I Love Him But I Am Not Ready

Revelation 3:16

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Me: Hey girl how are you? What did you do last night?

Sister A : I am so blessed! I really thank God. Last night me and my boyfriend just hung out at home. It was so fun. We talked, laughed, I cooked dinner for him, we split the bill thank God, and you know we did a little romancing. 😉

Me: Did you two have sex?

Sister A: Not exactly. Does oral sex count?

Me: Yea, oral sex counts, vaginal sex counts.

Sister A: He is such a gentleman. Our 2 year anniversary is next month. I love him so much! And you know you’ve talked to him, he loves me too.

Me: Yea, I guess he does love you. So when are you two finally getting married?

Sister A: Marriage!!? No way, I love him but I am not ready for that yet. Yea, even though we are both out of school, even if we were in school, we def can’t get married now!

Me: Really? why not?

PAUSE

I don’t know the exact statistic, but I know before I became born again this was the story of all 6 girls I called best friends, actually it was also the story of 90% of my cheerleading team, I breathed, ate, and slept with. It’s so rampant in the Christian community that many, SO MANY “Christian” couples are dating rather than courting!

What is Dating?

Dating is engaging with the opposite or same-sex (homosexuality=sin) without an expected end. You don’t know if you’ll marry but you are just hanging out with emotional and many other benefits, as far as one chooses to go.

Spends a ton of time alone which presents a ton of temptations.
Family most times isn’t as involved.
Foreplay, not going all the way, going all the way, “test driving each other”.
No clear purpose — just a lot of conditional dating & confusion on “where is this relationship going??!
Playing house. Calls each other wifey & hubby & does husband & wife like things but has no commitment.
There’s still an option to date others, y’all aren’t totally sold & still “trying each other out”.

Dating is a CLEAR cut worldly rendition of how a girl/woman, boy/man interact. Even if a couple that is dating gets married, this is NOT the way biblical characters got married. In the bible God revealed the will of God to the man in whom he should marry. This marriage thing wasn’t a chasing thing. It wasn’t a 2, 3, 4, 5 year thing. It wasn’t performing and playing house thing before marriage.

Let’s open the bible real quick to one of my favorite examples of a courtship in the bible:

Genesis 24
Issac, Abraham’s oldest son was getting old. He favored Issac and one day asked his Servant to go and find a wife for Issac in his homeland. The servant departs without Issac , but with camels and treasures. He stops by a water well and prays a prayer to God asking a women comes along to offer him and his camels water to drink; he includes in the prayer the women be Issac’s wife. (REMEMBER GOD ALWAYS HEARS PRAYERS OF RIGHTEOUS PEOPLE. THE SERVANT WAS RIGHTEOUS SINLESS AND ABRAHAM ALSO PRAYED AND WAS RIGHTEOUS) Before the servant was done praying Rebekah, a very beautiful woman, a woman after God’s heart, and a virgin comes! Rebekah gladly draws water for the servant when he asks. Without being asked Rebekah also draws water for all his 10 camels What a sweetheart! God confirms to servant Rebekah is Issac’s wife. (FUNNY REBECCA WASN’T LOOKING AND DID NOTHING BUT SERVE GOD TO RECEIVE HER MAN) The Servant then gets to meet Rebekah’s family. He asks Rebekah’s father for her hand in marriage. He says yes,

Genesis 24:67

And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

So what is courting? How can it be explained and done in the 21st century?

Takes the position that the two people have no physical contact at all (no touching, no hand-holding, no kissing) until marriage.
Many in a courtship relationship will not spend any time together unless family members, preferably parents, are present at all times.
Courting couples state upfront that their intentions are to see if the other person is a suitable potential marriage partner.
Courtship allows for the two people to truly get to know each other in a more platonic setting without the pressures of physical intimacy or emotions clouding their view.

Many Christians are wondering why their relationships are an emotional roller coaster! What you heard love is, is wrong! Love is not being hurt, screaming to then lead to makeup sex, it’s not slashing tyres, looking through Facebook messages, texts, and instagram with a fake profile. Love is not mean-spirited and hot-tempered. Love is not dating for how many years! Love is not playing wife without the commitment! Love is what JESUS told us what love is.

1st Corinthians 13: 4-8a

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails.

This lukewarmness of how we are treating our brothers and sisters in Christ should stop. Because this dating phenomenon has manifested inside the church, many women and men are being left bruised. I want you to ask yourself if you call yourself a Christian are you Born Again? When did you kneel down and repent of your sins, and ask the blood of Jesus to wash you clean? If you are Born again are you believing? Are you daily saying to yourself I will live for Jesus and I will read the bible, His personal guidebook for my life? It’s only when you genuinely answer these questions you’ll understand it’s not ok to date, have premarital sex, and even if you do have premarital sex to not go around saying you love someone but are not ready to marry them. If all your emotions are fully invested in someone, you two need to start praying for the will of God in marriage.

I love you dearly. I too was in relationships that didn’t have an expected end; but like you I enjoyed the company and we both ‘quote on quote’ loved each other. Sis, that will lead you to HELL and a VERY unhappy life down the line. The best thing is to ask God for the strength to stop it. When you do, watch, live for God, your dream man will come. Mine did.

Your Sister in Christ,