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Everything You Need to Know Before
Getting Married May 2010 -- Issue 1 Newsletter 3 |
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Dating vs. Godly Courtship |
Dating is Not
Scriptural |
You’re Ready For Marriage When… |
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Dating is a worldly, cultural way to meet people for the purpose of having sex. Sex is a prerequisite of dating. Both parties have within their perception and attitude that having sex during the dating process is what is expected of them. Parents, if your teenage daughter is dating she is most likely also having sex. Television promotes this attitude and your teens watch it. Dating is not scriptural. Mary and Joseph did not date. Dating goes against the moral precepts of our Creator and anyone who is partaking in it is sinning against God. If we want to have healthy relationships and marriages, we first have to get rid of the attitude that dating is an acceptable practice. You cannot date in the worldly sense and not have sex—its what dating is! In Godly courtship, which is practiced among the Amish and sincere Christian groups today, when a young man sees a woman that he is attracted to her, he does not start flirting with her or think about having sex with her. He does not awaken lustful desire in a lady and does not disrespect or defraud her by having sex with her. These young men practice self-control with their emotions and with their body. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-7) Being attracted to the opposite sex is normal, but we should control our emotions and sexual drive. We should think pure thoughts of the opposite sex and respect them for who they are, not what we can receive from them. When it gets to the point of obsessing over a person with lust and desire and flirting with them it has gone too far. Most of you think flirting is harmless, but it is a deceiving practice and should not be entertained until there is a commitment to marriage, at the very least. “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”. (Matthew 5:27-28) In Godly courtship if a man feels attracted to a young lady he does not show his affection for her right away because that would, not only be disrespectful to the lady and her parents, but it would also make him bound to her in marriage. He controls his passions. If you are having a difficult time controlling your sexual desires then you need to pray about it and ask God to help you and He will provide you with self-control. “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” (Titus 2:11-12) Why does someone think they can arouse lust and passion in someone they hardly know and have no intentions of marrying? That doesn’t make any sense, at least from a Christian point of view. If a man has no intentions for marriage then he should be going to brothels and prostitutes, not nice ladies. We should not arouse immorality in others just for our own selfish reasons. Show a bit of restraint and self-control. Control your sex drive. In Godly courtship, men and women never give away their hearts or their bodies. Instead they honor God with their bodies. (1 Corinthians 6:18-20) They remain just friends and after getting to know one another better, the relationship progresses to good friends. The smart way to remain just friends is to never be alone with someone you are friends with. This makes so much sense because if you really are friends and love each other you wouldn’t hurt the relationship by having sex. “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality. (1 Thessalonians 4:3) Only when a man intends on marrying a lady and is committed to her in marriage, does he give his emotions and passions away. This is scriptural and should be the way all Christians conduct themselves in their relationships today; to honor and please God. Times have changed, that’s certainly true, but God’s principles and moral lessons stay the same for us and Christians are still required to observe God’s discipline for them
In today’s society most Christian people are different with their values and morals and this is how dating got started. Morals start in the home. Godly courtship has principles that work for building healthy relationships with the opposite sex and for preserving marriage. Let’s bring back God’s way for our relationships and marriage. “For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes nor from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.” (1 John 2:16-17) |
Dating in the worldly sense is an activity that has evolved from courting. And it has totally changed course. What ever happened to seeking inner beauty and character of a person and being committed for a lifetime in marriage. What happened to these precious things among Christian people and their relationships? Are we ignoring God's moral lessons for us? Immorality and deceitfulness has crept into our most precious commodity, marriage and family! And sadly it has become commonplace. God’s
Love is His Discipline
When we disobey God’s teachings for us, we harm our body, our minds, and our spirit. We end up in relationship heartache, we catch diseases, and we dishonor the spirit of Jesus Christ that lives in us. All of this is emotionally harmful to us. God loves us and this is why He teaches us how to live and be happy, to love others appropriately and ourselves. To the majority, sexual abstinence seems like an old fashioned thing to do, given that having sex is expected every time you are with the opposite sex. But lets think about our spirit for a moment. Are we keeping ourselves spiritually fit by following the teachings of God in our relationships? Are Christians pleasing God or themselves? Does the Word of God change to meet the change in our value system? I don’t think so! The minority (sincere Christians) are still following in the ways of God and hopefully they will teach their own children to love and honor God above everything! What is Dating? Dating is an attitude of desire and lust, plain and simple. God teaches us to not even look at others with lust in our heart because that is emotional adultery—it is wrong and leads to immorality. Lust harms others emotionally and spiritually because it takes away the beauty of purity within a relationship and for the preparation of marriage. It’s fine to appreciate beauty but when we lust after someone we are not using self-control. Lust is the opposite of appreciation and respect. Dating is Fornication
