Love Sex and Lasting Relationships - How to Know if You're in Love, Part 2

If you could take a test, and I'm talking to those that are dating someone, and if you could know for sure whether this is really love or just infatuation, would you take it? Well, I got good news for you. I have that test. Thousands of people have taken it, and they always tell me the same thing. Wow! I wish I would have taken it earlier.

That's today. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international teaching and discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. In this program, Chip picks up in his series Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships with a remainder of his message, How to Know if You're in Love.

Now, if you missed the first part of his talk or want to catch up on any other program, go to livingontheedge.org or the Chip Ingram app. All with that, go in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 5 as Chip begins by continuing to walk through this helpful test, Love or Infatuation. Number five is security. An individual in love tends to have a sense of security and a feeling of trust after considering everything involved in the relationship with the other person. In other words, there's a sense of loyalty. There's a safeness to being together. An infatuated individual tends to have a blind sense of security based on wishful thinking rather than upon careful consideration. He or she may have a sense of insecurity that is sometimes expressed in jealousy. See, when you're infatuated and it's all about feelings, he's talking with so and so. She's talking with so and so.

You've got a meeting where with whom? I want to know about that. When you find someone, especially those in dating relationships where there's high levels of jealousy, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, this probably isn't love. See, when you know someone, when there's time, when it's based on character, when there's trust, it produces security.

Test number six is work. An individual in love works for the other person or for their mutual benefit. He or she may study to make the other person proud of him or her. Their ambitions are spurred on and they plan and save for the future. He or she may daydream, but the dreams are reasonably attained. By contrast, an infatuated person may lose his ambition, his appetite, his interest, his affairs in everyday life. He or she may think of his own misery. I just can't live without them. I haven't seen him in 45 minutes. They often daydream, but the dreams are sometimes not limited or attainable.

They're just given free rein. At times, the dreams become substitutes for reality and the individual lives in the world of his dreams. I remember when my oldest boys were in their early 20s and we had a young man that was good friends with them. He hung out at our house and really neat young man and good looking guy, big tall handsome guy.

And so he sort of became a part of our family and ate a lot of our food and hung out at our house. And so one day, you know, he comes and says, Mr. Ingram, Mr. Ingram, I'm in love. I mean, I'm in love. I said, well, what's her name?

I just met her, but I'm in love. And next week, what happened? I talked for like four hours on the phone and I got my phone bill, you know, like a $300.

This is for cell phones. I got like a $300 phone bill. And then, you know, he's like, he knows her like by phone for like three weeks. And then he comes and he says, you can't believe what I did this weekend.

I said, what? He goes, I got my car and I drove 11 hours to Phoenix because she lives in Phoenix. I knocked on the door and I had one rose and a piece of candy.

And I said, all I know is all I think about is you. And then I had to get back to work and I drove 11 hours and I got back in time, 5 a.m. to go to work at six. The next weekend, he drove again, but then he couldn't tear himself away and missed two days of work. He was convinced he was in love. Believe me, he was not.

He almost lost his job. See, when you are acting irresponsibly and your emotions are driving your life, you may be deeply infatuated and the chemicals may be bursting in your brain, but it's not love. The seventh is a problem solving test.

By the way, how you doing? At least mentally or L, I, love or infatuation? Problem solving, a couple in love faces problems frankly, attempts to solve them. If there are barriers to them getting married, these barriers are approached intelligently and removed.

And the ones that can't be removed, they may be circumvented, but with the knowledge that you're deliberately doing that. In other words, people who are in love realize, wow, man, I think God's bringing us together, but boy, our family backgrounds are different. You know what? We got a lot of debt. Your school loan, my school loans. You know, you know a lot about the Bible.

I don't know very much about the Bible. You know, your life vision seems, they're close, but you're kind of going this way and I'm going that way. You're like wanting to have like 19 kids and I'm not really big on kids. A couple that's really in love gets all those things on the table and says, you know what? We need to be objective and reasonable and what is it? I mean, are we gonna work through these things? Can we work through them? When people were infatuated, it goes something like this. I've been married three times. You've lived with two different people. You want 19 kids.

I absolutely don't want any. I'm sure it's gonna work out because love covers everything, right? Test number eight is distance. Love tends to be constant. Infatuation often varies with the distance between the couple. One of the greatest things that can happen in a relationship is a little window of distance. You know, when you're really in love, you keep writing, you think about the person, you keep the relationship up.

When you're infatuated, it starts to be a little out of sight, out of mind because so much of what's sustaining the relationship is how they look and physical attraction and all the little buzz that you get. I remember my youngest son, he was very direct with us. He said, I know who I'm gonna marry.

