Last updated on October 23, 2020
Question:
I am a convert from Islam and it’s been several years since my family and I have accepted Christ as our Saviour. I am 21 years old. It seems to be my habit to be attracted to non-Christian boys. Why I am saying it a habit is because it’s the fourth time I am in love with a non-Christian. It seems so cheap, I know, and I consider myself cheap for this habit. I want to get rid of it, but I don’t know how. When things happen I consider myself so very unholy. I know God will never forgive me if I repeat the mistakes again and again. I am tired of myself.
This time I am in love with a non-Christian boy. He wants to marry me and I know it’s not possible to marry. I’m so very confused, tense, and depressed. I am a typical sinner. I have always turned my back on God. Now I feel God has left me. He doesn’t love me anymore. I want to leave this boy and live a holy life in Christ. I am so impure. How am I to leave him? Shall I break up with him, or just maintain a normal relationship as he is leaving the place where I stay. He is shifting forever.
Answer:
It is difficult to answer your question because of the vagueness of your description. In general, it isn’t wrong for a Christian to marry a non-Christian. There are several statements in the Bible discussing how to handle the difficulties that arise from such a situation (I Corinthians 7:12-15; I Peter 3:1-6). But then that is also why it is not advisable to put yourself in such a situation. When a Christian marries a non-Christian, the tendency is for the Christian to lose his faith. There are going to be conflicts because being a non-Christian does not mean he has no religion (even atheism is a religion). The differences in beliefs are always difficult and the contentions get really high when children are involved — after all, in what belief system are the children going to be raised? It is particularly difficult marrying a Muslim believer because of their strong views that all their family must be Muslims.
When you talk about making yourself cheap and being impure and unholy, I wonder if you are hinting that you have been having sexual relations with the boys you claim to love. All sins drive a barrier between the sinner and God. “Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1-2). This is also true with sexual sins. “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 6:9-10).
All sins are repairable, but it does require repenting of the sins (turning away from the sins). Those in Corinth had done so, and it is mentioned in the next verse. “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (I Corinthians 6:11).
It is past time that you stop letting your emotions lead you around and destroy your life. You need to make sound decisions regarding your life based on the teachings of God. You and I can discuss such things. But this foolish idea that somehow you are eviler than all the other sinners in the world and that God would never forgive you has to stop. “Again, when I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ if he turns from his sin and does what is lawful and right, if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of his sins which he has committed shall be remembered against him; he has done what is lawful and right; he shall surely live” (Ezekiel 33:14-16).
So the questions are:
- Do you want to marry this boy?
- Is he truly going to respect your religion and beliefs, and not interfere with your life as a Christian?
- Is he a man who would make a good husband?
Question:
To be honest, I don’t want to marry him because I never supported love marriages, so I don’t want to do the same. Besides my parents will never accept him as a son-in-law. I don’t want to go against my God and my parents, but I don’t want to break his heart because I feel it may spoil his life and I will be blamed for it. I don’t want that.
I have explained to him everything, I never commited to marrying him. From the very beginning I have told him that I love him but marrying him is not possible.
So what should I do? Should I break up with him, or should I continue with a plain simple relation with him until he leaves for another place? He says after he leaves he will never contact me again. He will just vanish from my life.
Answer:
So what you are saying is that you just used this boy for your own personal pleasure. You justified it to yourself because you warned him in advance. That he thought he might win your hand in marriage anyway didn’t matter to you.
It is odd that you disagree with marrying for love when the Song of Solomon talks about the development of love both before and after marriage. In Christian teaching, love is a critical aspect of marriage. Husbands are commanded to love their wives (Ephesians 5:25) and wives are to love their husbands (Titus 2:4).
But odder still is that you claim to love young men you have no intention of considering as husbands. This is not the Christian concept of love. Love “does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil” (I Corinthians 13:5). Yet you sought your own pleasure, which has led you to behave rudely toward a young man. I don’t know if fornication was involved in this relationship, but if it was, then you went even beyond thinking evil. None of this is love.
You need to stop leading this boy on, giving him false hope. It is long past time that you start behaving honorably with all people.