Dating 95% percent of the time involves fornication and 100% of the time emotional heartache. Friends do not use each other for sexual pleasure, or do they? Jesus says that those who practice fornication will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Wow! That means that everyone who is not married and having sex is not in the Kingdom of Heaven. Dating is Jealousy and MistrustDating almost always involves emotional imbalances. Such emotional negativities stem from being hurt through the dating process. Giving away yourself sexually and emotionally causes much grief and heartache when the relationship ends or when the parties in the relationship begin to show their true selves. One party in the relationship or both will begin to show their true character and deceive the other. This is why staying just friends and not allowing your emotions to lead the relationship is a must if you want to stay happy, well balanced emotionally, and prepared for a healthy marriage later on. Lasting Relationship Dating is just an easy way to get what you want from others. But if there is not commitment to marry one another then we should not be giving away our bodies and hearts to another. This is why God calls to arouse passion and lust in another is fraud. (1 Thessalonians 3:4-7) Dating is actually a selfish way to get to know someone. It is for people who aren’t really interested in who a person is or in getting to know them based on character. Dating usually sidesteps the inner beauty and character of a person because it teaches us to be superficial with our relationships. This is why many marriages do not last as well because couples do the same thing with their future spouse. Then they get married and don’t practice principled acts of love but instead live by their feelings. They believe that whatever their feelings tell them, it must be right. But it is wrong. Dating Teaches that Lust is LoveChrist teaches us what real love is. Real love is a sacrificial kind of love. Love means doing something for another, even if you don’t feel like it. To love another means to consider their feelings. Christ teaches us to love others over ourselves. Couples can save their marriage by going back to the principles and moral lessons that Christ taught for us to live by. Change yourself for your spouse. Ask God to forgive you. |
You know you are ready for marriage when “God is number one” in your personal life, and you want to honor and please God with your marriage. It takes having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ for us to understand how to manage our marriage by God’s design rather than our own. You’re Ready For Marriage When God is Number
One in your Life If God is not at the top of your priority list than what or who is? Where does your spouse fit in on your priority list? Without faith and trust in God to direct our marriage, we are only what we can be, selfish! We need God—He is our source for true happiness and marital bliss. We can listen to the marriage gurus tell us what our marriage needs and do those things, but if God is not directing our attitude and actions than it will be ineffective. So many times, Christians don’t realize how they become sidetracked and do things according to “what they want” or “what they think is right”, which almost always leads to failure. Remember we are only the creation, God is the Creator, that means we need to get down off the pedestal and humble our lives to God. You’re Ready for Marriage When You Are Committed to One Flesh of MarriageWhat does “one flesh” of marriage mean to you? The one flesh of marriage to God means the joining together of two hearts, minds and spirits in the one flesh of marriage. This means that everything a spouse does no matter how big or small, or good or bad, affects the other. In healthy marriage there is no room for independence from one another or individualistic thinking because these attitudes affect the marriage tremendously. Understand you are an individual that can have opinions and thoughts on things outside of the marriage, but all aspects that are within the marriage couples need to work together as a team. They need to encourage and build each other up, be in agreement to values and beliefs, and carry each other’s burdens. When you separate yourself from the one flesh of marriage you are rebelling against God’s plan for marriage, which is the spiritual and emotional oneness of marriage. This is why emotional and physical infidelity has become such commonplace. Couples are separating themselves from the “one flesh” of marriage. They aren’t really committed to each other or to the design God planned out for them in their marriage. And that is the problem. In society today, people behave selfishly with each other and then in desperation they wonder how they can “win their spouse back”. They wonder why their spouse doesn’t want to have sex anymore and need to find out ways to intimately attract their own spouse again! They wonder why their spouse does not love them anymore. It’s because they are veering away from the path that God designed for marriage. Most couples are NOT emotionally or spiritually ready to get married. You’re Ready for Marriage When You Know What
the Purpose for Marriage Is Marriage God’s way is daily forgiveness, daily serving one another and daily acts of kindness (principled love) for each other. This is how we honor and please God. God created marriage for his purpose. It is a living symbol of Jesus Christ and the church. The relationship between Christ and the church represents how God intends for marriage to be between a man and a woman—loving, caring and self-sacrificing. Ephesians 5:21-33 Of course there are many other things and details that prepare us for marriage besides just what I have mentioned, but that is another article. I hope that I have not sounded pessimistic about marriage. The fact is, marriage is really not that difficult when couples manage it God’s way! Take care and God Bless! Heaven Ministries ~ Marriage Prepration Heaven Ministries ~ Marriage Healing and
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