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1st July 2010 by Phil Inglis

Is it okay to date a non-Christian?

Yes. Of course it is. There is no law against it, but then there is no law against lots of things that may not good for you. Think first about why you are dating. Are you dating for marriage or just for the fun of it? If you are dating for the fun of it, then I guess you aren't going to get all deep and meaningful about faith and stuff, but you should ask yourself, what's the point?

However, if you are dating to find a life-partner, and your boy/girlfriend is not on the same spiritual wavelength as you, you need to be careful.

There are three possible outcomes:

1. You will 'convert' your partner and you will both walk through life with Jesus which will involve talking about Scripture and praying together.

2. You try and live separate faith lives. This happens quite often when a husband or wife comes to faith later in life and the other partner doesn't share in the experience.

3. Most likely (statistically speaking) you will leave the church. In my experience this generally means that you will go through a slow fade away from your faith. I have seen many of my friends leave the community of faith that began with a relationship with a 'non-Christian'.

Given these possible outcomes, there is a great risk that you will do damage to your relationship with God, which is the most important relationship you will ever have. I'm not sure it's a risk I would take, and therefore wouldn't recommend that anyone else take that risk either.

The Bible talks about being saved by grace not by good works. But it seems too easy. Surely we have to be good to get into Heaven ... don't we?

My short answer is no ... you don't have to, but if you are in a relationship with God through the Spirit, you will be better than you are now. The question isn't so much about being good or not, it's about your attitude (see Galatians 3).  

Christians are forever raising questions about rules and when your list of dos and don'ts gets long enough, you become a frustrated Christian. You have an attitude towards God based on rules not on relationship.

Whenever a relationship is reduced to a checklist, it's probably not going to last very long and is certainly not going to be very joyful. It's the same in life; whenever you measure your life by a list, you missed it. Not because the things on the list are bad, it's just that being motivated by a list doesn't solve your problem.

In a relationship it is far better to know the person intimately, to know their concerns, to know their heart, to know their desires and to be in such a strong relationship that you just do whatever it takes to make things work, almost without thinking about it.

So in your Christian life, good works are important, but only because they should be a natural, joyful, and effortless outcome of a life in relationship with God. You shouldn't be in a relationship with God because you think you should be. If you are in a true relationship with God it is great fun, insightful, enjoyable, exciting, challenging and inspiring – it changes your life ... you don't.

What does Jesus mean when he says he is living bread and water?

If you don't eat, you die. If you don't drink, you die.

Before you die though, you get very hungry and very thirsty. There develops in you a deep need, a deep desire, a desperate desire for food and water.

In the same way, we have very deep and desperate emotional and spiritual needs and desires. These are the most important things of life! Someone can have plenty of bread and water, plenty to eat and drink, but can still be the most bitter, angry and soulless person. Such a person could be said to be living but not truly alive.

The love of God as expressed by Jesus on the cross and as confirmed by the Holy Spirit in our hearts (or in our guts as the ancient Hebrews would have said) fills that hole, that hunger for emotional and spiritual 'food and drink'.

John 6:35 says: "Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty"."

In other words if you accept that Jesus is the Son of God, that he was truly from Heaven and that he died on the cross taking away all of your sin, if you believe that he rose from the dead and through the Holy Spirit he wants to live in your life – and you want that – then he will come and hang out in your life with you. Jesus will fill that empty space soothing the hurts, comforting the soul and teaching your spirit as you live in relationship with him – the "living" bread and water.

By Phil Inglis

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