This romantic and desirable day you have described Darkness is all very well but there is something missing.

This is a very self-gratifying love you are describing. Sure both members of the couple are enjoying the experience of each other and are giving and receiving love. But they are doing it ultimately for their own gratification. The relationship is the reward. Up to a point this is a good thing.

Christianity calls us beyond love for gratification only. It calls us towards a sacrificial love.

In everything, the Christian seeks FIRST to honour God. In order to do this we must be obedient to the Divine commands.

God’s ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts (Isa 55:8)

There is a way that seems right to a man but the end is the way of death (Prov 14:12)

The whole duty of man is to fear God and keep His commandments (Eccl 12:13)

Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments (Deut 7:9)

If you love me (Jesus) keep my commandments (John 14:15)
Etc..

There are many things that could be quite gratifying, enjoyable and even wonderful in this world that we put aside to honour God and walk in obedient holiness. We don’t have to have reasons or justifications. We don’t even have to understand. We simply have to obey.

The sin in the non-married couples is not the love and enjoyment of the relationship but the failure to honour God.

If you believe as I do, that Scripture only allows for a sexual relationship in the context of a male/female marriage, then this is your only holy option. How loving or wonderful the other options are makes no difference. And there is no reason that you can’t have most of what was in that description in a holy way. It was only when the sexual side began that the non-married couples really crossed the line... and really there was so much else there to enjoy.

The following passage illustrates the principle most wonderfully in relation the OT command to keep the Sabbath:

13 “ If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the LORD honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,
14 Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD;
And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth,
And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.
The mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 58:13-14)

Blessings
Cat.