PART 2
The heart of the matter
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Leslie and I decided very early in our relationship that we were going to refrain from physical contact until we were married. Our first kiss was at the altar.
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Am I modelling the love of Christ?
Do my motivations and actions in this relationship reflect the perfect love God has shown me?
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When we make our feelings the most important measure of love, we place ourselves at the center of importance. If a man feels love for the poor but never gives his money to help them or never shows kindness to them, what are his feelings worth?
By inflating the importance of feelings, we neglect the importance of putting love in action. When we evaluate the quality of our love for someone else simply by our own emotional fulfilment, we are being selfish.
65 – 68
3 fallacies of love and 3 biblical views of live
1) Self-centered love
- Christ taught that love is not for the fulfilment of self but for the glory God and the good of others. True love is selfless. It gives; it sacrifices; it dies to its own needs. “Greater love has no one that this, “Jesus said, “that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15: 13). He backed up His words with actions – He laid down His life for all of us.
2) Feeling-governed love
“If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14: 15). True love always expresses itself in obedience to god and service to others. Good feelings are nice but not necessary.
3) Beyond-my-control love
Jesus’ example also shows us that love is under our control. He chose to love us. Hoe chose to lay done His life for us. The danger of believing that you “fall in love” is that it also means you can “fall out of love” just as unexpectedly. Aren’t you glad that God’s love for us is under His control and not based on whim?
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Committed, sincere, selfless, responsible – all these words describe God’s love. And each stands in stark contrast to the love practiced by the world.
In my view, if our habits in dating encourage us to wear the world’s style of love, then dating as we know it needs to go. If dating causes us to practice selfish, feeling-governed love that’s contrary to God’s love, we must be willing to reject it.
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When we pursue romance is a major factor in determining whether or not dating is appropriate for us. And we can only determine the appropriate time to pursue romance when we understand God’s purpose for singleness and trust His timing for relationships.
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Ask yourself whether you’re using God’s gift of singleness as He desires.
- Am I concentrating on “simple pleasing the Master”?
- Am I using this season of my life to become a “holy” instrument for God?
- Am I failing to believe that God is sovereign over this part of my life and can provide for me?
- Am I cluttering my life with needless complications and worries of dating?
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Why don’t I snatch it up? Why shouldn’t you? Because God has promised something better. He provides something better now as we take advantage of the unique opportunities of singleness, and He’ll provide something better later when we enter into marriage. But we must have faith to believe it. Like those little children, we’re left alone with something that we think could satisfy us immediately. And we can’t see the reward of delaying gratification.
83-84
It gets down to this question: Do you trust God? Don’t give a knee-jerk, Sunday school answer. Do you really trust Him? Do you live your life as if you trust Him? Do you believe that by passing up something good now because it’s the wrong time, God will bring something better when it is the right time?
When will we find it? We ask. The answer is, Trust me.
How will we find it? The answer again is, Trust me.
Why must I let myself be lost? We persist. The answer is, Look at the acorn and trust Me.
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Whether you’re single or married, whether you’re liked, loved, or lonely, they key to contentment is trust. Believe it or not, if we are discontented with singleness, we’ll more than likely face discontentment when we’re married.
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Do you believe that God knows best? Then place your life’s calendar at His feet and allow Him to handle the scheduling of your relationships. Trust Him to handle the scheduling of your relationships. Trust Him even if it means not dating when other people think you should. When God knows you’re ready for the responsibility of commitment, He’ll reveal the right person under the right circumstances.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” God says, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29: 11). Let’s live our todays for His kingdom and entrust our tomorrows to His providence.
We couldn’t lay our futures in better hands. All we have to do is trust.
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True purity, however, is a direction, a persistent, determined pursuit of righteousness. This direction starts in the heart, and we express it in a lifestyle that flees opportunities for compromise.
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Living a pure life before God requires the teamwork of your heart and your feet. The direction of purity begins within; you must support it in practical, everyday decisions of where, when and with whom you choose to be.
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Purity in action
1) Respect the deep significance of physical intimacy.
God designed our sexuality as a physical expression of the oneness of marriage.
2) Set your standards too high (set high standards).
We can only attain righteousness by doing two things – destroying sin in its embryonic stage and fleeing temptation. Mr. Graham did both. He cut off the opportunity for sin at its root, and he fled from even the possibility of compromise.
For couples moving toward engagement or those already engaged, the same principle applies. Set you standards higher than you need to. Cut off sin at its root. Until you’re married – and I mean until you’ve walked down that aisle and exchanged vows – don’t act as if you bodies belong to each other.
Set you standards too high. You will never regret purity.
3) Make the purity of others a priority.
By making her emotional and spiritual purity a priority, Matt helped Julie focus her mind and heart on God. If Matt had acted selfishly, he could have distracted Julie from what God wanted to accomplish in and through her life.
Source: I Kissed Dating Goodbye - Joshua Harris (1997)
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