Okay. And we got to know her and then she went full-time with Campus Crusade to Sweden. And I mean, I watched him like, this is, and I mean, they wrote and he was poor, believe me. He saved up his money.

Six months later, he flew to Sweden. I mean, I watched him do a long-distance relationship for a year because he loved her. He was focused on her and she really mattered and he knew this was from God. See, when distance causes your heart to wane, it's probably infatuation.

When distance caused you to begin to write and to communicate and think and use the distance to deal with issues, it's love. Test number nine, physical attraction and involvement. Physical attraction is a relatively smaller part of their total relationship.

And by the way, smaller part. Let's not over-spiritualize. If there's no juices going toward this other person, if there's not some attraction, I'm not sure what it is, but it may not be from God.

I've been around groups that are so spiritual, it's like, we align and we have all these things in view and she loves God and I love God and you sit with them and they've dated for sometimes a year or more and they're sexually pure and, you know, sometimes I sit down with a guy and say, so, I mean, you got some passion in there? Well, not really. You're not marrying your sister. You know this, right?

Okay. I mean, so we got to be careful that the culture is so out of balance, our biblical response can really get skewed. It's a relatively smaller part of the total relationship when a couple's in love. It's a relatively greater part when they're infatuated. When a couple's in love, any physical contact tends to have meaning as well as be a pleasurable experience in and of itself.

It tends to express what they feel toward one another. In other words, when you're in love, you want to guard the relationship and so actually holding hands means something. Any progression in the showing of affection has to do with a greater and more significant commitment while remaining sexually pure. When you're infatuated, you just want to get as close and as much all the time as you can. It's what drives the relationship.

In infatuation, the physical contacts tend to be an end in themselves. It represents a pleasurable experience but often devoid of meaning. Jot in your notes if you would, 2 Samuel chapter 13. It's a very interesting biblical picture of this. David has a son and David also has a daughter of another wife. The daughter is named Tamar and in the biblical usage, she's hot.

Very attractive, absolutely beautiful. His son just is infatuated, overwhelmed with her beauty and he wants her. And so he, instead of going the right route, instead of building a relationship, instead of checking things out, he comes up with this plan along with a friend to pretend that he's sick, asks the sister to come in and bring some food for him and if you read the story carefully, he begins to take her physically and she says, let's do this right.

Talk to your father. I mean, it dishonors God, it will dishonor me, it'll ruin our relationship and he doesn't listen and he rapes her. And then there's this amazing interesting line, I mean long before psychologists and the interesting line is, and he had now the same level of hatred for her that he had in love before he raped her. See, infatuation causes you to use people. The physical connection, we're going to talk about that very specifically, about the relationship and knowing the difference between love and sex in our next time together. But physical attraction involvement, it's normal, it's important, but it means one thing to those that really in love and it's at a progress where you remain sexually pure and it means something totally different and becomes the end in itself when you're infatuated. Test number 10, very similar, is in love, an expression of affection tends to come relatively later in the couple's relationship. In other words, there's time, I want to get to know you, I want to see you with other people, I want to build a relationship and so I'm not going to begin to express affection until there's a basis for it. By contrast, in infatuation, it may come earlier and sometimes at the very beginning, in fact, usually at the very beginning.

The test of stability, love tends to endure, infatuation may change suddenly, unpredictably. I remember listening to Julia Roberts a number of years ago being interviewed on Entertainment Tonight or TMZ or something and she was so honest. I mean, it was a season where she was in all the tabloids and this partner and a different partner and did a movie and she loves this person and that person and she is the pretty woman and I just thought it was such an honest comment because they were asking her. She goes, well, you know, relationships can be very, very hard and what I realize is that first year or so is the part I really like. And she was just honest. In fact, she made this statement, she goes, I think I'm really in love with being in love.

And I just thought so perceptive. I wonder how many of us have so been skewed in our thinking that what we're really in love with is being in love and in our marriages, if all the buttons aren't firing and if we don't have these emotional experiences, we're starting to privately question or ask, do I still have the right person? Or if you're not married, I'm wondering how many of us are really unconsciously or very consciously basing everything about is this the right person or who should I date really primarily on physical attraction then followed by is my brain kicking in and give me these euphoric feelings. See, love is stable.

Infatuation comes and goes like a bird that lands and then just takes off. The final test is the test of delayed gratification. A couple in love is not indifferent to the effects of postponement of their wedding and they do not prolong the period of postponement unless they see that it's wiser to wait a reasonable time.

