Christian dating has a strange problem at its center. The relationship is supposed to be good. The longing for marriage is supposed to be a good thing. The desire for closeness, for intimacy, for someone who finally gets you, all of it is supposed to be good. And yet plenty of Christian dating relationships end in regret, compromise, or damage that takes years to unwind. Why?

The problem usually isn't what we loved during the relationship. It's the order in which we loved things. A good thing got promoted past where it belonged, and something more important got demoted to make room for it. The relationship became more important than God. Romance became more important than the other person's holiness. Closeness became more important than wisdom. None of those ‘loves’ is evil. They just ended up in the wrong place on the list, and everything downstream got distorted.

Dating is not marriage. But it is not nothing either. The patterns of love you build in dating are the patterns you carry into marriage, sharpened or distorted by however many years you've practiced them. If you’re dating now or thinking about getting into a relationship, here is the proper way to order how you love things.

Love God Above the Relationship

Disordered love makes the relationship an idol. You'll know it's an idol when you find yourself willing to compromise convictions, neglect spiritual disciplines, or disobey God to keep the person.

It looks like skipping church because you'd rather spend the day together. Like reading your Bible less because the relationship is consuming your attention. Like making peace with sin you used to fight, because fighting it now would create tension. The moment a relationship requires you to lower your loyalty to Jesus, the relationship has become the wrong kind of love. Anything you can't give up for God has become a god to you.

Love the Person's Good Above Your Romantic Feelings

Their spiritual health and holiness matter more than your emotional satisfaction.

Disordered love prioritizes the rush of romance over the other person's sanctification. It leads them into sin, encourages compromise, and creates temptation because it feels good in the moment. If your relationship is making them less like Jesus, it's not love, no matter how strong the feelings are. Love wants the other person more sanctified, not just more available.

Love Wisdom Above the Relationship

Submit to godly input from parents, pastors, and mature believers, even when it's hard to hear.

Disordered love isolates from accountability, dismisses concerns, and hides the relationship from the people who know you best. Proverbs 15:22 says plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. If your relationship can't survive the input of people who love you and know you, it won't survive marriage either. 

Love Sexual Purity Above Relational Progression

Honouring God's design for sex matters more than relational momentum or the fear of losing them.

Disordered love sacrifices purity for closeness and justifies compromise with the line every Christian dating couple has used at some point: we're going to get married anyway. First Corinthians 6:18 says to flee from sexual immorality. There's no asterisk for engaged couples. There's no asterisk for long-term relationships. There's no asterisk for couples who feel ready. The standard is the same on the day before your wedding as it was on your first date. Purity is not a hurdle to clear before marriage. It's a way of loving someone that says you matter to me more than what I want from you.

Love Community Above Coupling

Maintain your friendships, your family relationships, and your church involvement. Don't disappear into the relationship.

Disordered love abandons community and makes the other person your whole world. That's not romantic. That's unhealthy, and it puts a weight on the relationship that it was never meant to carry. The people you stop investing in during dating are the people you'll need when dating gets hard.

A Question Worth Sitting With

Dating exposes the order of your loves faster than almost anything else. The intensity of a new relationship will reveal what's actually sitting at the top of your heart, often whether you want it to or not.

Sit with these questions and ask yourself: what is this relationship currently doing to the order of my loves? Has it pushed God down the list? Has it pushed wisdom, community, or purity down the list? Has it become so central that I can't imagine life without it?