You're not making love when you're f***ing: Christian relationships uncovered.

jossnicholas
Mar 11, 2021
12 min read

Updated: May 26, 2023

Excuse the language. I don't use the F-word myself, but I feel this slang term may help the point stick in your mind.

If you think this post is helpful to peeps after reading please do share ☺️

If you are f*cking around with someone you don't love them or they you! That’s what I feel, read on and see if you think the same.

Firstly, I'm not throwing stones from my ivory tower, I have had sex outside of marriage. This is no condemnation chorus! This is about Jesus culture, a kingdom world view to check our 'eyesight' and how we, as christians, are viewing sex. What’s the deal with luuuve inside and outside of marriage?

F*cking is fun. Yes it is!! I personally think sex is the most fun thing you can do with your body, and somebody else's, obvs. I am far from promiscuous, yet can say honestly that taking my time over the curves of God's finest creation and person I love is by far my favourite hobby. Ladies, likewise, love to devour their man as their favourite thing too.

However, though we can enjoy sex, we can't make love to someone who is not our spouse.

It is not possible. Period.

Lets discuss why...

You see, one of the defining characteristics of love is to prefer the other. That is, to think more highly of the other. To want what is best for the other. It is the opposite of self seeking.

We CAN be in love and have sex outside of marriage. However, if we follow Jesus we're not making love, we're just having sex. You maybe tell each other how much you love one another and I know, in that moment, you will feel a sense of closeness and love, but the reality is it's not the highest expression of REAL love. As you caress your partners skin, releasing the clasp on her bra, or unbuttoning his jeans, you may say 'I love you' but the actions you are going through are saying I am willing to give/accept this despite it hurting God by hurting you. That is not love.

Sex doesn't offend God. It is God's idea. He made it fun, well just for fun!

What offends God is mistreating His sons and daughters, that's me and you!🙌🏼 So when we give and accept something so intimate that God has said to keep exclusively for marriage we are hurting His creation.

The Bible repeatedly highlights the importance of encouraging each other to live God honouring lives. ( 1 Thess 2:12 'encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God...', Hebrews 3:13 '...encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.' Ephesians 4:1 '...I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.' Hebrews 10:24 '... let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds' etc. etc.)

Finally just to make sure we all agree that the Bible is super clear: “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honourable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before.” - 1 Thess 4:3-6 NIV

When we truly love someone we will want to express that in the most intimate way. That's good, we should. However, until we have promised ourselves to each other before God, and with a Christian witness, we all know it is outside of God's best. Let us use the right word here, it is sin. Sex isn't sin, sex is freaking awesome! Sex outside of marriage is sin. So this person who is the object of our love, how can we encourage them to sin against God and against us?

As you caress your partners skin, releasing the clasp on her bra, or unbuttoning his jeans you may say 'I love you' but...

We are called to love our spouse as Christ loved the church, that is be ready to die for. When it comes to our partners I think plenty of men (& women) would die for them BUT not ready to abstain for them. Did you hear that?

Let us consider one of the most well known passages about love 1 Cor 13:

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love will evidenced in patiently waiting for the dedication and commitment of marriage. Patience by default is moving at a pace which wouldn't be your chosen one and will require, yup patience.
Love will not dishonour the other by accepting what is holy (sacred and set apart) for marriage.
Love will push back the desire (right to have) of the self seeking carnal flesh in order to prefer the other.
Love will not delight and celebrate f*cking around as though it were good it will call that out for what it is and chose to take the narrow way in order to protect the other.

F*cking is fun, not fair. If we want to be fair to the other person and treat them as a loved and adored son/daughter of the creator then make love. That means in marriage.

We all want a God honouring spouse but forget that this sort of God honouring person is looking for a God honouring person too... is that you? Will they choose you? Be the one, that the one you are looking for, is looking for! Commit that to memory!

F*cking is fun, not fair.

There is no condemnation in Christ ok, none, zero, so if you feel condemned it is not Jesus. Condemnation is conviction without hope. You have hope! You can read this and feel convicted, that is ok. But you must couple that with hope. Hope that you can live in a way that honours your future spouse and God.

