Scripture is our ultimate authority. And yet, God certainly can use people’s words to help us understand biblical truths better. This is what made C.S. Lewis such a good writer. He allowed God’s biblical truth to flow through his personality.
C.S. Lewis never wrote a dating manual, yet his words are filled with wisdom that deeply applies to modern Christian relationships. Therefore, here are five C.S. Lewis quotes that can completely reshape the way you think about dating, relationships, and God’s plan for your love life.
1. “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” — C.S. Lewis
This quote cuts straight through one of the biggest lies in modern dating: that love is a feeling you fall into. Lewis reminds us what Scripture teaches about love: that real love is not about constant emotional highs but about consistently wanting and working for the other person’s good (1 Corinthians 13:4-5).
In Christian dating, this means your goal should never be to simply “get” someone, but to help them grow closer to Christ. True love is self-giving, not self-seeking. And since we know Christ is best, he should be the aim in all that we do, including in romantic relationships.
When you date with this mindset, you stop asking, “What can I get out of this relationship?” and start asking, “How can I serve this person in a way that honors God?” That shift alone changes everything. When two Christians have this mindset, they will be building a strong relationship foundation that will last a lifetime.
Real love doesn’t just feel good — it does good.
2. “When I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.” — C.S. Lewis
This quote reveals one of the greatest paradoxes of Christian relationships: when you love God first, you actually love your significant other better. When you put a person in God’s place, not only does this hurt your relationship with God, but it also ruins your relationship with this person.
Jesus himself said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). Many singles believe that if they can just find “the one,” their loneliness and insecurities will disappear. But Lewis reminds us that when we make an idol out of romance, it will always disappoint.
If you want a healthy, Christ-centered relationship, make your relationship with God your first priority. The closer you get to Christ, the more capable you become of loving someone else. To give love, you must first be filled with God’s love; otherwise, your love will always run dry.
Put simply: you won’t be ready to love the right person until you learn to love God most.
3. “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did.” — C.S. Lewis
Lewis’s point here is powerful: love is proven in action, not in emotion. Feelings come and go, but obedience and intentionality last.
Yes, you should have romantic feelings for the person you date and marry one day. But for those feelings to continue, you must also choose to commit to and love this person in actions.
Many Christians stall in relationships because they aren’t “feeling it” every moment. But as Lewis explains, love works best through actions. 1 John 3:18 says, “Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” A godly relationship thrives not on constant emotional excitement but on consistent acts of grace and sacrifice.
That doesn’t mean ignoring compatibility or attraction, but it does mean understanding that the strength of your relationship will be measured by your willingness to act in love even when feelings fluctuate.
4. “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.” — C.S. Lewis
There’s no such thing as love without risk. If you want to avoid all risk of getting hurt, you must choose to love nothing. But in that choice, your heart starves. It’s far better to love and experience pain than to never love and feel the worse pain of being loveless. Later in this same quote, Lewis wrote:
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one… Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements… But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
In other words, if you refuse to risk in love, you’ll harden your heart. Paul loved those he served; therefore, Paul felt moments of anguish for those he served. In Romans 9:2, he said of Israel, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.”
True love will always cost you, but the cost is worth it.
5. “We are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us.” – C.S. Lewis
Just as the moon reflects the sun’s light, your ability to love someone comes from how much you’re being filled by God’s love.
In dating, this is a game-changer. Instead of desperately trying to get love from another person, you learn to give love from the overflow of what you already have in Christ (Romans 5:5). Only when two people are full on Christ and then choose to love each other can healthy romance blossom.
Here’s a related article called 5 Thoughts Satan Is Using to Keep You Unmarried.