They don't feel an almost irresistible drive toward haste. When you're infatuated and you think this is the right person, when anybody puts a little roadblock like, hey, how about some premarital counseling or you know what, there's some issues that get resolved or why don't you come up with a financial plan or don't you think that your parents ought to be at least reasonably involved in this? No, no, we can't. It's got to be now. We're in love.

Probably not. Infatuated couples tend to feel an urge toward getting married. Postponement is intolerable to them and they interpret it as a deprivation rather than a preparation and I'm mindful of the story of Jacob and it says he waited seven years to earn the right to marry Rachel and it says it just flew by and it flew by because he loved her and was willing to wait. I do not recommend seven year engagements by the way. Take your time. Process.

Get good counsel. We'll talk about some specific ways and then once you've done all the hard work and you allow the emotions to kick in and allow the chemicals to go off based on the spiritual, social, psychological and God's leading, then have a pretty short engagement because lots of bad things happen in really long engagements and then thank God for the gift that he's given you. Well, let me ask you, just I mean honestly, how you doing?

How you doing? As I went through that as a married couple, did you say, yeah, you know, I've kind of bought into testing the love in our relationship a lot more that's infatuation than love or if you're here and you're, you know, dating someone, is it like one lady told me she walked up to me in an airport and she goes, you know that book Love, Sex, Lasting Relationships? I said, yeah. She goes, I read that.

Thank you very much. I said, well, why? Well, you know that chapter on the difference between love and sex? I said, well, yeah. She goes, well, I've been married twice. I was in another relationship.

I was goo goo gaga, all that stuff, brain cells, IQ dropping and I read that and I went through and 10 of the 12 things were infatuation, not love. She said, I broke off the relationship. I've stepped back. I'm getting whole personally and then she said, so how come you didn't get this to me two marriages ago? To which I said, I'm sorry. But do you understand?

Think carefully as a parent of preteens, teens, college ministry, young professional. Your mate died. You're divorced. You're in that 40 to 50 range and you're saying, I believe there's someone for me now. You believe that infatuation is love.

You will be a part of that next percentage of people where the next one doesn't work out or you'll be a part of that great population of people that, wow, marriage is great for the first two years and then that window between year three and year six when it requires love, not infatuation, you'll see this happen. God has better, okay? So let me give you some ways to nurture the kind of love that he's given us.

Are you ready? How to improve your love life. I'm on the back page and notice our picture. You might want to at the very top just write the word God. You might on the triangles put the man on one side, the woman on the other.

We know you might even put an arrow of the man and the woman. God's goal in marriage is oneness. It's intimacy of spirit, mind, body and soul and you're going to see that in the center of it is God wants you to experience love. Now the basis of love, what allows you to love in both ways is agape love, being dearly loved by God, walk in love. And then the eros love is a very important part of God's, the sexual attraction, the candle lights, the weekends away, the negligees, all the good stuff, all right?

And the walks, the talks, the board games, the popcorn, the movies, the walking in malls. So over here we have phileo love, best friends. Over here we have eros love, passionate lovers and here brothers and sisters living under the word of God.

So let me give you two suggestions. If you are a single, keep your emotions and physical involvement behind your leading from God and commitment to the other person. Keep your emotional and physical involvement. So if we would go back to the triangle, God's way, spiritual, do they really walk with God?

In fact, love God more than me. Social, how do they treat other people? What's their behavior before we start dating?

Psychological, I want to really know them, their heart, their soul, their mind, their personality. Now all those things line up, the Holy Spirit's giving you a green light, ding. Let your emotions kick in.

See where God takes it then and save the full expression of God's design because the marriage bed is holy. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and Chip will be back in just a minute to finish today's talk. But quickly, I want to remind you that this program is only possible because of the generosity of listeners like you. So if you'd like to support us, go to livingontheedge.org, that's livingontheedge.org, and thanks for doing whatever God leads you to do.

Well, let's rejoin Chip now for the remainder of his message. If you're married, a word to the married, love requires the nourishment of all three kinds of love. Examine which of your mate's needs most, and then choose to give that as an act of worship. Examine which one of the kinds of love above does your mate need, and then as a choice, as an act of worship, you give it.

