Behavior and boundaries are very important in dating.
Just because looser behavior in our society today is tolerated, doesn’t make it right, especially as a follower of Christ. As God’s son or daughter, you should be living under a different code of conduct. You can’t do like the world do. You can’t date the way the world dates. You can’t do marriage like the world. 1 Corinthians 10:23 says,
You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is beneficial.
As a free moral agent, you have a free will to choose. You can choose to follow the world’s ways, however, those ways will bound you instead of benefiting you. This is one of the areas that brought my dating to a dead-end because guys wanted to be sexually active and I just couldn’t get with it. I was with it at first in my dating experiences early on in life because I had a wrong belief that led to wrong behavior. I believed if I didn’t be sexual with my guy, then I was gonna lose him or he would cheat on me and get it from someone else.
But Holy Spirit convicted me because the bible is very clear on sexual immorality, so I had to make some hard decisions and chose to obey God rather than a man. Besides, he ended up cheating anyway so it still didn’t benefit me, so I thought.
Nobody is worth your relationship with God.
God’s standards never change and as believers we are commanded to submit our bodies holy and acceptable, it’s our reasonable service. Our bodies are God’s temple so we have to set boundaries for certain behaviors concerning our bodies.
1 Thessalonians 4:6a says, “In this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him.” The King James Version and several other translations use the word “defraud” for the words “take advantage.”
Fraud and defraud sound similar but they are not the same and they don’t have the same meaning. To fraud means to lie and cheat. To defraud means not only to take advantage of someone, but also to be covetous, to overreach, or to make a gain at someone else’s expense. With relation to dating, this means that you should never take advantage of anyone that you date, or you should never date anyone who will take advantage of you.
You should never date someone who can’t respect your boundaries.
You shouldn’t date someone who wants you to engage in behaviors that aren’t beneficial.
1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 6 is part of a section in the letter the Apostle Paul wrote where he warns believers against the sin of sexual immorality and impurity and calls them to a holy lifestyle. The question of self-control, then, centers mainly around the issue of sexual behavior.
This does not mean that self-control is not important in other areas of life. What it does mean is that a person’s attitude toward sex is a strong indicator of his attitude in other areas. A person who lacks self-control in matters of sex will almost certainly exhibit a lack of self-control in other matters as well. One feeds on the other.
A dangerous precedent is established when self-control is not exercised in dating. Lack of self-control will carry over into a marriage, even if the two people dating end up not marrying each other. They will carry their lack of self-control into the next relationship.
Men and women who have sex before marriage are much more likely to be sexually unfaithful to their spouses during marriage than those who do not and you may say well how so? Well when you have sex pre-marriage you are being unfaithful to God. This pattern is extremely difficult to break once it’s established.
There is no victory in compromise.
What people do and who they are as singles is what they bring into a marriage.
2 Timothy 1:7 in the AMP says For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline [abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control]. You must learn self-control behavior & set boundaries now as a single, and make sure that any person that you consider dating has done the same. There’s a boundary that I set for myself that you can use because it works. Because I don’t wanna stir up no thoughts or emotions about sex, I don’t entertain certain music and movies. I stay away from any sex scenery.
We have 3 gates into our spirit. The eyes, ears and mouth.
What you watch, listen to and say outta your mouth is how things get into your spirit. If you are listening to a whole bunch of cussing before you know it you gonna cuss somebody out. And you’ll be looking around saying, “where that come from?” Well it came outta your spirit.
When I was teaching a young adult bible study class. I did this exercise with them. I played a sexual song and told them to write down the thoughts and emotions that arose from listening to the music. Then I played a Christian song and asked them to do the same thing. It’s ah good exercise, try it!
You may think that’s doing too much, but, you can’t have true deliverance trying to hold onto your dignity. You may be saying, it’s not that serious, but the Bible says a man who can’t control his spirit is like a city without walls. A city without walls is not protected, meaning any and everything can come into that city.
So it’s serious!
You gotta do what you gotta do to keep junk outta your spirit because you can’t bind and rebuke sex. Would be nice if it was that easy. But God knows best, He said no control yourself, He said flee from it. So you gotta do whatever it takes to keep yourself pure.
Don’t believe the devil’s lie that it’s okay to be sexually active outside of marriage.
The devil aims to deceive you into partaking in sexual activity so that you will open the door for his demonic activity.
His activity aims to steal, kill, and destroy.
