5 Christian Dating Boundaries

hey everybody this is mark from apply guys were calm a place where we apply the Bible to real life situations and offer a pastoral counselors perspective and today we're talking about five Christian dating boundaries and I think there's so much confusion and debate about what you know dating should be and what boundary should be in place is because by nature dating is kind of ambiguous right if you're somewhere in between friendship and marriage you're not just friends but you're also not married and so you want to share parts about you and you want to open up to this person that you're dating because you want to see whether or not you want to progress but on the flip side you also want to protect your heart because you're not sure if this is gonna last and you don't want to do yourself damage in the process so rather than give you a list of do's and don'ts because I don't want to turn this into a religious thing where hey do this and don't do that what I'd like to do today is are a few five categories that I think you and your circle of influence and maybe you and your boyfriend or girlfriend should sit down and talk about together and say what should the boundaries be in these specific categories that we're talking about here so the first category I would throw out to you that you would want to have a boundary and in Christian dating has to do with your emotions as you've probably heard proverbs 4:23 says guard your heart above all else because you know it's a wellspring of life and again in dating your heart is constantly on the line because you're exposing yourself to someone else and being vulnerable without the commitment that should be there in theory when you're when you're progressing emotionally so in the Bible romance and intimacy are always paired with commitment the more you share with somebody the more you open up your heart to somebody that should coincide with the level of commitment you're making to that person so you should be guarded in a dating relationship because you too haven't made the fullest commitment possible you can to somebody which is marriage in marriage you don't have to guard your heart to the same level as you do in dating because the commitment is there so how much should you share emotionally how much should you open up your heart to somebody I don't know exactly for you what I would say is that you should share enough with that person to know whether or not the two of you want to progress forward so if you're sharing if you if you're sharing not enough so you don't know if the two of you want to be married you're probably not sharing enough but if you're opening yourself up so much where hey you know you want to progress with this person but you're sharing stuff that really should be reserved for marriage you're crossing a boundary there and you're opening yourself up to damage so the first one I would say is protect your heart and protect your emotions set boundaries in that area the second place I would encourage you to think about putting boundaries in your Christian dating relationship is talking about the future with somebody with your boyfriend or girlfriend I think this is a really common error I see a lot in dating it's you talk about the future too much and when you do that you're just exposing yourself to all kinds of you know hopes and dreams and you end up feeling closer to somebody than you really are which then increases the temptation sexually emotionally and takes you way further than you really should go so you should really place boundaries about what you're talking about in the future you don't you know if you're dating for just a few months you don't need to start talking about kids yet you don't need to start listing the names of what names you like or what holidays you're gonna be you know sharing when you get married what kind of house you want to live in when you do that you're just going way too far and you're gonna go too far in your dating relationship so again how much should you talk about the future obviously I'm not saying never talk about the future you're going to need to do that that's something that you have to do in dating to make sure that you're compatible for the future in marriage so again just like the last category I would say you should share an appropriate amount for the level of commitment that's there right now if you're on the not very committed end of the dating relationship guard what you're talking about for the future if you're on the medium to high level of how serious this is you know the serious scale you're in the medium or high level I would say okay it's time to start talking about some of those big things that you need to talk about in dating overall put some boundaries around the conversations you have around the future number three really goes in in and out of all of the categories I'm talking about and number three is put boundaries around your expectations so there should be expectations in in dating it should be fun you shouldn't you know go into it pessimistic absolutely there should be some sort of hope in this dating relationship that it's gonna progress further there's no hope in the dating relationship what are you doing why are you dating that person so of course there should be hope but as proverbs 13 12 says Hope deferred makes the heart sick but you know a hope a dream fulfilled is a tree of life and so what that verse means is when you have a hope hope is a biblical definition of Hope is expectations for something good in the future so when that hope is dashed you're devastated right and so we need to guard what we're putting our hope in ultimately our main hope should be in Jesus Christ alone so we're looking to the head we're looking in the future for good in Jesus because we know that hope is for sure going to be fulfilled and then