Introducing Dating with Godliness

JUST A FEW THINGS I THOUGHT Y’ALL SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MY BLOG ☺
I got the name of this blog from a sermon I watched online, I was looking for a name and I initially wanted the name to be “Love like Christ” but that was taken, cool stuff. Anyway the name – Dating with Godliness pretty much summarizes what this blog is about. As I have drawn closer to God I have been, by his grace, able to understand more about who God wants us to be as individuals and the types of relationships He wants us to pursue. So everything I speak about will always go back to what God wants from us (its all in His word – the bible). This blog focuses a lot on Godly/ Christ centered relationships, which as Christians, I believe we should desire. I believe the whole purpose or the ‘fruit’ of a relationship or dating should be marriage. If this is not the purpose of dating then why date? If this is the purpose, then we should understand that whatever seeds are sown when we are dating would most likely be reaped in our marriage.

I believe that before you consider dating or being in a relationship you should have a relationship with God first. I don’t mean you have to be perfect and sinless (who is perfect really??) but I mean you should know who you are in Christ. You should know that at the end of the day being in a relationship does not complete you but is only an added blessing. Knowing who you are in Christ sets a standard for how you see yourself and how you allow people treat you. Having a relationship with Christ also allows us to know what God’s standards are on relationships. Gods standards are very different from the standards that some of us set for ourselves. These are a few verses on what God wants for us:

Galatians 5:22-23 – “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”
1 Corinthians: 13-14 – “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.”

Knowing God’s standards we know what we should see in someone we want to be with and who we should be ourselves. So when people tell you ‘all guys are unfaithful’ you know that God did not create men to be this way. You know that God wants you and the guy to be faithful to one another. You know that God’s will is peace, so you don’t accept frequent arguments. You know that God wants you both to be gentle with each other, so a guy cannot treat you like a rag and you cannot accept violence. You know what God wants from you and most especially what you want to see in the person you are with.

Relationships are so important because it involves physical and emotional ties that sometimes get deeper than we expect and it’s hard to break out of. For some people “its not that deep”, its just fun and games. Let me give you a real life example; the first time I ever drowned (I’m not going off point), the pool looked really shallow to me, I was young so please don’t judge me lol, I could see the sign written clearly warning: DEEP END but I jumped in. Of course I couldn’t think when I was drowning but when I was saved I could reflect back and learn. There were so many signs; I was clearly to little to swim at the deep end, It was clearly to deep for me, yet I ignored these signs because in my mind I was Dora the explorer and I just wanted to swim tbh. That’s how we are sometimes when it comes to relationships. These days, there is no intent when entering a relationship either for both partners or one, but most times one person is going in a little deeper while the other can’t even answer these questions; do you see yourself getting married to him/her? Nope, Would you be faithful to her? I will try; do you know what motivates him in life? Hmm we haven’t had that conversation, Is he a Christian? Yeah he goes to church sometimes, Are you guys together? I’m not sure but we have just been talking for months now sooo, do you even like him/her? Yeah a bit, she’s cute/ he has potential. When a guy is not serious with you, he most times cannot give answers to these questions. When a guy is not intentional about pursuing you, you become a game and once he wins you then he can easily move on to the next one. We give our hearts away so easily and it is the one thing God said we should protect (Proverbs 4:23).

When we are mature enough to date, we should desire a relationship that glorifies God. We should understand what love really is. We should aim to show this to our partners and most importantly, it should be Christ led. I PRAY what I share helps readers and that you are constantly redirected back to Christ who would lead you to where you should be.