Let me just, this is a general principle, don't take this to the bank, it's not always true. In general, when I talk to men who have done counseling, most men are saying the eros part of our relationship is not really what I'd like it to be. Most women say the phileo part of our relationship isn't really what I want it to be. And so men are engaged in their work, and women are engaged with work and kids, and so often it goes like, you know, if she would really be more affectionate, I'd step up and be the man in the house. Well, you know, until I'm nurtured in love and cared for, you know, how can I be responsive at 10 or 1030 at night when, you know, here he is, we haven't talked, I've got all the kids, I also work, you know what, he hasn't shaved in two days, he thinks I'm attracted to him, are you kidding? Well, you know, why should I read bedtime stories, come home for dinner, be the super dad when, you know what, I feel like I'm a monk, and most men will tell you, let's see, it's been 17 days, it's been six days, it's been 93 days, they know when's the last time they had physical union with their wife, okay?

And so it becomes a sort of unspoken standoff often that's not communicated. Let me give you some specific ways to nurture. Eros love nurtured, have a date night, once a week go on a date, hygiene, I mean, everyone after they get divorced, what do they do? You go to the gym and get in shape, go there now, eat better now, shave now, use deodorant now, I'm serious, don't come home, you come home to your maid and if it's like sweat pants and everyone's dressed up at work and you come home and your wife looks like, well, I mean you love her but, one of the greatest things Teresa did all of our married life is boy, when I came home, she looked great, she actually prepared for when I got home and it has been a huge help to me.

So, non-sexual touching, guys, every time you touch your wife and she thinks, oh brother, it's the sex maniac again, she wants to be nurtured and loved, make it a priority, you know, everyone wants everything to be so spontaneous and wonderful, set a night a week, if you have kids, figure out what to do with the kids and at least you both know once a week you can have something to look forward to. Well, that's not spontaneous. Well, how's that compared to what your current romantic life is like?

I'll leave you with that one. And then plan a weekend away. There's something that happens when you get away from work and kids and get away where God allows you to really connect at the eros level.

In terms of the phileo, take walks, have talks, find something, a hobby or something you do together, discuss hard issues, sit down and do the finances together, play some table games, throw on some popcorn, watch an old movie, get away together, do things that nurture the relationship. Now, you won't feel like that but remember love is not a feeling, correct? Infatuation is a feeling. And so what you need is supernatural power. You need agape love to choose to give the other person what they need the most when they deserve it the least. And so here's a few suggestions to develop agape love. You personally begin to get into God's Word because there's no power apart from His Word. The Spirit living in you as a follower of Christ needs the raw material of God's Word to translate the written Word to the living Word that births conviction that the Spirit uses to change your life.

No word, no power. Second, pray for your mate. The things you really want to see change, nagging, how's that working? Or hinting, honey, I think you're eating a lot of chocolates.

Oh, she's really going to love you now. Pray for them. What do you want to see happen in their life? Ask God to work in them. Pray together. Forgive them.

Some of the big barriers. You don't want to be connected. You don't want to talk because the truth is known.

This happened, this happened, this happened, this happened. And you're bearing a grudge. You've got to release them. You've got to forgive them.

As God has forgiven you so freely, forgive. And that's the beginning. You get in God's Word. You begin to talk. You begin to pray. You begin to pray together. You begin to say, you know, coming to worship is a priority for our family.

God will work. In fact, I came across something that this is so good. I'm going to finish with this little article.

It's very, very brief. It's about a man who said, I made a vow to myself as we were driving toward the vacation beach cottage that for two weeks I would try to be a loving husband and father. Totally loving.

No ifs, no buts. The idea came to me as I was driving in my car and listening to someone teach on the radio where he quoted the passage that to love your wife is to love her in an understanding way. And then he said, love is an act of the will.

A person can choose to love. And then a moment of sort of honesty. He says, to myself I had to admit that I'd been a selfish husband, that our love had dulled by my own insensitivity, and often in petty ways like insisting that the TV channel that we watch is the one that I want, throwing a day old paper away that I know she still wanted to read.

Well, for two weeks all that would change and I did it. Right from the moment I kissed Evelyn at the door and said, that new yellow sweater looks great on you. I mean, he'd been out of town, she'd been with the kids at the cottage.

Old Tom, you noticed, she said, surprised and pleased, maybe a little perplexed. After the long drive I wanted to sit and read, Evelyn suggested we walk on the beach. I started to refuse but then I thought, Evelyn's been here alone with the kids all week and now she wants alone time with me.

We walked on the beach while the children flew kites. So it went, two weeks of not calling the Wall Street investment firm where I'm a director. A visit to the Shell Museum, I usually hate museums. I actually enjoyed it. Holding my tongue when Evelyn made us late for the dinner date like normal. Relaxed and happy, that's how the whole vacation went. And I made a vow to keep remembering to choose love in my relationship.

