How should I approach relationships?

Personally, I've had so much grief in the area of relationships that I really want to post something about what I've learnt (the hard way). I wrote yesterday about the importance of Christians not going out with non-Christians -I can testify that this never helps your faith, and leads you down some very sticky paths. But there has to be more to a Christian perspective on relationships than this 'don't go out with a non-Christian' principle. And there is!

We have such an opportunity in our romantic relationships to show the world how different we are, now that Jesus has changed our lives. Our most important relationship in the world is with Him, and He is always faithful and will never break our hearts! Hooray for that!

If you really want to treasure Christ above all other things, then whoever you go out with needs to help you love Jesus more. The only thing that really matters when you consider whether to go out with someone or not, is this: Do they love Jesus? Could I love them?

God is amazing. He created chemistry, and He brings people together for marriage who complement each other perfectly and completely click. I'm not saying that anyone should simply pick a Christian, any Christian, and ignore their attraction (or lack of it) to that person. What I'm saying is that it's a mistake to prioritize physical attraction above how much a person loves God and wants to please Him.

There are some great books on Christian relationships out there which I have read (see bottom of page for recommendations), and three principles have emerged from all of them:

1. Don’t date for fun.
The common idea in our culture that you need to ‘have fun’ while you’re young and have one-night stands, or kiss random people in clubs, or just go out with someone ‘casually’, is all extremely opposite to God’s standards in the Bible. God cares deeply about all people, and wants us to do the same. We should never ‘use’ people for physical pleasure, or to look good to our friends, or just to combat loneliness. 1 Corinthians 16:14 says ‘Do everything in love’, and chapter 13 defines love as patient, kind, not envying, not boasting, not proud, not rude, not self-seeking, forgiving, not delighting in evil but in the truth, protective, trusting, hopeful and persevering. Therefore if Christians do have relationships, they are not to be shallow, but should follow the Bible’s definition of what real love is.

2. Guard your heart.
Proverbs 4:23 says: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” There is a powerful demonstration of the impact of relationships on a person’s life. Whenever you have a close romantic relationship, it’s like gluing two pieces of paper together. When the relationship breaks up, it’s like trying to tear those pieces of paper apart. It’s messy, and in real life, it’s a painful experience. This is why the world’s idea about having lots of relationships before finally ‘settling down’ is a bad one. It means that by the time they finish university, the majority of people have slept with a number of people, and had several romantic involvements. This gives people a lot of emotional ‘baggage’ which then creates issues when you do want to get married.

For Christian teenagers who are nowhere near ready to get married, it’s often wisest to guard your heart and not let yourself get too involved romantically with anyone. Be careful not to spend too much time alone with someone of the opposite sex, if they are not seeking to honour God in the way that they treat you.

If you really like someone, bring it to God in prayer and talk about it with someone at church. It’s always good to get wise advice about such things.

3. Be pure
'Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.' Philippians 4:8
In the way that you think about members of the opposite sex, be pure.
In the way that you act around members of the opposite sex, be pure.
In the way that you speak to members of the opposite sex, be pure.
Whether you're in a relationship or not, your thoughts and behaviour matter! God wants you to be absolutely spotless, and He has cleansed you through the blood of Jesus from all of your sins. Don't defy your new status as purified by God, by returning to the mud again.

Lust- wanting something that does not belong to you (usually in a sexual sense)- is a very pervasive sin. It can manifest itself in X-rated thoughts, in addictions to pornography, or in hungry kissing that leads on to more.

Do what Joseph did- run away from it! Don't give yourself any opportunity to fall. Don't have an internet connection in your bedroom. Don't be alone with your boyfriend/girlfriend in a room together with the door closed.

Do what Job did- make a covenant (promise) with your eyes, not to linger on people and treat them as objects. Avoid parts of a supermarket which stock men's magazines. Bounce your eyes away from unhelpful billboards. Look away from a cinema screen if there's an unexpected sex scene.

Pray and depend on God for strength to fight this sin in your life. It CAN be beaten through the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you're not accountable to anyone in your church, find a trusted Christian there who will ask you candid questions about how you're doing in this area, and ask them to pray for you. Don't think you're the only one who struggles with this. Everyone has some form of struggle with lust in their lifetime.

Below are some books I recommend which deal with this whole area:

Christians and non-Christians: NOT a match made in heaven

Relationships are funny things. They can dominate our thoughts and desires, they can bring us joy and companionship, they can destroy us. The quest for 'true love' for the Christian can be a bit of a minefield, with lots of casualties if wrong choices are made.

It's easy to feel that the Bible is very out-of-date on the whole issue of relationships, given that in Bible times, arranged marriage was the norm. Whilst arranged marriages are still happening today, mostly in Western culture we go about finding ourselves a spouse very differently. The 'dating game'.

How should Christians approach relationships? My main point for this post is:
Christians should desire to glorify God in their romantic relationships.

This may involve pain and heartache, it may mean walking away from someone you really care about. But the Bible makes one thing clear:
A Christian should not marry a non-Christian.

‘A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord.’ 1 Corinthians 7:39

Paul in this chapter of Corinthians deals with some tricky marital situations. What do you do if you’re married, then you become a Christian? Paul says you should stay married. But if, as these verses show, that unbelieving spouse dies, the widow is free to marry, but this time it must be a Christian.

This principle therefore applies to all Christians who have a choice about who they marry (ie. They aren’t already married). It is wrong for a Christian to choose to marry a non-Christian.

