Non-Christian Boyfriend? Help?!

[Aldaelen]

I've been dating this guy whom I love and adore for over a year now, although I have known him for eight years. I started dating him when I wasn't religious...well I was but it was not Christianity in the slightest. I've turned away from that. I have been attending church since October and have been praying and growing closer to God by the day. My boyfriend is not religious and was not raised in a religion. I have "joked" around with ideas of him coming to church with me sometime (he really can't due to his work schedule but you never know) and he's like "Nah". But he has said before he isn't into religion because he feels it's a man made thing to control people's thoughts and feelings. He has "Agnostic" under his Facebook religious section which means he doesn't necessarily believe or disbelieve in a higher power. I pray every single night that one day he will turn himself to God or at least go to church with me sometime. I don't want to confront him about it and make it seem like I am pushing my beliefs on him. I just don't know what to do. I could use some insight.
If you just read all this could you at the very least Say a prayer for me and him? Thank you.

 

[dhh712]

I've been dating this guy whom I love and adore for over a year now, although I have known him for eight years. I started dating him when I wasn't religious...well I was but it was not Christianity in the slightest. I've turned away from that. I have been attending church since October and have been praying and growing closer to God by the day. My boyfriend is not religious and was not raised in a religion. I have "joked" around with ideas of him coming to church with me sometime (he really can't due to his work schedule but you never know) and he's like "Nah". But he has said before he isn't into religion because he feels it's a man made thing to control people's thoughts and feelings. He has "Agnostic" under his Facebook religious section which means he doesn't necessarily believe or disbelieve in a higher power. I pray every single night that one day he will turn himself to God or at least go to church with me sometime. I don't want to confront him about it and make it seem like I am pushing my beliefs on him. I just don't know what to do. I could use some insight.
If you just read all this could you at the very least Say a prayer for me and him? Thank you.

My belief is that a Christian should not get married to a non-believer. Someone who has seriously devoted their life to Christ will not be able to do this efficiently while married to a non-Christian. If you had been married already, that is different. You already had made a vow; God must have placed you in that position for reasons of his own eternal counsel that we may not ever know. But to go into that situation and make a vow before God knowing before of this discrepancy between you and your partner about the deity of Christ is sinful and will only lead to further sin as well as the greater possibility of bringing children into world that will be outside of Christ.

I don't think it is very wise to tempt the Lord by thinking something along the lines of that this will be a trial but in the end it will work out okay. It may be God's counsel that your boyfriend will not know God and if you do marry him, it may be the Lord's will that your children will not know him either [there is no guarantee that you will not have any children either, no matter even if either one of you are thought to be unable to have any; there was been plenty of others--and I'm not talking only about biblical personalities--who were told they were unable to have children yet had them (vasectomies, hysterectomies, etc.)].

I don't say these things lightly or without being able to empathize with you. Which is probably why I am saying what I do say. I was involved in a long relationship (10 years), was engaged actually, to a non-believer whom I still care about and pray for everyday. We met while we were both unbelievers but eventually I was converted by the Lord. I know if I left the person I'm engaged to now to go back to him, I would have a very comfortable material life and a relationship with few problems. Yet there is a couple problems, first and foremost is that he is not a believer while I am. Also, I no longer have romantic feelings for him though I care about him a lot (still, in order to not be lonely, I definitely would have gone back with him if I had not been a believer. Though I have no romantic feelings, there is nothing that really was catastrophic in our relationship to cause us to break up outside of my conversion. And if we had been married before I had been converted, I would not have gotten a divorce from him. I made sure I made that clear to my current fiancé so there are no misunderstanding about why we broke up. Mainly, it was because he was not a believer).

 

[Greg J.]

You are in a difficult spot, because you are such a new Christian. Something that might be clear cut to a more mature Christian might be very difficult for you. (I suggest you ask for God's help that his will be done.) My thoughts below might be unpleasant news to you, but I only say them because I am thinking about your greatest long-term happiness. Disclaimer: I haven't dated much and have never been married.

Fundamentally God loves you and sacrificed his son so you could be in a positive, thriving relationship with him. The farther down the path to Jesus you look, the more awesome it is for you. Life is difficult even when you are surrounded by supportive Christians (and not an unbelieving boyfriend/husband). I think it would be wise to try to understand what your boyfriend is like when you are under a lot of pressure to do one thing and your boyfriend is under a lot of pressure to do something else.

God is pretty serious about his followers not getting too involved with unbelievers. See 1 Corinthians 7, 2 Corinthians 6, and Ephesians 5. There's also a lot of other passages about the connection between believers and unbelievers. (Your favorite search engine would yield plenty of reading material.)

You may not yet be thinking about marriage, however, if you let your relationship get to that point, it may be too difficult to turn away, even if you think that is what God wants. (I know someone who waited too long, and her thinking changed to justify what she wanted.) A successful marriage is about sacrificial love. Is your boyfriend ready to lay down his life for you? (Ephesians 5:25) If he says he is, why is he unwilling to become a follower of Jesus? Put another way, does he love you more than himself? It is fundamental to genuine love that a person be willing to give up what he or she wants for sake of the other. That is part of what Jesus meant when he said, If you love me, you will obey what I command. (John 14:15, 1984 NIV) (Giving up you want to do what Jesus wants is a form of love.)

The hard part of all of this is that you will eventually need to choose between God and your boyfriend. There really is no such thing as completely "letting you be Christian," because successfully growing relationship (marriage) is a melding of two people. If God clearly told you to move to a different place, but your boyfriend didn't want to leave his job, what would you do? He won't be able to trust God that He will provide another job. Depending on your calling, you may need to make a lot of pro-Jesus decisions.

What if your relationship doesn't work out—a fancy way of saying, what if being with each other comes to cause increasing pain for each of you. From God's point of view, divorce is not an option. (I'm not talking about an abuse situation.) With two people devoted to obedience to God, each will have God's help to work it out, and if each is willing to lay down their lives for the other, it will almost certainly work out. Your boyfriend may only have the advice of unbelievers to help him (a scary thing from my perspective).

Depending on your personality, you might consider is keeping your eye out for a Christian that you are attracted to. Sometimes one of the reasons it is hard to stop dating someone is because the person doesn't want to be alone.

I can assure you that in the long run, you won't regret choosing Jesus over everything else.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (bold mine, Hebrews 11:6, 1984 NIV)