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Love is NOT a game
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Posted by: angelofthelord
Young adults and dating. Relationships between a man and woman are NOT a
game! It is a serious, life-changing business.
Dating, having a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, should be
for the purpose of finding your partner for life. A 12, 13, even 16 or 17
year old, is RARELY equipped or ready to be thinking about marriage. So
they enter
into a relationship solely based on feelings they don't understand or have
under control yet, and for every reason BUT marriage. I realize that MTV,
Friends, Dawson's Creek, and all of the garbage on TV glorifies teen
relationships. EVER SEEN A GODLY TEEN RELATIONSHIP ON TV? As Christians,
we are to live UP to the standards of God, not DOWN to the
standards of this sinful world!
Here are the two problems. First, in EVERY relationship you have, you give
a piece of yourself away. By the time you finally get married, after say 3
to 10 relationships, that is how much LESS of you the one you are committing
to spend your life with will get. The second problem is that going in and
out of relationships means each new one becomes less special, breaking up
becomes easier each time you do it, and you develop a mindset that you
eventually take into marriage that makes it easy to get divorced when things
don't go as you hoped. Marriage becomes little more than a legal date.
Every time I mention about young adults waiting
until after high school to date. They pour in from young men and women, 13,
14, 15, 16 years old who tell me that I don't know what I am talking about.
They are in "love." Getting involved in a relationship unlocks our
emotions. It sets off things inside of us that have incredible power over
us to the extent we don't act or think rationally. We become consumed.
Mature, experienced people in their 20's, 30's, 40' and 50's often destroy
their very lives by letting these emotions rule them. What chance does an
inexperienced teen have? None! The results of these teen romances range
from hurt feelings, all the way to death, and everything in between.
To choose to enter into a serious boyfriend/girlfriend relationship before
you are out of high school is a BAD CHOICE and can dramatically change your
life forever. ***By the way, there is nothing magic about being out of High
School. It is simply one major "life hurdle" out of the way that is part of
the foundation of your life. There is PLENTY of time after High School to
start dating.
Even though this is not even a debatable issue, because it is such a problem
let me quickly address it. There is absolutely NO situation when sex
outside of marriage is acceptable to God. NONE. ZERO. There is a Biblical
word fornication. It literally means any sex outside of marriage. Any
boyfriend or girlfriend that is willing to have sex before marriage is NOT
the person God has chosen for your life. It is simply not acceptable.
Don't play games in this area!
Jesus said if you lust
in
your heart you have already committed adultery. If you have to ask how far
you can go, you are already too far. Once you allow lust into your heart,
God
says you have already sinned. Let that be your standard to judge by since
it is impossible to engage in ANY act that wasn't already birthed in your
heart. The physical act is simply the manifestation of the sin already
committed in your heart.
Having said that, let me talk to you about the two most important elements
of a relationship should you be thinking of marriage. The first is God's
warning found in 2 Corinthians 6:14 to NOT BE UNEQUALLY YOKED.
I have done entire Devotionals on this issue. It is a warning from God to
protect you. Choosing to ignore this warning is no different than deciding
to run a stop sign. You are asking for serious problems. I can not even
begin to tell you how many emails I get daily from men and women who ignored
this warning and are now dealing with the consequences. Consequences by the
way that have literally changed their life. The person you enter into a
relationship MUST also be a Christian, and actually living their life for
Christ.
The second is the foundation on which you build your relationship on. If
you do not have a spiritual foundation to your relationship, how can you
expect your marriage to survive the storms that come in every relationship?
It is exactly like the story Jesus told at the end of Matthew chapter 7.
The marriage built on a spiritual foundation is like the house built on a
rock. The marriage built on any other foundation is like the house built on
the sand. My friend, again let me reiterate. God gave everyone free will
to make choices. You can do what you want with your life. My only purpose
today is to help you make wise, informed choices about things that will
affect the outcome of your life.
I can't even begin to tell you how
my heart is broken today, reading email after email of how people's lives
have been decimated by broken marriages. The fact is, so much of the
heartache, pain, and tragedy many have lived through could have been
avoided if they had simply listened to God. When you are having
relationships without even understanding what is going on in the world, when
you are engaging in sex outside of marriage, when you get married to someone
who is not even a believer, when the foundation of your marriage is built on
looks, sex, money, or anything other than the Lord....you are simply NEVER
going to know the peace, joy, and abundance that this life can offer when
you do it God's way!
The other problem is, so many of God's children end up battling with the
domestic issues, they are of little service to the Lord. Never forget, that
is our purpose in this life, to serve and glorify Him with our lives. The
enemy gets us so distracted handling the consequences of our rebellion, that
we have little time or energy left to serve Him. Please read, and re-read
these words today. Commit them to your heart. I realize how strong
emotions can be, and how they can cloud your judgment. That is why the more focused you are on what God's plan is, the less chance you will have
of compromising and getting into trouble.
The bottom line to these words today is this. Do it your way, and it will
never work out as God intended. Do it God's way, and it works. Life is NOT
something to dread, but something to embrace and enjoy. The choice is
yours. I will be praying as you make the choice God is asking you to make.
Is it a guarantee that if you wait until after high school to start dating,
find a spouse who is saved and living for the Lord, build a spiritual
foundation together, that your marriage will not end in divorce? No! Sin
can creep into people's lives and satan loves nothing more than to destroy a
marriage. But I can promise you that the odds of you making it are 1,000
times better.
Relationships between a man and woman are NOT a game! It is a serious,
life-changing business. A relationship God's way, can be the most
beautiful, rewarding experience you can imagine!
Posted by: Sulten
This is such a well needed discourse in our world today and over this site. I hope especially those starting out and young adults will read and ponder these things. Satan uses these God given powers and emotions to destroy. If used as God intended, they can only produce joy and happiness and if following the admonishments in this discussion.