There was one thing that went terribly wrong with my experiment. Evelyn and I still laugh about it today. On the last night at our cottage preparing for bed, Evelyn stared at me with the saddest expression I've ever seen. What's the matter, I asked. Tom, her voice filled with distress, do you know something I don't?

What do you mean? Well, that chuck up I had several weeks ago, our doctor, did he tell you something about me Tom? Tom, you've been so good to me, am I dying? It took a moment for it to sink in and then I burst out laughing.

No honey, you're not dying, I'm just starting to live. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and the message you just heard, How to Know if You're in Love, is from our series Love, Sex and Lasting Relationships. Chip will join us in studio to share some insights from today's talk in just a minute. Everyone desires to love and be loved. It's built into our DNA. So why are wholesome, committed relationships so hard to find and hold on to? In this 10-part series, Chip paints a more satisfying picture of love than what you'd find at any relationship workshop or dating site.

Discover the truth about romance, sex, true love, and marriage, the way God intended it. If you've missed any part of this series, catch up any time through the Chip Ingram app or at livingontheedge.org. Well, before we go on, Chip's back in studio with me now. And Chip, I can see you want to jump in here for a second and share something with our listeners.

So why don't you go ahead and take a minute and do that? Thanks, Dave. I want to talk to those of you who partner with us financially. Your gifts help us not just stay on the air, but they provide the necessary funding to create curriculum and develop our website and provide resources at extraordinarily reasonable prices. I mean, your giving is making an amazing impact.

So thank you very, very much. And for those of you that are enjoying the benefits of Living on the Edge, but you haven't yet become a financial partner, would you consider doing that today? Your gifts are going to get invested right back into the ministry to assist us to develop resources, stay on the air, and help Christians live like Christians. I mean, is there ever a day when we need to make a difference?

Well, it's now. Will you help us? Thanks, Chip. As you prayerfully consider your role in this ministry, I want to remind you that every gift is significant. When you partner with Living on the Edge, you multiply our efforts and resources in amazing ways. Give a gift today by calling us at 888-333-6003 or by visiting LivingOnTheEdge.org. That's LivingOnTheEdge.org or call 888-333-6003. We appreciate your generosity.

Well, here now is Chip to share some application from today's message. I am sure that as you listened to the last story that I shared during the teaching time about the executive that just chooses, he just decides, I'm going to love my wife in a way that really makes sense to her and does all these things that he knows intellectually mean something to her but, you know, are really not attractive to him. And she feels so loved. I love that line.

This is a true story where she says, am I going to die? Here's what I want you to get. Love is a choice. I love all the good feelings when they're there, but the fact of the matter is when they're not there or waiting on them to come is why so many couples are dissatisfied. What I want you to know is that even Jesus in his love for us, it was a choice that he didn't feel like at the time. Remember what he prayed, Father, if there's any other way. Nevertheless, not my will but yours. God so loved the world. Jesus so loved that he gave. And what I want you to know and what I want you to apply today in your relationship is to make a choice and decide rather than waiting for my wife or my husband, my girlfriend or my boyfriend to start acting differently, I want you today to say, you know something, privately, I'm going to choose to love them. And right now, if I gave you a napkin and a pen, you could write down the top three things that make your mate really feel loved. We'll do them.

Do one today, one tomorrow, one the next day. I had to learn this the hard way. We had major struggles in our marriage. I had to go to Christian counseling and I got a lot of help, but then I decided to make some choices that I knew what would communicate love.

It just didn't make sense to me. I mean, things like just listening and talking. So we did that after dinner, whether I felt like it or not. My wife knew that if we had a date planned on the schedule, so once a week, I put on the schedule. We had a date when I felt like it. We had a date when I didn't feel like it, but we did it. I started doing things that were just like, what's this got to do with love?

I get out the vacuum cleaner or empty the garbage or I put away my clothes or I offer to help with the homework. I'm thinking, that doesn't have anything to do with love. Well, guess what? It did to my wife.

I just chose to do it as an offering to God. And what I can tell you is our relationship dramatically changed. And my wife, for reasons I don't fully understand, felt a greater freedom to love and communicate to me in ways that were meaningful to me. Men, can I encourage you to take the initiative?

Ladies, can I encourage you to make your list and love your husband in a way that makes sense to him and entrust that to God? Good word, Chip. Hey, before we go, let me remind you of an easy way to listen to our extended teaching podcast. Hear Chip anytime on Amazon's Alexa Echo and Echo Dot. Just say, Alexa, open Living on the Edge, and you'll be able to enjoy that day's full length teaching. Try it today. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Druey, and I hope you'll join us again next time.