Outdated: Find Love That Lasts When Dating Has Changed

by Jonathan "JP" Pokluda

any commands God gives us are for our own benefit. They are not at all meant to stifle our fun. Instead, they exist to point us toward life and help us avoid doing things that cause us emotional, physical, or relational harm.

When we date like this, we treat other people as things we can use for our own benefit.

If you don’t want to be married, don’t date. If you’re not ready to be married right now (or in the very near future), then don’t date right now.

if you are dating someone and realize the relationship will definitely not end in marriage, you should break up with that person. As in immediately.

there are no married people problems—just single people problems carried into marriage.

things will go better if you can learn from the mistakes of others and avoid making them in your own life.

She’s not distracted by a husband or by desperation for one.

while you are single, whether that’s for a season or for the rest of your life, know that you’re not “less than.” You’re not incomplete. Your singleness is not a problem to be fixed; it’s a gift to be used to live life more fully.

Real romance means making a commitment and then, once you are committed, sticking to it. It takes work, because all relationships take work.

when you marry someone, they do become “the one.” They’re the one you’ve committed to love for the rest of your life. The Bible even says that the two of you together become one (Mark 10:7–8). And

Don’t let society dictate to you what you should find attractive or whether you are beautiful. Be careful what you’re telling yourself and how you’re training your eyes with what you look at and what you long for.

Look for a woman (or a man) who fears the Lord. What does it mean to fear the Lord? It means following him. It means focusing on eternal things, which are things that truly last.

it’s actually not all that hard to look at the heart. All you have to do is look at how they spend their time. Look at what they focus on and what they’ve ordered their life around.

someone who fears the Lord would not willfully and regularly ignore what the Lord has commanded us to do.

He or she would not flaunt their disobedience or pretend that sin is no big deal.

not. I don’t need a trophy wife by my side; I need someone to go into battle with me.

Train yourself to be attracted to the things God finds attractive.

If you can’t cherish someone who loves Jesus but isn’t all that physically attractive, that has much more to say about your spiritual maturity than their looks. You’re not yet attracted to what God finds attractive.

“A woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” And to be asked out on a date.

Lol

With people as with pets, emotions aren’t enough. A relationship based on feelings will only lead to feelings of hurt. And if your goal is to find love, you’d better understand what “love” is.

When you begin to try to learn how to do dating right, it’s going to be painful, because all you know is what’s wrong, and you’re hooked on it. You’re addicted to the drama of it all.

when a man and a woman commit to each other, sacrificially serve each other, and actively love each other regardless of their temporary feelings, do you know what that is? It’s boring.

A healthy, godly marriage is not entertaining. It’s amazing; it’s beautiful; it’s an incredible adventure; it’s boring. You wouldn’t want to watch it, but you do want to live it.

love as a verb. It’s an action. It’s something you do, not something that happens to you.

Before the wedding day, when I first meet with the bride- and groom-to-be, I always ask them, “Why do you love him/her?” One of the more common answers I get is, “Well, I love the way he makes me feel,” or “I love how she makes me feel.” I call them out on that. “Man, that sounds incredibly selfish. What you love about him is about you? You don’t love her for who she is but just for how she makes you feel?

This is good

If your relationship is based on what they can do for you (or what you can do to them), that’s selfish. It’s self-love. You don’t even love them; you just love yourself.

Real love is selfless. It’s about serving, not being served; giving, not getting. And when both people love and give and serve each other selflessly, well, you end up getting quite a lot.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Cor. 13:4–8) What does that describe? Not a feeling.

If you want to love someone, these are your instructions. This is your job description. Be patient, kind, humble (“does not boast . . . [is] not proud”), respectful (“does not dishonor others”), selfless (“not self-seeking”), gentle (“not easily angered”), forgiving (“keeps no record of wrongs”), forgiven (“does not delight in evil”), truthful, protecting, trusting, hopeful, persevering, and faithful (“never fails”).

the Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). Your heart is not just unreliable; it’s deceitful. It lies. It will actively lead you astray, if you let it.

The Bible never says you should follow your heart. Instead, it says you should guard it. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

How do you guard your heart? By being careful what you feed it. Your heart tends to want what you see, what you hear, and what you think about all day long.

!!!

What you feed your senses fuels your heart.

when you pin yet another dress to that wedding day Pinterest board, you focus your heart on the fairy tale of a one-day party rather than preparing for the reality of the thousands of days that will come after that (or, possibly, before).

Ouch

What your heart seeks after won’t change immediately; it’s a process that will take time. The last time I moved, the GPS app on my phone kept trying to send me to all the old places I used to visit. It was used to me typing in certain locations, and it was trained to assume I wanted to go to those places. But, eventually, it learned I wasn’t going there anymore. I had new places I wanted to go, closer to my new home. It stopped trying to direct me to my old neighborhood and started auto-correcting to my new destinations.

Love this example

The same thing happens to your heart when you consistently tell it to seek after a 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love instead of the emotional train wrecks it is used to.

Good example

you set spiritual boundaries by not getting into deep, intense prayer sessions together—which is one of the most intimate and vulnerable things you can do with another person.

!!!

if you’re not even dating someone at all, you definitely shouldn’t be giving your heart away to them.

dating is not about finding someone you’re compatible with. It’s about finding someone you can live with in an understanding way.

I like this advice

If the basis of your relationship is that you both have the same taste in movies, foods, or vacation destinations, what happens when your tastes change?

If my love for my wife was conditional on her love of cruises, we’d be in trouble. But since that was never the basis for our relationship, it’s OK. We can change together.

that’s one theory for why online dating has become so popular: people don’t want to listen to advice from others.2

some people don’t think they deserve better, so they settle for someone who treats them poorly. Just a quick but important reminder: God took great joy in designing you.c

Men and women are typically very different creatures, and those differences are part of the attraction. And, to the extent that those differences complement each other, they can be a good thing.

“complement” and “conflict” are two very different things. If you are talking about someone who is your opposite in their values, worldview, or core beliefs, then that kind of attraction is just luring you into a trap.

the concept of being equally “yoked” goes beyond just having the same general beliefs.

The result of being “yoked together,” therefore, is that the two of you have to be going exactly the same direction, at exactly the same speed, at all times.

Lord, i pray for this.

When you are looking for someone to be “yoked together” with, it is essential to find someone who is going the same direction in life, and at the same speed.

!!!

You want someone who is running after Christ as you are, with the same level of devotion. Because they are either going to be helping you carry your load or actively dragging you down.

Sheesh

You should be looking for someone who is:

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