our hearts won't grow sick but if you have a hope that you're putting in a person and then that hope doesn't work out the two of you break up your hearts gonna be really sick because of that I think it's kind of unavoidable to some degree or the other to you know not not have your heart sick for a little bit after a breakup but one way you can guard your heart is to have healthy levels of hope in that relationship so if you're dating for a week and you'll break up yeah it's gonna be sad but if you put all your hope in that relationship right up front and you thought that person was gonna be the one for you you're going to be devastated when that relationship doesn't work out so guard your expectations guard your hope and match your expectations with the appropriate season that the dating relationship is in the further it progresses the more hope and expectations there should be that this is going to turn into marriage number four is probably the one most people think about when we're talking about boundaries in dating for Christians and that is around your sexuality obviously there needs to be boundaries in the area of your physical intimacy with your boyfriend or girlfriend so what's the line okay this is really what I don't want to give do's and don'ts because there's so much debate here and I think the Bible doesn't give do's and don'ts you're not gonna find a Bible verse where it says don't do Lang don't lay on the couch together or don't kiss and I'm not telling you whether or not to do those things but what I would say is the bible does give us categories for example in 1st corinthians 7 there's two big categories that the Bible gives us for physical intimacy between between people really they're really simple number one all sexual experiences are reserved for marriage that's it it's really simple any sexual experience outside of the commitment of marriage violates God's original intention for physical intimacy and sexual experiences so if you're experiencing something sexual in your dating relationship you're crossing a boundary that the Bible has given you so I think the tricky part is whether you would define something like kissing as a sexual experience or as maybe a you know a sign of affection I think you can play head games with that obviously I don't think we need to debate too long if a long makeout section is a long makeout session is sexual it is okay so don't do that it just definitely going to get you into trouble but you know other things again I don't want to get into do's and don'ts it's more so about the cat is it a sexual experience or is it not a sexual experience and honestly I think the reason nowadays why people date so long and while a lot of times you know marriage is delayed for so long is because sexual experiences are experienced so early in the dating relationship you know so in in in theory you shouldn't have too long of the dating relationship because if you two are connecting and in a good way that God has for you the sexual desire is gonna be growing more and more so don't let that dating relationship last too long progress in the marriage and enjoy sex sex as God has designed it for marriage all right last but certainly not least I would say number five you need to have boundaries around your words and your promises so cutting right to the chase there's a lot of things I think you should and shouldn't say again I'm not going to get into all that but one one challenge I would throw out to you is that the three words I love you for me personally I don't believe in saying those words in in dating I think if you're gonna say I love you there should be a ring attached to that because biblically speaking love is always connected to commitment as we talked about in the beginning of this video so for me I didn't want to tell my wife that I love you but then I did then not showing her the commitment of that of that love loyalty and love are should be married together and so when I when I proposed my wife that was the first time I said I love you and I was I'm very happy we did that because it was a it was an expression of hey I really do love you this isn't just words this is action that I'm putting to it now I completed a respect if you look at a different you look at I love you differently than me I respect that and I'm not saying this is a law for you to follow or don't follow but I would say in general put boundaries around what you say and about the promises you make to somebody in the dating relationship because again if you're saying things and then not add a commitment to that you're going to be going places in that relationship that aren't gonna get you in trouble well there's so much more we can talk about here it's a huge topic these are just five categories that I'm throwing out to you for you and your boyfriend or girlfriend to think through as you're trying to honor the Lord in your dating experience so again I'm mark from apply God's Word calm if you're watching this on YouTube make sure you hit the subscribe button hit the thumbs up so other people can see that if you're watching this on Facebook make sure you like our agw Facebook page so you get all of our newest videos and articles in your newsfeed hit the like button hit the share button leave us a comment and let us know what you think about this what boundary should be included that aren't here do you agree or disagree alright have a good one [Music]

Channel: ApplyGodsWord.com/Mark Ballenger

Views: 79,843

Rating: 4.9542856 out of 5

Keywords: Christian dating boundaries, christian dating physical boundaries, how far is too far in Christian dating, christian dating advice, dating boundaries, thatChristianvlogger, christian dating boundaries kissing, sex in Christian dating

Id: X9440IJPr-c

Length: 11min 56sec (716 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 24 2017