Following logically on from this, it makes sense then that Christians should not go out with non-believers. You don’t just get married in our culture, you go out with someone first. If you want your spouse to be a Christian, then you need to make sure any potential spouse (ie. Girlfriend or boyfriend) is a Christian.

Why is this important?

1.Christians and non-Christians are fundamentally different.
The reason God says Christians and non-Christians should not marry is because marriage makes two people ‘one flesh’ (Genesis 2:24). A Christian is a new creation in Jesus Christ, and a non-Christian is still dead in their sins (see Ephesians 2 and Colossians 2). That doesn’t make for a good combination! 2 Corinthians 6:14 says “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” In a relationship, whether you get married or not, you are saying ‘I want to be closer to this person than to my friends and family. I want to spend time with them, sharing who I am with them.’ That makes you vulnerable, as my next point discusses.

2.Christians are fighting a constant battle against sin.
There are many temptations in life (pride, selfishness, greed) which Christians have to constantly fight against. We’re in spiritual warfare (see Ephesians 6)! Therefore if you’re sharing your life intimately with someone, it needs to be someone who’s going to help you in that battle. Someone who will pray with you and for you to be the person God wants you to be. Someone who shares your faith and values. Someone who won’t be an added temptation, particularly in the area of lust. Even if the person you’re going out with agrees that they won’t have sex with you, they will not be looking to avoid temptation in the same way, and they will not have the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome temptation. Lust is a problem not just of physically messing up, but of mentally dwelling on unhelpful images, and you need to be ruthless in cutting it out of your mind. It is also worth saying that in the Christian life, is something isn’t actively helping you grow in faith and holiness, it is a hindrance. There’s no neutral ground. Even if your girlfriend isn’t pressuring you to go too far, if she isn’t pointing you towards Jesus, she’s holding you back. Hebrews 12:1 says ‘let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.’

FAQ: Surely I can help my non-Christian girlfriend to become a Christian by going out with her?
This is such a disaster zone. The Bible never never advocates this: it is the work of the Holy Spirit alone to convert people, and it’s our job to tell them the good news. You don’t need to be going out with someone to do this! In fact, it actually becomes a hindrance, because you are a better witness for Jesus when you show to someone that you value Him more than any other living being –more than a girl you really like who likes you back. However good your intentions are, that person will always be aware of the fact that you wish they were a Christian. They are not ‘good enough’. And more often than not, going out with a non-Christian makes the Christian get lukewarm and tepid rather than firing up the unbeliever into faith. Even if the unbeliever declares their faith, it is often more to do with their believing partner than with them and God. When someone’s faith is dependent upon a spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend, this is not a solid foundation and when something goes wrong with the relationship, their faith often does not stand up to the pressure.
If you go out with someone who isn’t a Christian, what do you do when they don’t convert? How long do you wait for this to happen? By then you may be so involved with them that you end up marrying them. In the everyday intimacy of marriage, life becomes extremely difficult if you do not have the same foundation of faith to live by. Put two sinners together and you’re always going to have problems. Two Christians who are married at least have the Holy Spirit to help them through, and have placed their ultimate satisfaction in Jesus rather than each other. This is the greatest basis for a successful marriage.

Avoiding the spiritual barometer (Review of Terry Virgo's 'God's Lavish Grace')

Ever had a week like this:
Sunday- go to church, sing joyful songs of praise, hear an encouraging and challenging sermon about fighting sin, leave with renewed resolution to obey God and beat temptation.
Monday- make time to read the Bible and pray, fight with sin going well, feel close to God.
Tuesday- managed to scan over a Bible passage before running for the bus, feel flustered but still trying to live whole-heartedly for God.
Wednesday- busy day, no time to pray, feeling weak.
Thursday- give in to temptation, feel like a rubbish Christian.

And so it goes on.

In this commentary, the person constantly measures their spiritual success by their own achievements or failures. If they made time to pray, they feel good about where they stand with God. If they mess up, they feel ashamed. To them, the way God sees them fluctuates like a spiritual barometer. When they're doing well, He's smiling. When they're not, He's angry.

Terry Virgo's book 'God's Lavish Grace' is a fantastic smash-down to this way of thinking, which ensnares so many Christians today.

Virgo's main point is that Jesus has obtained a place for us to stand in grace, a place of total acceptance and security. He goes through the book of Romans to demonstrate that
'they which receive abundance of grace... shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.' Rom 5:17

Therefore your daily walk with God is not about your spirituality or performance, but about your position in Christ.

Christ's unchanging righteousness is yours every day and is not in the least dependent on your feelings or your performance!

God has not called us to a life of slavery but one of overcoming. We need to KNOW that the blood of Christ is sufficient to cleanse us from every sin (past, present and future); the cross is ENOUGH for us to be forgiven. We can't earn God's approval by our 'good deeds'. On the cross, Jesus said, 'It is finished.' (John 19:30) He dealt with our sin completely. All that is left for us to do is to rejoice in the fact that we are totally accepted by God through Jesus, and then live a life liberated to serve Him, with the empowering help of the Spirit to fight sin.

Virgo's conversational style is engaging and uplifting as he opens up the life-changing truth of God's Word in this book. He shows us how susceptible we are to rely on our own amazingness rather than God's amazingness. He calls us to stop making excuses about human nature and start beating sin out of our lives, because Jesus has given us the freedom NOT to sin. As Christians, we have to believe in that freedom. We can't be fatalistic. We need to sort out sin so that we can properly live up to our status as God's children, and get out there to spread the message of God's lavish grace to a world that desperately needs to hear it.