Dating with Godliness: Is Cheating Okay? 

Cheating has become a “thing” in this generation. It is  increasingly popular  and even accepted in relationships. Popular Culture has created parlance such as the “main girl” and “side chick”.

According to Urban Dictionary, the side chick is “a position allocated to a girl which is neither a “wifey” or a girlfriend but a side dish like Nandos rice.”

The Urban Dictionary also states that the main girl is “what a man calls a woman that is his #1 girl, as opposed to the other females he may have”.

Effectively, a guy can have a girlfriend and a side girl but as long as she’s the main girl then she has the upper hand?  Okay I just educated you on the ‘new concept’ of cheating! But does this really justify cheating? How have our standards stooped so low to a point where cheating is now accepted as a norm? I thought this topic should be addressed from a biblical standpoint. So let’s take a look at what the bible says about cheating:

• Exodus 20:14: You shall not commit adultery.
• Proverbs 6:32: He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.
• Hebrews 13:4: Let marriage be held in honour among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.
• Mathew 5:27-28: But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Adultery, according to the dictionary, is “voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a person who is not their spouse”. So how does this relate to a relationship between girlfriend and boyfriend? Mathew 5:27-28 says that anyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery. This speaks volumes! One thing I got from this is that cheating starts from the mind. For example, most guys who are texting another girl outside their relationship would say, “we only texted” or “we just met up, nothing happened”. This may be true but if you have lusted over this person, the fact that you have not acted on it does not mean you have not cheated. So when your boyfriend/ husband masturbates, or likes naked girls pictures on the gram (Instagram) just to mention a few things, he has pretty much cheated. Although we might not want to accept it, it is the truth.

Cheating is the fruit of lust and lack of self-control. To be honest, cheating does not start when your boyfriend gets with or lusts over another girl, it starts when he has sex with you (it is so important to know this). Self-control within a relationship leads to self-control outside of it. If a person can genuinely master self-control (in terms of sexual activities), with someone he/ she is in a relationship with, then he/she would most likely not want to cheat. This might seem hard but this is where God’s grace comes in: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). When we give our life to Christ, we start to produce fruits of the spirit and this is how you can tell when someone is led by Christ (1 John 2:7-8). Galatians 5:21 says that the Holy Spirit produces these fruits: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control:

“For those who follow Him and live in the Spirit, these characteristics of fruits are a gift from God. As we grow in the faith, we find that we belong to God and can walk daily in the Spirit” (The Voice on Galatians 5:21-24).

If lust is your struggle, then pray to God to deliver you from it; the closer you get to Christ the more you die to your fleshly desires. My advice to you is simple: do not be in a relationship with someone if you know that you will most likely lead him or her to fall. 1 Corinthians 8:9,12 says: “But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.”
Most of the verses listed might apply to marriage and some might feel that relationships are not as serious as marriage. This is true when both commitments are compared, however a relationship is still a commitment you make and so it should be taken seriously. The things we practice every time become habits, so if you are constantly cheating on your girlfriend/boyfriend, what makes you think it would stop when you get married? Would you all of a sudden love the person more and that would somewhat trigger a change? If you want to get married to a guy that is constantly cheating on you, would he change after you have made that big commitment to marry him? These are just a few questions that should run through your mind if you are in this position. These questions are not to call out people that are in this situation, but it is to remind you that there are consequences for cheating for both parties; hurt, mistrust, anger and judgement to list a few. This negativity can affect the joy we are meant to have and in addition, God dislikes adultery so much that he has made it a command that we should not practice it. Just because society accepts it, does not mean that we should.

Reminders:

• Luke 6:31: And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. When a person cheats, he/she is breaking a commitment that they have made to their partner.
• The Bible states, in 1 Corinthians 4:16-18, that love does not dishonour others. To dishonour, is to fail to observe or respect (an agreement or principle). So if a person truly loves you, he/she will not cheat on you.
• When a person cheats, he ends up lying because he is living a lie. He is promising one thing to his partner and doing the other. This is how God feels about liars: “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight” (Proverbs 12:22).

Ms Balogun’s work is archived on her website,  Dating with Godliness