I am going to answer some questions that have come up recently, or historically, in conversations I have had as a pastor and or friend as I think it will be a helpful way to discuss a little more.

Question and answers on Christians sex outside / before marriage

What if he/she wants to express our love with making love? - Well of course they do, if they have a pulse and they fancy you then yes, they no doubt will also want to screw your brains out! It is 100% natural and if you don't then there is a legitimate issue! Desire is not sinful, it needs to find it's rightful expression. Hence, the reason you need to either get serious or not. Long term dating is not an easy option for a Christian mainly due to this issue. Take this as a gift as it stops you wasting time. If you know it is right, then get on and get married, if you really know they are not the one then cut it off. I am not going to divert here into 'how do I know if they are the one..?'. Except to say ask Jesus as your first point of call.

What happens if I wait and then marry someone who is no good in bed or doesn't want to have sex? - Ok so this is a legitimate question. There is almost nobody on the planet who doesn't enjoy sex. However, there is also nothing you do with a person which is so vulnerable. So everything comes down to communication. Now, as Christians, I am not sure we are good at this... in fact as a pastor of over 10 years I know we are not! What I will say is that you will enjoy sex if you get good at talking about it. Sex is not about getting to know someone, this is done with their clothes on! Having a great sex life is not an instantaneous thing often and so great sex develops best within the intimacy of marriage (I am going to write more articles on having great sex lives, so sign up here).

You don't test drive your wife or husband unless you want someone else to test drive them too?!?!

If you are willing to have a test ride of a potential spouse then you must accept that someone else maybe considering taking your future spouse for a test ride too!!! That means another person could be f*cking your wife / husband right now... Yeah exactly!! I know that is graphic and apologies for that but I want you to feel this point. 'Try before you buy' is not something you want for your future spouse, where ever they are, right?! So why should we be test driving someone else's future spouse?

Can you f*ck when you're married or should it be love making? - This is an interesting question I was asked. I knew what they meant. They were distinguishing between the candle lit romantic and gentle versus the rip their nickers / boxers off and take them on the kitchen worktop. In context basically what they were asking was, is the latter somehow unclean / ungodly.

Christian's having great sex is a fab topic!

I would say, without question, that it's both. I don't want to side track myself, but will say for now that its your honour, privilege and duty to take your spouse, every where in every way as often as you can. Absolutely "woo" and "wow" your spouse with romance, have a bath together and make love in bed covered with rose petals. However, you CAN AND SHOULD LUST after your spouse too! There is something very nice about your wife / husband finding you irresistible and barely being able to make it through the front door. I think for Christians, we get the first and can talk about that quite easily, however, we all want the second too. God made sex for fun. Yes having children is part of it, however, women can orgasm for one reason, God decided to create them that way! When you marry, your body is not your own, it is given to your spouse for enjoyment and fun. Yes love, but fun! There are caveats to this though so it needs its own article (follow me on insta to see new blog posts) which I have started writing. It will be a bit x-rated though so perhaps for those married, or about to be!

We have already had sex is there any point in stopping now? - I totally get this. I was having sex with my girlfriend outside of marriage. We very much enjoyed each others bodies and sex was fantastic. But we were just f*cking. We loved each other but my issue was that we couldn't love each other enough if we would not stop causing each other to sin. Many will not understand you wanting to redraw healthy, God honouring boundaries. My own mum who is a Christian would ask whether we wanted to share a room when we visited. I said no, as we are putting good boundaries in place. She responded by saying, 'well you have slept together before, it's a bit late for that'. Respectfully, she is wrong. It is never the wrong time to start doing the right thing. Never. In my situation it was hard, but we agreed to break things off until we could honour each other and God. We agreed that we would ask God for a 'yes' or 'no' on one other so we were not a temptation.

The question that I was asking myself is, 'How can I ask God to bless something that I am deliberately damaging?'.

So yes, there is a good reason, I believe. It will be difficult, you will likely fail at times too if you carry on dating, stepping over the line you have drawn. However, failure is not final and God sees hearts above all else. So talk about it together, perhaps send them a link to this article as a discussion point.

