Heaven Ministries ~ Scriptural Romance in Preparation to Marriage

Everything you need to know BEFORE getting married Newsletter

Articles

How Dating Deceives Christians

Marriage Preparation: 
Moral Lessons from George Eliot's Middlemarch

Questions and Answers on Dating and Romance

How Can I Find a Spouse If 
I Don't Date?

Kingdom Living and 
Godly Courtship Forums

How To Prepare For a Rock Solid Marriage ~ Scriptural Romance and Godly Courtship

God wants for us to seek romance and have a life spouse to love and care for, but not at the expense of our mind or body. God's plan for the Christian is exactly the opposite of what most believers seek when looking for their soul mate. This Ebook will show you how to prepare for a lifetime marriage. 

Instant Download After you pay! Order safely with PayPal:

How Dating Deceives Christians

A few days ago a Christian woman told me that she was tricked into marrying her husband. He portrayed himself as a Christian to her during the dating period. Do you know why this happens? It happens because she did not really get to know him on the inside. He talked a good talk and impressed her with false words and once they were married he became a different person to her. Dating teaches us to only see and hear what we want to see and hear and nothing else.   

  Have you ever watched the show called “keeping Up Appearances”? It is a very well made British comedy about a middle-aged, boastful housewife who tries to appear as something she is not. She wants to look wealthy to others and she does whatever she can to keep up that appearance. She spends her days trying to impress people of higher status than herself. Those who really know her such as her family, friends and neighbors know her real character qualities but she deceives many other people into believing she is high up on the social ladder and wealthy to boot.

The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD look at the heart. (1 Samuel 17:7)

If we want a marriage that will last then we need to look for the deep inner qualities of a person that we are regarding as a possible marriage candidate. Besides that, Christians need to be patient, pray about a lifetime commitment with this person and wait on God’s guidance.  Whatever happened to seeking someone with commitment and devotion to God, trustful and filled with integrity and values and inner beauty that reflects their growing relationship with God?

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. (Proverbs 31:30)

Many of us have been conditioned into believing that we have to have sex with every person of the opposite sex that we feel somewhat attracted to. Many times all we see is how someone looks and what kind of car they drive. How trite is that? It’s perfectly fine to appreciate someone’s outward appearance but we must also go deeper and appreciate what is in the inside of a person and get to know them for who they really are.

Dating Uses Other Sexually and Emotionally

Having sex is a beautiful part of life and should be enjoyed by all married couples. God wants us to enjoy a healthy, hearty sexual appetite with the person we married, not with strangers we are not going to marry. How many times have you met someone and it developed into a sexual relationship? How many people have you dated that you did NOT give away your heart, body and emotions to?

“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification (set apart), that ye should abstain from fornication. That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel (body) in sanctification and honour. Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the gentiles which know not God. That no man go beyond (arouse sexual lust in another) and defraud his brother in any matter: because the Lord is the avenger of such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.”  (1 Thessalonians 4:1-7)

How does having sex help you get to know a person? Christians do not need to arouse passion and lust in one another to figure out if they will make a suitable marriage spouse or not. Becoming intimate with someone is not going to prepare you for marriage, but will in fact destroy any chances of the relationship becoming based on real love and respect for one another. Having sex will destroy the sanctity of any relationship.

Dating Teaches People that Feelings of Lust is Love

How does dating teach people that lust is love? More and more marriages are falling apart because a spouse or both spouses think they have “fallen out of love”.  Have they really fallen out of love or have they fallen out of lust? In dating there are three things involved. You meet them. You desire them. You date (have sex with) them. It takes only a feeling to decide you are ready to move on and find another person to arouse sexually. Sadly this is happening in marriage too.

I received this question just the other day as a comment to one of our articles titled "How to Remain a Virgin Until You Are Married"

How Can You Find a Spouse if You Don't Date?

The ritual of dating is such a common place among society and even Christians that many people think it is impossible to find a spouse without dating. But nothing could be further from the truth.

To most people if you don't date you will never meet someone and fall in love and get married. But this assumption and fear is totally ungrounded and simply not true.

The whole idea behind scriptural romance and Godly courtship is to find a suitable spouse someday but not through the dating process!
It is perfectly fine for God's people to meet and to have all the platonic friendships they could ever want. In fact, the more the better. But...do not become romantically and or emotionally involved with the opposite sex!!

Becoming romantically or emotionally involved with the opposite sex will not help you to get to know someone better for a potential marriage spouse. Only after there is a firm commitment to marriage and you have parents or other guardian's blessings should you even begin to think of becoming emotionally attached.

The commitment to marriage, may or may not come. If there is no commitment, and if you remain unattached then there is no heartache, no hurt feelings, no defenses coming up and no defrauding one another or yourself!! Do you see how that works?!

A Commitment to marriage may take 4 months or it may take two years. There's no rush. Christian people are on God's timing. not their own, so in the meantime, have all the friends in the Lord that you want.

If your opposite sex friends want to get to intimate before a commitment is made to love and honor for the rest of your lives, then the wise thing to do is to back away from the relationship before you get hurt. Why harm a friendship with an emotional attachment if neither of you are ready to make the commitment to marriage?

