Courtship vs. Dating

Philippians 3:3 "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."

When you think of dating what comes to your mind? That is a word that the world uses for two people "going out" ALONE to do some sort of activity. I know that when I was a teenager before getting married that I dated. I was most times alone with the guy I went out with. The problem with being alone is that there is no accountability at all to anyone for a person's actions. Well...there is accountability to the couple that is out alone. But a person or persons are less likely to do anything that some would consider sinful with other people in their presence.

With dating there is also touching involved. The Bible says in I Corinthians 7:26 "...it is good for a man not to touch a woman." I think this is pretty self-explanatory. When a couple are together whether alone or not and they are holding hands or putting their arms around one another it causes certain hormones to get active. And the touch of holding hands or stroking a person's hand or back or anything else will lead to other things that I will not elaborate on. I'm sure most of you reading this know what I'm talking about. I can say, however, that dating and touching one another no matter how innocent you think it may be will lead to things that you will regret later if not careful. I dated and ended up having a child out of wedlock. We under estimate the power of the flesh in our lives. Our flesh is very powerful. And the more we feed it the more powerful it becomes. I don't care how strong of a person you think you are you can and will fall to the power of the flesh if you continue to feed it. How do we feed it you might ask. By listening to the certain types of music and watching certain types of tv programming or videos and by being alone with someone that causes the flesh to get worked up. We have got to starve that flesh!! And we starve that flesh by abstaining from those things that will feed the flesh.

Dating is not God's way of building a relationship. Dating is the devil's way. He wants you to fall and ruin your life. I was not ready for a baby at that time in my life that I had my son. My husband was only 16 years old at the time. Yes, we ended up getting married. It wasn't because we loved each other. It was because we felt that was what we needed to do. It was a hard road to travel. We were lost without God and knew nothing about raising a child. We both got saved 8 years later but we could have avoided a lot of heartache had we known the Lord and done things God's way.

But since my husband and I have experienced and seen the effects of dating compared to the effects of God's way of courtship...we are training our children to go God's way in courtship. This new avenue of courtship has begun in our son's life. This will be all new to us. But we want to see God honored and glorified in their relationship before marriage. We also don't want them to have the same opportunity to mess up their lives like my husband and I did. God speaks of fornication as sin and we don't want our children to indulge in that in any way, shape or form.

I know I didn't get this out quite like I had hoped to. I pray the Lord forgives me. Just know this one thing...dating will cause you to do things that you maybe didn't intend to do. God intends for a person to go to the wedding altar pure and a virgin. The chances of that happening are significantly reduced when there is touching and alone time going on. I will continue my thought on this issue in my next post.