Find A Christian Man

Category: Dating and Discernment

  • How Far Is Too Far? Let’s Talk About Boundaries

    How Far Is Too Far? Let’s Talk About Boundaries

    We Might As Well Talk About It

    So, how far is too far?

    You knew we were going to have to get here eventually.

    Because Christians can get very creative with this particular question. We know what the Bible says about sex outside of marriage, so then comes the negotiation. Okay, but what about this? What about that? How much kissing? Where can we touch? Can I stay over if nothing happens? What if we’re engaged? What if we’re practically married? And somewhere in there I think we have to admit that sometimes we’re not really asking God where the boundary is. We’re asking Him how close we can get to it without Him calling foul. That’s a different question. And I don’t think that’s how people who genuinely want to honor God should approach this. 1Corinthians 6:18 says, “Flee sexual immorality.” Flee. Not investigate it. Not sit beside it and see how everybody feels. Flee. God created sexual desire, so there is nothing dirty about being strongly attracted to somebody. Thank God you’re attracted to the person you’re considering marrying. But just because a desire is good doesn’t mean it gets to have whatever it wants whenever it wants it.

    Please Don’t Wait Until 11:47 P.M. to Discover Your Boundaries

    You need to know your boundaries before you need your boundaries. Please don’t wait until the lights are low, you’re alone, you’ve been kissing for twenty minutes, and everybody’s breathing has changed to suddenly announce, “We should probably talk about what we’re comfortable with.” Friend, that meeting should have been held several hours ago. Maybe several weeks ago. You already know more about yourself than you sometimes want to admit. If long kissing sessions make it very difficult for you to stop, then stop having long kissing sessions. If being in his bedroom is a problem, you don’t need forty days of prayer about whether you should keep going into his bedroom. If spending the night keeps turning into almost, stop spending the night.

    And let’s include the phone while we’re here. Sexting is sexual. Sending intimate pictures is sexual. Having explicit conversations and then congratulating yourselves because nobody physically touched anybody is playing games with yourself. Romans 13:14 tells us to “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” Sometimes maturity is not needing God to send a lightning bolt. Just keep it real. Because you already know exactly what keeps happening.

    And women, we don’t get to put all of this on him. I know we talk a lot about whether a man will respect your boundaries, and we absolutely should. But you need boundaries too. He is not the designated keeper of everybody’s self-control simply because he’s the man. 1Thessalonians 4 tells believers to control their own bodies in holiness and honor. Your body. Your choices. Your responsibility before God. His body. His choices. His responsibility before God. Now, if you tell a man, “I’m not comfortable doing that,” and he keeps pouting, negotiating, getting irritated, or trying again every time the opportunity comes up, don’t dismiss it as he just wants me so badly. No ma’am. Pay attention.

    You just learned something important: how he responds when you tell him no. Does he respect your boundary, or does he keep pushing until he hopes you’ll give in? Because a man’s response to your conviction tells you something about his character. That is relationship information. Put it in the file.

    And Please Don’t Confuse Being Wanted With Being Loved

    This one can get us. A man can want you desperately and still not love you well. Those are not the same thing. Sexual desire can be intense, flattering, intoxicating, and very convincing. It can make you feel chosen. It can make a relationship feel much deeper than it actually is. And sometimes we read a man’s inability to keep his hands off us as evidence of how powerful the relationship must be. It’s possible. Or maybe he really, really likes touching you. Let’s not make it more spiritual than it is.

    And the reverse is true too. If a Christian man pulls back, establishes a boundary, or says, “We need to stop,” don’t immediately decide he isn’t attracted to you. He may be extremely attracted to you. Self-control only means something when there is actually something you want. Galatians 5:22–23 calls self-control fruit of the Spirit. There is something beautiful about a man or woman being able to say, “Yes, I want you. And because I belong to Christ, wanting you is not enough reason for me to do whatever I feel like doing with you.”

    So where exactly is the line? I can’t give you a chart. The Bible doesn’t tell us that a seven-second kiss is holy and a twelve-second kiss requires repentance. And I am very glad it doesn’t, because we would have turned that into foolishness by Tuesday.

    What Scripture gives us is better: flee sexual immorality, walk by the Spirit, practice self-control, pursue holiness, and honor God with your body. So maybe instead of constantly asking, “Can we do this?” we need to ask, “What is this doing to us?”

    Does it make self-control harder? Is it repeatedly taking you right to the edge and daring you to stop? Are you creating sexual appetites every Friday night that you have no righteous way to satisfy? Are you honoring each other, or are you helping each other rationalize how close you can get without technically crossing the line?

