The basis of this new attitude is God's love for us. John explains the connection between God's love and the way we relate to others in 1 John 4:10-11:
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Do you see what John is saying? God's amazing love for us at the cross provides both the example and the power for us to love others. People whose sins have been forgiven through faith in Jesus' death on the cross can't live or love the same ever again. We've been set free from our old self-centred life. We used to be controlled by what felt good, but now, as new creations, we're to be controlled by God's love. In 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, Paul writes:
14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; 15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
The Bible teaches us that if we truly trust in Jesus Christ, we die to our old way of living. And we can no longer live for ourselves - we now live for God and for the good of others.
Because of that, relationships with the opposite sex can no longer be about 'having a good time' or 'learning what I want in a relationship'. They're not about getting, but giving. Every relationship for a Christian is an opportunity to love another person like God has loved us. To lay down our desires and do what's in his/her best interest. To care for him/her even when there's nothing in it for us. To want that person's purity & holiness because it pleases God & protects him/her.
So whether or not we take a break from dating, if our dating is controlled by Christ's love it will look so radically different than the relationships around us that we'll want to come up with a different name for it!
~ taken from "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" by Joshua Harris
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