In building a genuine God centered relationship, you must be
genuine, and focused. If you truly desire to follow God’s
precepts, and not those of society, you must be willing and able
to cast off the “games” that people play in relationships. There
must be no hiding behind made up masks, and false identities.
Get rid of the fixation on pleasure, and the viewpoints from
glamour magazines and TV shows. You must seek Biblical precepts;
rather than how you feel or are told by friends. This means a
Christian relationship will be built on and with honesty, and
communication, in order to be real and authentic. These
translate into genuine relationships that are flowing from a
life that has been transformed by grace, and renewed by Christ,
as Lord of your life.
In order to accomplish this task, you must seek to know yourself
and the other person. If you are not honest about yourself, how
can you expect to have a good relationship? The same applies to
seeking honestly from the person you are courting. You have to
be honest about who you are, that is, knowing your personality,
aspirations, and desires, and working on your relationship with
Christ. You also have to be honest about what you plan to do and
be in life. Then, you can seek that in others, and honestly
assess how you feel about them and about what they do and say.
The way to do this is to have open, honest communication, be
willing and able to ask the tough question of yourself and your
date. The hiding is then eliminated, and a real relationship is
built! Open communication is a vital foundation for every
marriage, necessary in order to understand and help each other.
Without it, you cannot see what is truly motivating the other or
what their ideas and intentions are. When you have differing
points of view–and you will–be willing to talk and listen.
Simply by listening, 99.9% of the problems will be resolved.
When you have this settled before marriage, you will be
light-years ahead of the game. If you are already married, then
you can use these principles to figure out what you need to work
on in yourself, as well as in your relationship with God and
others.
We can be honest even in our Western dating culture. Yes, most
people– Christians included–tend to stick to the shallow end
of the communication pool. We spend time asking about favorite
movies, hobbies, whether and such, so the most important
questions, such as our struggles, vulnerabilities, and
insecurities, are not addressed.
Once you are honest, then you can explore love. If you do not
take care of honesty, your love will not be honest. You will be
in love with an idea and not a person. You will be building a
false relationship, not a real one!
We will not be perfect, as we will make mistakes, but we have
the grace of God who makes up for our shortfalls. So, let God
work in you. Be honest with Christ as your Lord, and be willing
to learn, giving Him your fears and insecurities. Be willing to
improve yourself before seeking a relationship. You cannot
expect others to change and grow if you do not. If you are not
willing to improve the ‘you’ before trying to get who is right
for you or to improve your spouse, you will just cause upheaval
and disorder in your self and the person you are with! You are
not to seek someone to fill a hole that they cannot fill. Be
accountable to and ask questions of someone who will always
listen to you. By doing these precepts from the Word, you will
better prepare yourself for God’s best, which is in your best
interest, too!
Oh, by the way, do not even think, consider, or attempt to do
missionary dating (date someone who does not share the same
faith and theology as you). After over 20 years of being a
pastor to singles, I have never seen this work. I have never
heard of this working! It only leads to distress and strife,
especially when children come in to the picture!
Here are two essential attitudes to have if you are serious
about following God’s precepts in relationships:
1. An attitude of Fellowship: Fellowship, (koinonia) is the
Christian catchphrase for getting together. Perhaps it is
overused and underused. We overuse it to describe anything from
hanging out to having communion, then we under use it by not
taking the reality and depth of its meaning to heart! Biblical
fellowship is a partnership of relationships and resources that
contains good communication, cooperation, and mutual
beneficiation. The powerful Holy Spirit is our true partner in
the Church. This is true because of what Christ has done for us.
2. An attitude of real Intimacy: The Church has taught for
centuries that sex was for procreation only and there are still
Christian groups proclaiming this. However, this is not what the
Bible teaches. Sex was created by God to populate (Genesis
1:28), to expresses unity (Genesis 2:24), to know your mate
(Genesis 4:1), to express love (Genesis 24:67), to meet each
other’s needs (Genesis 24:67; Deuteronomy 24:5; 1 Peter 3:7), to
play (Proverbs 5:19; Song of S. 2:8-17; 4:1-16; Ecclesiastes
9:9), and to prevent sin (1 Corinthians 7:2-5). Intimacy also
includes our being available to our spouse (1 Corinthians
7:3-5), and showing him or her our undivided interest as an
expression of love (Song 4:16; 5:2).
How do you know if you are “In Love?”
According to the world’s standards, and that of many Christians,
being attracted to another is our first consideration in dating
or courting. However, is this right or Biblical? No! Yet, we
often judge another person by our attraction to them or their
attraction to us before we venture into a relationship. However,
remember Prov 31: 30. Good looks, magnetism, beauty, being
pretty, even charm, are vain, ineffective in building a
relationship, and are not lasting. Love finds its roots in the
deeper end of the pool where maturity in our relationship with
Christ dwells, where He is Lord and from where our trust and the
model of all of our relations originate.
Now, Keep in mind that there may be someone you may not have
thought of, who may be right for you! I am always amazed in
single groups in church how so many of them do not even look at
each other as their ideal mate because desire is blinding their
search. Thus, the only thing fueling their search is vanity, and
the perfect one may be sitting right next to them! So, look up,
and look around beyond your limited set of parameters!
Love begins, real love, that is, when you have a firm grasp on
what we have talked about so far. It happens when the
presumptions and games are out of the way, when open
communication is happening, and when both of you are growing in
the faith. If you are meant for one another, then love will
come. Love cannot be forced, manipulated, conjured up, or
pretended to be real. You can try to force love for a while, but
it would be like teaching a dog to walk on its two hind legs. It
will be able to do it for a little while, but not very long, and
not very well! You have to let Love happen as stipulated in 1
Corinthians 13.