It may be difficult for a young person to back away from a relationship, and especially if you have allowed the emotional attachment that I am taking about. But anytime someone is pressuring you into intimacy of any kind, they are only out for their own pleasure and are disrespecting you mind and body! Be aware of the signs that this is happening in your relationships. don't let yourself become defrauded like most people do.

If someone is pressuring you to be more than just friends then they need to seek someone else who is more like them in character and who is willing to give in to their desires.

Remember: intimacy without commitment means nothing!

*****
If you have any questions, just ask us and we'll answer as soon as possible. Remember this forum is for you to learn and get encouraged. we welcome all questions, comments and feedback.

Marriage Preparation: Morals to Learn From George Eliots Middlemarch?

Many of the nineteenth Century period books and masterpiece theatre movie classics give Christian people valuable moral lessons in how to conduct relationships with the opposite sex. They show many examples of what happens when we give our heart to another without any real commitment and also what happens when we rush into marriage unprepared.

When we rush something that is not ready to be rushed it establishes the wrong foundation. Getting married for the wrong reasons is one good example of this. If we marry someone because we think they are handsome, kiss good, and have a good job the marriage will most likely be asking for trouble soon after the wedding. Let’s take a look at a Masterpiece classic, Middlemarch and see what moral lessons we can uncover for conducting our relationships with the opposite sex today?

In George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Rosamond, a beautiful, but immature young woman became enchanted with the young and handsome Doctor Lidgate. Her attraction for him took her away from everything else, and consequently, she gave her heart and emotions away to this man. Because of her strong desire for this man she felt it was time for her to get married. Her father however, was against the marriage from the beginning because Dr. Lidgate did not yet have an established medical practice.

Lidgate was still experimenting with new medical discoveries and money or status was not such a high priority to him as it was to Rosamond and her father knew this. Rosie’s father knew his daughter loved having nice things, beautiful jewels, big London apartments, fine clothes and expensive furniture. And her father objected to the marriage. But Rosie allowed her emotions to lead her heart and did not see how incompatible she was to Lidgate. Rosie did not listen to her father’s warning.

Lidgate, an aspiring doctor with lots of potential, was a respected man among the community; he often healed the poorer class of people for free, and he was not financially prepared for marriage, especially to a girl with such high society tastes as Rosamond. Rosamond also cared too much about high society appearances but Lidgate was too absorbed in his medical experiments to really care too much about the pompous upper class of London.

Lidgate was in passionate desire for this young lady and he gave away his affections to her even before a commitment was made! This was almost unheard of in this era and in the English formal society. Rumors begin flying around the circles of society about Lidgate and Rosamond’s affections for each other, which was regarded as very inappropriate behavior.

Hearing all the rumors, Lidgate realized that he let his emotions get the best of him and that he was bound to Rosie because he did give away his affections. Today this would be called flirting and arousing passion in one another. Lidgate realized he had no choice but to marry Rosie or they both would bear reputations of immoral unworthiness, meaning no one else would want to marry them.

Moral Lesson: Do not arouse passion and lust in one another without commitment to marriage. 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7

The marriage was a disaster from the beginning because they were constantly fighting about money and status. Rosamond often demeaned Lidgate and his position as a doctor; remember now he was not making much money because his love of helping others was something he did for free. But all Rosamond cared about was looking good in society and having many nice things.

Lidgate wanted to please Rosamond and consequently they went into debt. Lidgate and Rosie’s differences in values and principles were damaging the marriage considerably. In fact when the loans could not be paid off and the furniture, china, and some of the jewelry repossessed, Rosie became hysterical. Lidgate said they needed to move into a smaller, less expensive flat but Rosie behaved childish and rebellious towards her husband causing a huge rift between them. She cared more about what people will think than supporting her husband and caring about his feelings.

The marriage was wrong between the two from the beginning. This story, written by George Eliot is just one of many in that era that show us excellent principles and moral character lessons that Christians can apply into their daily life today.

Doctor Lidgate and Rosamond valued money in different ways. Rosamond allowed money to dictate her personal happiness. She was so concerned with appearances that she could not understand the ramifications of what she was doing to her marriage by ignoring her husband emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Lidgate on the other hand was only concerned about her happiness and is why they went into debt in the first place. They both rushed into marriage and did not really know the character and personalities of each other.

The point is when we allow our emotions to take the lead in our relationships we don’t see the differences in beliefs, values, and principles that we may have otherwise noticed had we left our emotions in check, prayed about it and waited on God. Emotions of desires, lust and passion will cloud our vision of seeing the true character of someone, as what happened with Lidgate and Rosamond. They differed in important values that affected them in negative ways throughout the marriage.

It’s important to note that in this particular story, Rosamond’s father did notice that his daughter and Lidgate were incompatible and he told Rosamond to not marry Lidgate. The father had insight that Rosamond did not see. This is often true today and is why young single Christians should involve their parent(s) in their relationships and get parents blessing to continue in relationships that have a commitment to marriage. It may seem old fashioned but the principle is wise and should not be disregarded for young people today.