able to serve God,” Bishop Agyinasare noted.

Secondly, he noted that ”some marry because they want emotional peace. They believe that until they are married, they can’t have emotional peace. Now there are many married people who still have emotional problems. Because if you don’t get rid of your emotional garbage, you will take it into your marital relationship. And, so, marriage is not what will give you emotional peace”.

Some also think, he added, “that marrying a spiritual person means you’d have no problems. And, so, they want to marry a pastor, an elder, a prayer warrior, a praise & worship leader”, [but] “there are so many pastors who have divorced, so many prayer warriors who have divorced, so many elders, deacons, deaconesses, and praise & worship leaders who have divorced.”

“The fact that somebody is spiritual doesn’t mean the person has good character. It’s a misconception that once you marry somebody who is spiritual, you won’t have problems again”, he emphasised.