I get alot of people asking, why should a believer not date or marry an unbeliever? Before I start stating the reasons, let me clear the air, this post is not to say that as believers we should not associate with unbelievers or do not take it out of context and say that I am judging anyone.
So...
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
Lets break this down, what does it mean to be yoked? Anyone who has seen farmers use animals to plough the land, you have probably seen two animals held together by a wooden beam, this is done to enable them to pull together a load as they work as a pair. The wooden beam (yoke) helps them to go at the same pace and the same direction. So, as believer, your life consists of pursuing Christ, meaning your life consists of you walking in the Spirit and not by the desires of your flesh. For an unbeliever, your life is guided by the desires of your flesh, your flesh is not submitted to Christ hence your life looks very different (let's just be honest here). So when you two get together and decide to be in a relationship, meaning now you are doing life as a couple( pair), are you two heading in the same direction? since your lives are very different.As the scripture says what do you two have in common? apart from the attraction you have for each other or maybe hobbies? but what do you have in common, your principals, beliefs, convictions etc.?
Consider the story of Solomon, a man who had everything in life! He started off very well, walking with God and asking God for wisdom and in return God gave him above and beyond what he had asked for. God told him not to marry foreign women, but what did Solomon do? He got married to several of them and ended up worshiping the idols these women worshiped, to be honest up to the point of his death, his heart was not with God (at least from what I have read from the bible). Thing is when God warns us against certain things, it is never to punish us or make our lives dull, but it is always to protect and enable us to walk right with Him.
Amos 3:3 How can two walk together unless they agree?
Building on to the first verse shared, here is the thing. For a Christian, your faith (belief in Jesus Christ dying for our sins and raising from the dead) determines how you make decisions, decisions on money, decisions on what to wear, decisions on raising children etc. lets just say our every day decisions. So if this faith is that important to you, it should be as important to the person you date/marry because you two will be making decisions together. e.g. as a Christian you decide to wait to have sex in marriage because God's idea of sex, is that sex should be in the context of marriage, but for a unbeliever's view of sex is not the same, so how do you navigate through this? I can give alot of examples but let me use this one because its one of the major convictions I had when I got saved. If the faith you have is that important to you then you will want to have someone who shares in the same faith because they will have the same convictions as it is easier (not trouble free) to walk together in life with someone who you agree with.
Consider, Samson, who from the time he was born, God already chose him to be a judge of his people when he would grow up, hence his mother being given very specific instructions about how to take care of him. Samson grows up, and marries a woman from another tribe where God had told them not to marry from, we all know the story of how he was tricked and his hair was cut and actually at this moment the bible says, that when Samson woke up after his hair was cut, he did not realize that GOD was no longer with him and he was defeated and taken as a slave. Later we see him repent and God restores his strength. The thing is, he altered his destiny just because he married a woman who did not believe and serve God but served idols, she was not in agreement with the calling over his life because how could she? she didn't know God, she didn't know the divine plan that God had for Samson and His people, therefore it was never a big deal for her to betray him.
I hope this post inspires you as a believer to consider the relationship you desire to be in, that it may be one which you will walk with an aim of pleasing God as a couple. I hope that it will help you as a believer, test the relationship you are in, to see if you two are really equally yoked and if you are not, for God to give you the grace to say ' if you are not in our relationship then we do not want it' and walk away and allow God to direct you.
I pray that for you as a believer will be so sold out to Christ that you will not compromise just because you want to be in a relationship, to not be afraid to walk out of a relationship because you fear that you have given it alot of time, of you will never find someone, I pray that you will understand that a generation will be changed simply because you chose to obey and not be unequally yoked.