What does it mean to love someone? How do I know if I am “in
love?” How do I really know if my potential mate loves me? It
has often been said in Christian circles that “love is a
choice,” but what kind of choice is it? When do we make that
choice, and what if it is the wrong choice?
One of the first signs of love is seen when you desire what is
best for the other person. You begin to have their best
interests in mind, with passion and/or conviction along side,
when their feelings and needs are of greater importance to you
than your own. When you read 1 Corinthians 13 and see your mate
and yourself in those words, then you may have real authentic
love. What love is not is when you place your needs and plans
over theirs, and you project what you think their needs are or
should be. When you become the one who chooses what the other
wants, then you are on the path of self-gratification and
manipulation, and not love.
There are times where you cannot meet all of the needs of
another, nor should you. That has to be based on Biblical values
and precepts. That other person you love, or think you love,
needs to be discipled and growing in the right direction, as do
you. They may need correction, you may need correction, they may
need to change, and you may need to change. Therefore, a balance
has to occur between fulfilling their needs, and fulfilling the
right needs. Nevertheless, the bottom line, the litmus test is,
that you desire to put them before yourself. You are not being
selfish or manipulative or have hidden agendas, and neither do
they. Of course, there will be times we want to control or
change them, but we have to be willing to repeal those selfish
desires in our heart in favor of their desires.
A Biblical relationship, one between God and us, and one with
another, will take the focus off you and put it on what can be
empowered and/or invested in the other person. With God, our
surrender of our will goes along side that too (John 14-15; Gal.
2:20-21; Phil, 3:10). Therefore, you have to discern where the
line is between our obligation of real friendship, and love. In
addition, that can be different for each person. The main factor
in determining where that line is will be the degree of
excitement, passion, and desire. The emotional factor should not
be there in such force in a fellowship-based friendship.
With courtship, you are seeking to keep in your mind and heart,
the best interests of not only the person you are going out
with, but also your future spouse. You need to do this because
you are preparing yourself for the real love of your life, and
if this one is not it, you can ruin yourself and that person you
are out with, as well as your future spouse. This multiplies
further, when you consider the future spouse of the person whom
you are dating. Therefore, one person’s sin/mistake will affect
scores of people. That is why God hates sexual promiscuity. It
negatively effects and destroys not only you, but many others
too! Keeping the other person’s best interests at heart will
result in saving your sexual and emotional purity for your true
love.
One of the main objections to courtship is people feel when you
do not have sex or a lot of physical contact with each other you
will not develop intimacy or even an attraction to each another.
Then when you do get married, you will find out there are no
sexual or romantic feelings one for the other. Thus, you will
never develop true love for your spouse. This thought is
completely ridiculous! I know this from my personal experience
in courting my wife, studying dating history, my 20 years of
counseling singles, and of course, the Word.
The main reason that engaging in several romances is dangerous,
as I said before in the other three articles, is that it will
develop a lot of emotional baggage. Those people will stay in
your thoughts and rob you of your emotional commitment to your
spouse. I am not saying you are to have no romance before
marriage. On the contrary, getting to know your spouse to be is
romance. Romance does not mean sex outside of the marriage bed.
Sex does not build romance, commitment, trust, or knowledge of,
or for, each another. It only satisfies the sin of lust, and
blocks the building of real intimacy and genuine romance. The
physical can get in the way of real heartfelt romance, because
it clouds the issues in the building of a relationship. I have
never heard of anyone who, after courting and marriage, had a
problem with sex, unless there were physical problems or past
abuse issues. God has wired you to engage in sex without any
problems in doing so. The problem is that our sinful nature has
heightened and corrupted it. To build a good relationship, you
should consider all the aspects of building that relationship
before you consider romance, as in physical touch.
Also, be willing to draw a line beyond which you both agree not
to cross in your touching each other. This will prevent your
lust from getting the best of you. The best defense is a good
offence, plan, and agreement. So, draw the line, agree together,
and commit to it concerning how far you will go physically. Keep
Biblical values in mind! For some, it will be not going beyond
kissing until you are engaged. For others, it will be never
going past the bikini/swim suit areas (conservative swim
suit–not a thong!)!
If, after working through all the relational building process,
and making a commitment to each other leading to marriage, no
attraction or romance develops, then you need to consider
carefully that perhaps this relationship is not meant to be. If
this is the case, you will be hurt, but also consider this you
will be saved from a lifetime of being with the wrong person,
which would cause each of you and others around you grief and
strife! So, praise God and move on. The Biblical process has
saved you! Keep the friendship alive. Remember that any effort
made in building relationships is never a waste of time in God’s
eyes, unless it is hurtful or damaging.
Another thing to consider is that romance and attraction build
over time. Most Christian counselors, as well as surveys, have
shown that with older couples in a growing relationship with
Christ say their love has increased over the years–not
decreased! So, if you are in your 20s, are planning to be
married, are worried that you do not feel attracted enough to
each other, and yet you meet the rest of the relationship
building criteria, that feeling will change and you will grow
fonder of each other!
Many people wonder, and ask, if love, or commitment comes first?
The Bible gives us an answer that surprises a lot of people. In
Ephesians 5:22-33 the context of this passage indicates “love
the one you marry” rather than to “marry the one you love.”
Thus, romance is often skewed with society’s emphasis on
feelings, and not on commitment. So, when the tough times come,
romance will not keep you together, only your commitment will.
This is a reason that love is also a choice. As a result, I
believe commitment will supersede love, and be a good indicator
that love is in the mix!
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