What You Were Not Told About Online Christian Dating

If only many youths had been told what they need to know about relationships, both online and offline without mincing words at the early stage of their life, they would have escaped the consequences of relationship issues.

It is quite unfortunate that many pastors had failed to enlighten their youths and singles about the dangers of dating, but they learned their lessons in a bitter way.

Due to the worldliness of the church and the church feasting with the world, the church had consciously or unconsciously supported the term ‘Christian Dating’.

Is there anything like Christian dating? That the prefix ‘Christian’ is added to a worldly thing doesn’t mean God approved it. Let’s go back to the old-time religion!

Dating means different strokes for different folks. But trust me, the average person believes dating is that relationship where you decide to know whether you’ll marry the person or not and it involves premarital sex or its immoralities.

Many, especially young Christian singles date for casual reasons. Some, in their early teenage years, date; after some time when they know better, they venture into another dating relationship and before you know it, they have had more than three dates in their lifetime. Is this what Christ came to die for?

If you’re a Christian youth reading this, please pay serious attention. There’s nothing like Christian dating, what the Bible support is friendship. If you must have friends, your relationship must do one thing for you: sharpen your life (Prov. 27:17). To be sincere, how many dating relationships have you ever seen where the parties involved became trailblazers or world changers?

As Christian youths, if you haven’t developed an intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit, you’ll desire a relationship with the opposite sex. But when you have a fellowship with the Holy Spirit, you’ll most times ignore other relationships just to maintain perfect communion with Him. Do I have a witness to this?

When it comes to online relationships, this is another world entirely where most Christian youths yoked themselves with tragedies.

Trust me, the online world is full of good and evil people. There are many ‘born against Christians’, churchgoers, and unbelievers who pretend to be real Christians, but by their fruits, you will know them IF you are sensitive.

You need serious caution when you’re meeting people online especially on Facebook, Whatsapp, or Instagram. Some people are scammers, some are thieves but there are also godly and sincere people too but they are very few.

The online world is a place where you may never know the real nature, temperament, or identity of whom you’re chatting with because many will fake being cool, calm, and collected only to deceive unsuspecting victims. My people, it is a world of uncertainty!

Christian ladies, be very careful with the opposite sex you meet online. Beware of his frequent calls, unexpected gifts, and attention, many guys are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Even some who appear Christian or have the title of MOG are yet to crucify their flesh.

Should a Christian date online or offline?

When it comes to choosing whom to marry, the world has their own pattern and those in Christ has their own way they ought to go.

Why will you date (assess the suitability of a person for marriage) when you can trust God to guide you to the right person? Oh, they say heaven helps those who help themselves! No sir! It’s a lie from the pit of hell.

What the Bible says is: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path” (Proverbs 3:5-7). Do you still have it in your Bible?

God is still in the business of matchmaking His sons and daughters to fulfill His agenda on earth. Don’t listen to that lie that He stopped during Adam’s time.

Hear this, dating doesn’t allow you to depend on God for guidance on whom to marry. It simply makes you tell God that you know what you want and you can find the right person yourself.

And do you know that some people have more than one dates before they settled for marriage? Was it God’s plan for them? What happened to their first, second, or third dates?

Online dating for Christians has done more harm than good. It has exposed lots of Christian singles to erotic conversations, masturbation, pornography, premarital sex, social media addiction, unwanted pregnancy, untimely death, and all the evil you can’t imagine.

I know many, at the height of pressure to get married will try to seek solace from social media platforms but please tread the online world with caution.

Can God lead me to marry someone I met online?

Hmmm! God’s way is mysterious and is past finding. God can lead you but you can also lead yourself. God won’t lead you to someone you already have feelings for. God won’t play pranks on your emotions when you’re already wishing to be married to that person. God won’t lead you to marry online when you spend the bulk of your time online.

How can you know that He’s speaking when you don’t have time for Him? How can you know He’s talking when you have already communicated your thoughts to the person? How can you know that He’s the One talking when you’re already wishing, dreaming, or fantasizing about him or her?

That brother A met sister B online and they’re married doesn’t mean God approved it or that He will use that medium to lead you to whom you’d marry. Understand His dealing with your life personally!

God can lead you to someone you’ll marry online but He must have guided you offline. God doesn’t play games with people’s life or do trial and error. If you don’t know how He leads you offline, how can you discern when your flesh is leading you online?

Remember, there’s a way that seems right to a man but the end thereof is destruction. The path or process through which you get married determines the outcome of your marital life and destiny. 

