Outdated: Find Love That Lasts When Dating Has Changed

by Jonathan "JP" Pokluda

Just tell the truth. The truth is always good enough. The only reason to lie is because you think the truth isn’t good enough, and the truth is always good enough. Nowhere in Scripture does it say you should be anything less than honest.

If you are a godly man who loves Jesus with all your heart, and you desire to find a godly woman to serve selflessly through marriage, then it is worth getting out there and asking.

If a man’s not willing to take initiative, and doesn’t see you as being valuable enough to be worth pursuing in dating, then he is not the kind of man you really want to yoke yourself to.

The problem here is not sex. Sex is not a bad thing. It’s actually a very good thing. Sex was God’s genius invention. He made us male and female. He made our parts and made them fit the way they do. He placed the nerve endings where they are so that sex would feel the way that it does. It is God’s creation, and it is good! The problem is that we stopped following God’s design for sex. Sex is designed for marriage. It is wholly unsuited for any other context.

It’s sick that we’ve twisted something as beautiful and wonderful as pregnancy, where new life is created, and turned it into a negative consequence to be avoided (or “terminated” if we can’t avoid it). But that’s what happens when we go against God’s design.

He’s not trying to spoil your fun. Sex is fun, or at least it can be, between two people who are fully committed to lovingly caring for and serving each other. And God created it that way.

You are not defined by your old self; just commit to truly making it your “old” self.

Think about how meaningless this makes some of our most cherished and romanticized traditions. “You may now kiss the bride”—you’re being given permission to kiss, yet you’ve already done far more than that.

Don’t come up with excuses for sin.

The reason long-distance dating can work is because it forces you to talk to each other. If you are together physically, it is easy to mistakenly build a relationship on physical affection. You can feel close to the other person just because you are literally close to them, not because you know them well. But if you want to feel close to someone in a long-distance relationship, you are going to have to actually communicate with them.

Marriage is a picture of God’s love for us, because there is nothing we could ever do to earn his love.

However, God chooses to love us—perfectly and forever. In much the same way a married person commits to sacrificially serving their spouse and pursuing oneness with them no matter what they may do (or fail to do) in return, God sticks with us despite our mistakes.