Clouds Your Judgment

"If you don't have sex when you're dating, you will know that person cares about you for who you are and not for what you can give him or her," says Elsa Kok. "It purifies the relationship and takes it to 'Does this person love my character? Does he or she love what's in my heart? What my hopes and dreams are?'

"That totally gets sidelined if you start sleeping together because then you're just consumed in that, and you don't deal with issues as well. A struggle may come up, but then you kiss passionately, and the next thing you know, you're sleeping together and the struggle is set to the side. You don't know if the person's going to stay through conflict once you get married because you're not addressing the conflict when you're dating. It clouds everything to sleep together."

Rob Eagar says, "Touching someone sexually makes your heart desire to bond with that person. What happens is your emotions and feelings get cranked up to such an intense level that you tend to overlook more important aspects of the relationship, such as character, spiritual depth, or maturity. Once you get involved sexually, it can cloud your thinking and you look at the relationship too much from an emotional standpoint rather than a factual standpoint concerning a person's integrity and commitment to loving you."

"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak" (Mark 14:38).