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Question and Answer session.

Is it a sin to be in a relationship?

She asked

Let me digress a bit before I answer your question. Why is it that most men don't ask this kind of question about when to be in a relationship, but a lot of women do? 

I believe the answer isn't farfetched. 

Men aren't wired to be committed in a love relationship until they know they're ready for it, but most women desire to be committed to a relationship even when they know they're not ready for it, and they give their all to it, hoping it would work.

It won't work o. There's no way you'd be committed to a man who sees you as an option in his life, and that would change his mind about you. This is why a man can have sex with you, and will NEVER be committed to you. But once a woman allows sexual intimacy, she becomes more committed to the relationship even when the man is not ready to do so.

I'll drum this to the ears of every lady out there who cares to listen: you'd bear the brunt of premarital sex more than a man once you allow it. Stay away from it; save sex for marriage.

Let's even assume there's no STD, pregnancy, and all that stuff that comes with it, once a man has sex with you, you'd be deprived of the commitment your soul desires from such a relationship. Why should he be committed when you've given him what he wanted?

A man will do everything for you if he hasn't gone down there, but once he does, you'd be the one to do everything for him.

Don't be a woman that's moved by her feelings or pleasure, be a divine purpose-oriented woman.

See, a relationship is not a sin when:

1. You are ready for marriage

It is one thing to be ready for a wedding, it's another thing to be ready for marriage. You're ready for the wedding when you're only bothered about the event than the life after it. 

You shouldn't be in a relationship when marriage isn't your goal. And does it mean you should be in a relationship for marriage? Be in a relationship when you're sure you've found the right one that would lead to marriage.

Stop dating several persons for the sake of finding the right person; trial and error don't help either, it destroys. However, it's not age that determines your readiness for marriage, several factors which are not limited to these determines it: maturity, responsibility, your level of understanding, finding the right person, becoming the right person, divine timing, and so on.

It is a sin to be in a relationship when you are still several years far from getting married. If you're not getting married in less than two years, don't lead yourself into temptation.

2. You know where you are going in life

Those who know where they're going in life are not distracted by the place that looks like where they're going.

When you have discovered your divine ordination and you're ready for marriage, it's good to be in a relationship.

However, you'd destroy so many things in your life when you don't know where you're going in life. This is why those who know their purpose and pursuit in life use people who don't know theirs to accomplish theirs.

Where are you heading in life? To fulfill your divine purpose or you have no direction or vision for the future? It's wrong to be in a relationship when you have no bearing in life. Do the needful. Life is more than messing up with your destiny in an immoral relationship.

3. You know what you want

It is painful to realize that most ladies don't know what they want. If you want a sexually pure relationship, go for it. It's an act of ignorance not to know what you want and you're crying that you had illicit sex.

If a relationship looks like what you don't want, you can easily quit when you're not emotional about it. But when you don't know what you want in life, and out of the relationship, you'd manage whatever comes from it. 

If he abuses or cheats on you, you'd manage it with the hope that change might come later on, and that's tales by moonlight. 

It is better to be in a relationship that would lead into marriage when you know what you want from a potential spouse, you know where you are going and you're ready for marriage, not the wedding.

But if all these three things are not in place, especially number 1, it's a great sin. You know why?

1. You'd destroy yourself in it

A person who is not ready for marriage and doesn't know what he or she wanted, but jumps into a relationship at the wrong time would be destroyed in it.

Doing the wrong thing at the wrong time is dangerous. You'd destroy yourself in it by doing those things you should never be doing.

Premarital sex destroys if you don't repent from it, it's not fun. The effect may not be known, but it would surely tell.

2. You'd be distracted

Are you bent on fulfilling the purpose why God created you? Please don't be talked into an opposite-sex relationship. If the likes of Ibukun Awosika, or Ngozi-Okonjo Iweala had been hopping in and out of a boyfriend and girlfriend relationship, they wouldn't have become all that we celebrated in them today.

Dear lady, there's more to what you'd become in life than to waste your precious destiny in an immoral relationship. Be focused on achieving success, and when the right time comes, you'd marry the right person.

It's a lie from the pit of hell that once you become successful as a woman, no man will approach you for marriage. See, ordinary men consider successful women a threat in marriage, but real men aren't intimidated by their success

Going into a relationship is not a sin when it does not take the place of God in your life, or make you a sinner. But it's a sin when it kills you softly, distracts, destroys and you know it not.

You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. 

Composed by  Oluwamayowa Adeniyi