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I tried to convince him and myself that it would be good for me to date her so that she might come to youth group and become a Christian. I was dead wrong!
The concept was simple-when a person is focused upward to the pinnacle of the triangle God , they will eventually meet up with that special someone that God has specifically designed for them. If a guy and girl are in a relationship, they should be focused on God, and as they grow closer to God they will inevitably grow closer to one another.
What I was doing with this new girlfriend was taking my eyes off of God and focusing on the really pretty girl.
Well, this really pretty girl and I made out a lot … way too much! There were some moments when we got far too close to a line that should not be crossed until marriage. I had been called into ministry a year and a half earlier, and I knew that she would not give me the support I would need in ministry.
We broke up a week later. We soon started dating. I prayed about it a few weeks later, and God told me I had jumped the gun and that we should break up.
I thought all I needed to do was get to know her and once I knew her pretty well that we could date with the idea in both of our heads that the end result would be marriage. So I listened to God and broke up with her. This devastated me and her. She completely withdrew from me, which really hurt. Before I left for camp that summer, I gave her a Bible and she gave me a journal and we said goodbye.
I spent the summer at camp. We wrote letters a few times a week.
I never would have considered dating a non-Christian. Not in a million There seemed to be 10 girls for every single available guy in church. Then there was. I've been single for years, but I recently met a guy I hit it off with right away. I'm interested Is it really that big of a deal to date a non-Christian?.
It seemed like the Lord was restoring our relationship. We began dating that summer in early July. We dated for 15 months.
It was a good time, but our focus was wrong. Our focus even as good Christian kids was on each other and not on God and how we were to be obedient to Him in His service. We were far too physical for a Christian couple. The girl I dated for 15 months was a great girl and a strong Christian, but we were not equally yoked. She had a completely different way she wanted to live her life than I did when it came to serving the Lord. The point I am trying to make here is that even when a guy is a strong Christian at a similar maturity level as you are, there are other factors that must be considered such as your views on spending and saving money.
How you will give your time, money, and energy in service to the Lord? Are you both fine with living by faith and not have any real plans except to follow the Lord? Or does one of you want to be a lawyer and the other one wants to be an international missionary? There are many things that go into being equally yoked. For many of you, you may not be ready to be married. Enjoy the friendships with guys around you as brothers. Let them know where you stand, and you will encourage and challenge them to grow as men of the Lord.
If they are not down with respecting you for taking this season in your life to grow more as a woman, then you need to pray for them that they may understand your heart and that you are letting yourself be prepared for your future husband. When you do meet that man someday that you connect really well with … pray for him.
Pray that he will grow and be transformed every day into the likeness of Christ. Ask God now to prepare you and your future husband for the time when you will be wed. As a young Christian girl, you should focus on Christ; focus on His call on your life to follow Him. Seek to understand what that means for each one of you. Who are you in Christ?
What is your identity in Christ? You need to be content with serving and obeying Christ. You must not seek to find your fulfillment in a man. I think the biggest example of this, and I'm not going to sugarcoat it here, is Christians who extend "dating a Christian" to "dating someone whom I will bring to church", "dating someone who is open to Christianity", or "dating someone who calls himself a Christian but hasn't really been to church in a few years". I could go on, but you see my point. To do something like that is to miss the point of wanting to date a Christian in the first place. It's taking God's wisdom and stretching it so we find a loophole.
So yes, back to the reasons why Christians shouldn't date non-Christians. There are probably more, but here are four simple ones. Any committed Christian will know that Christianity is not just a nice little side project that surfaces on Sundays and on Christmas - it involves and demands a total change in worldview, nature, lifestyle, decisions and priorities. It's not an "agree to disagree" kind of difference - like whether Manchester United or Liverpool is better is there really an argument anyway?
I could go on. Some of these you may or may not have to deal with before marriage, but they will certainly apply after. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? Marrying a non-Christian means a lifetime of split loyalties, and a severe endangerment of your relationship with God.
One way or another, one relationship or even both will have to be compromised. I should also clarify at this point that by "dating", I do not mean a casual, just-for-fun romance with no likely future - I mean a relationship entered into with the intention to find out if you are suitable for marriage. Casual dating is usually self-centered and self-serving: If we know for sure we will never marry said person, then being in a relationship with them is unfair to them as well. As Christians, the most important question we should ask is "Does this make me more like Jesus? I can almost hear the argument being formed right now, that, basically, there is nowhere in the Bible that says it's a sin to date a non-Christian.
In fact, the Bible doesn't even talk about dating: Even if we gloss over passages like 2 Corinthians 6: If the goal is to be more like Christ, then we are intentionally and knowingly making it harder. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: When we are willing to jeopardize our relationship with God for anything else - could be career, money, pleasure - then that becomes our idol, no matter how "good" it is in itself.
Even a Christian relationship can become an idol if it takes precedence over God. So, even if not explicitly stated as a sin, the fact that we are willing to endanger our faith to cling on to this other person shows our heart's true desires.
In fact, the Bible doesn't even talk about dating: We never did anything sexual, mainly because I personally thought it was wrong. I forgot to mention, his family is Islam but he practically grew up in the west. But there is a huge part of my life that he cannot begin to understand and value. Are you prepared to stand beside while promising to raise the child in a godly home? Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. My senior year of high school, a junior girl caught my eye.
And finally, we have to consider not just the possible pitfalls of dating and marrying a non-Christian, but the considerable benefits of dating a mature, growing Christian. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. It's not always natural or easy to look for and desire these things in a relationship when other things like looks, personality and so on have such a magnetic pull - but I'm convinced that these are the most important things to have for the long term.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that good chemistry and attraction are not important - they are just not as important as we think. That is not to say that a Christian marriage is short of its share of troubles. No marriage or relationship, Christian or otherwise, is perfect.