He / she says that if I really love them I will want to have sex. - I am sure we have all heard this but I am going to say two things on it:

1) Tell them if they REALLY love you (remember this all only matters to believers) then they should prefer you enough to honour you and prefer you. If they agree then great, keep dating and see where it goes. What you must talk about is that you can both agree with this and both still struggle with wanting to have sex.

2) This is not what may get asked a lot in response to this question, but do you want to have sex with them? Like if you were able to when married etc.? If you don't, then its likely that you are not attracted to them in the right way. I know people will put on instagram that they married their best friend, yay... but they also want to f*ck them too! So if you don't perhaps they are not the right one... Anyway that's an aside really.

I think about sex all the time is there anyway I can avoid having sex with my current of future partner? - Yes. You wont like it though. Don't stay out late on your own, don't stay at each others houses, don't start start rubbing your hands up their legs, don't start to undress them, don't... you get the point. You know this stuff. It really really is not rocket science. We just don't like it, I get that. However, the easiest way to not get burned is to not play with fire!

We are just playing a bit but not having intercourse is that ok? - Christians sometimes are the dumbest people on the planet, lol. Oral sex is, yup, SEX. If you are making someone cum in you, on you or whatever (girl or guy) you have gone waaaay past the line. (Again apologies for being explicit, lol, it just gets to the point). The point is to honour each other, not see how far you can go. It misses the whole purpose of waiting for marriage. Our human nature to all push that boundary as much as we can. So, like all boundaries, place them in safe place rather than at the point of danger.

How do I abstain from sex before marriage? - It is hard, if you are dating then you have found someone you find attractive on numerous levels. This will include the physical.

So try and think about it like eating healthy, one of the first things to do is NOT buy bad food. We need to distance temptation. Too often I have metaphorically had a banquet in front of me and tried not to eat it - in those scenarios you think 'I can just have one bite' and as we all know, that one bite turns into devouring the whole thing!

Dating as you get older makes temptations even more difficult - dating in my late 30's with my own home, no parents in the next room etc. makes the situation impossible when you're both trying to resist one another. It's important to create situations that put in-place healthy barriers, such as going out for a walk, meeting with friends etc.

If I cant have sex with my partner is it ok to watch porn? - 'I am angry at Joe Bloggs, I can't murder him, can I just saw one of his legs off?' Haha!! Just being silly, but you get my point, a seemingly 'lesser' sin isn't really the answer. Porn is perhaps even worse, I am not sure as I write this if it is or not, I will give that some thought, but porn certainly has many layers of problems. I was recently talking with a lady who dated a guy when she was a late teen who was already incapable of having sex because he couldn't get it up due to watching so much porn. This was a very attractive girl too. That is mental! So short answer is NO NO NO. Don't do that to yourself, porn is an addiction that can plague people for years. It dishonours, it is linked to crime... I will write a post about this too... it's important... and too often people are not aware of the reasons why it is so unhealthy.

I love Jesus but I keep messing up in this area. Is there hope? - Ok so you're not alone. If you want to see the stats check the link at end - about 80% of Christians have had sex outside of marriage. That doesn't mean it's ok, it just means it is clearly not that easy. The route to freedom is to renew your mind as the Bible says. This is to think about it from God's perspective. What is God is trying to save you for and from?! Plenty of amazing men and women let sex trip them up, King David was called a man after God's heart and was a bit a slag, to put it bluntly. God sees your heart and whether you want to live better. The best answer is to ask for His help. There is hope and it is never too late to put the right practices in to place. Remember, it is right to feel conviction, but condemnation means you don't see hope and there is hope.

This started off as a wee 5 min insta post and it turned in to an article so I am going to sign off here. There is always more to say and I am sure there are thoughts and questions you are having as you read this.

Firstly, I say again, don't feel condemned if you have fallen short at times, I have, many have. Condemnation is believing there is no hope and that you are a bad person. That is not true!

Secondly, if reading this has raised a question for you then you can bet others have had the same. So be brave and drop me a message, make comment or DM on insta... whatever just ask and I will respond. I will respond anonymously of course!

I will be writing more on the subject on sex, marriage, divorce and more. Until then I hope you can commit to MAKING LOVE NOT F*CKING!