    Because that matters. The question isn’t simply whether an act is technically allowed. The question is whether what you’re doing is helping you practice holiness or making holiness harder to practice.

    Attraction is good. Desire is real. And boundaries aren’t punishment for having either one. They’re what wisdom looks like when two people can honestly say, “We want each other. We love Jesus. And we’re not foolish enough to pretend those two realities don’t require us to make some decisions.”

    “How Far Is Too Far? Let’s Talk About Boundaries”, written by Alex for https://findchristianman.com, Copyright©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

  • He Says He’s a Christian, But Is There Fruit?

    He Says He’s a Christian, But Is There Fruit?

    A Profession of Faith Matters, but Jesus Told Us to Look at the Fruit

    A man telling you that he is a Christian should matter to you. If you belong to Jesus Christ, you should want a man who belongs to Him too. But somewhere along the way, we can make the mistake of treating the words “I’m a Christian” as though they answer every other question we need to ask. They don’t. A man may attend church, know Scripture, pray with you, serve in ministry, and know how to have a spiritual conversation. Those things are good, but Jesus gave us something deeper to look for. Luke 6:44 (NKJV) says, “For every tree is known by its own fruit.” Jesus did not tell us to determine what kind of tree we are looking at by what the tree says about itself. Eventually, what is inside is going to produce something we can see. So when a man tells you that he loves Jesus, listen to him. But then give yourself enough time to see what that relationship with Jesus is producing in his life.

    Fruit Shows Up in the Way He Lives

    Fruit takes time to observe, and sometimes you learn the most about a person’s character when things are not going his way. How does he treat people when there is nothing in it for him? What happens when he is disappointed, inconvenienced, corrected, or told no? Can he admit when he is wrong, or does every disagreement somehow become somebody else’s fault? Does he keep his word? How does he handle money? Does he respect your boundaries when they interfere with what he wants? Is he teachable? Can he forgive? Does he exercise self-control?

    Galatians 5:22–23(NLT) says, “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” We are not looking for a man who demonstrates every one of these perfectly every day. None of us does. We are looking for evidence that the Holy Spirit is doing something in him—that when his flesh wants one thing and God requires another, there is evidence that he is learning to submit himself to God.

    Be Careful About Explaining Away What You See

    This is where discernment can become difficult, because once we really like someone, we can start helping him explain away his own fruit. We call a pattern of anger “stress.” We call controlling behavior “protective.” We call inconsistency “he’s just busy.” We call sexual pressure “chemistry.” We call spiritual passivity “he’s still growing.” And yes, people do get stressed, people are busy, and every Christian is still growing. One bad response does not tell you everything there is to know about a man’s character. But neither should you keep giving a different explanation for the same behavior every time it appears. There is a difference between extending grace to an imperfect person and refusing to accept what repeated behavior is showing you. Matthew 7:20 (NKJV) says, “Therefore by their fruits you will know them.” Sometimes the hardest part of discernment isn’t figuring out what you’re seeing. It is being willing to accept what you’re seeing when you hoped the relationship would become something more.

    Look for Patterns, Not Perfection

    A godly man can have a bad day. He can say the wrong thing, make a poor decision, struggle in an area of his life, or need time to mature. The question is what happens when his failure is brought into the light. Does he repent? Does he make excuses? Does he receive correction, or does he resent anyone who challenges him? Does he want to grow, or does he simply want you to become more comfortable with behavior that should concern you? One of the clearest signs of spiritual maturity is not that a person never gets anything wrong, but that he can be confronted with truth and allow that truth to change him. A man who is following Christ should be becoming more like Christ. Not overnight, and not without struggle, but there should be movement. James 1:22 (NKJV) says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Knowing what the Bible says and allowing the Bible to govern your life are two different things.

    Before you begin imagining what kind of husband he might be, pay attention to the man he already is. You are not trying to determine whether he is flawless, and you are certainly not being called to sit in judgment over another person’s salvation. You are discerning whether the life in front of you is consistent with what he says he believes. Is there humility? Integrity? Repentance? Self-control? Faithfulness? Does he obey God when obedience costs him something? Does his relationship with Jesus Christ affect the way he treats you and other people? Give fruit enough time to grow where you can see it, and don’t allow attraction, loneliness, potential, or the desire to be married to make you afraid to examine what is actually there. If he says he is a Christian, don’t stop there. Look for the fruit.

    Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

    Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

    “He Says He’s a Christian, But Is There Fruit?”, written by Alex for https://findchristianman.com, Copyright©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!