Dating & Courtship by Stephen Picklesimer (reading rainbow books TXT) 📕

to hear wise counsel!
Vast numbers of teenagers go down the path of sincerely believing they are in love. Deceiving themselves, they are actually ruining their lives and the lives of others! Fornication, terrible diseases, unwanted children, shamed and disappointed families, financial hardship, disillusionment, psychological problems (sometimes even leading to suicide), lost education, lost innocence, lost friendships, lost happiness—and lost futures—are the painful results!
Make no mistake! These things do not just apply to teenagers! Laws are laws—they play no favorites. They apply to every person who violates—breaks—God’s eternal spiritual Law, which, if kept, is capable of preventing every human ill. Breaking them brings a host of effects that WILL “break” all who ignore this supreme cause.
A simple principle applies here: “Wherefore let him that thinks he stands take heed [beware] lest he fall” (I Cor. 10:12). This can—and should—be applied to every aspect of life. Are you certain you are walking the right direction in your dating relationships? What dangers might you be overlooking—or ignoring? Will you set the right priorities, demonstrate character and do the right thing?
Your entire future could depend on it!
Conversion Comes First
The single greatest goal of every person is to be born into the coming kingdom of God, to share rulership with Christ at His Return. All other goals, including pursuing and achieving a happy marriage, are of lesser importance. This means that receiving the Spirit of God, which begins the path of conversion, is one’s single highest priority after reaching adulthood.
However, while serious dating should wait, there is a certain type of dating that can be done before one is converted. (The difference between these two stages will be explained later in greater detail.) First, one should never date one-on-one or advance to the more serious stage of courting until after CONVERSION—which begins with repentance, baptism and the receiving of God’s Spirit!
Why should baptismal status matter? Grasp this crucial fact. Husbands and wives are to express the love of God (agape) to each other and, for this to be possible, God must be working within a marriage. This can only occur if His Spirit is present in both partners. Again recall Romans 5:5, in addition to Galatians 5:22, which explains that love is a “fruit” of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s make clear when one receives the Holy Spirit. Notice Acts 2:38: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” You must repent—which is turning from disobedience to God’s Law—and be baptized before you can receive God’s Spirit. Without it, you are utterly incapable of loving a mate in the way God designed. (Be sure to read our booklet What Do You Mean Water Baptism?)
Some will ask, “What does conversion have to do with dating or courting?”, adding, “I have no intention of getting married at this point.” However, if you are becoming serious or courting someone before conversion, you are already—albeit unconsciously—building a foundation of physical attraction, physical “love.”
Think of the above in the following way: Failing to see the importance of receiving God’s Spirit before serious dating (not speaking of marriage yet) equates to telling God that you do not need His guidance in selecting your mate—that you only need His help in blessing a marriage after the fact—after you decided who would be best as your lifelong partner! Ultimately, you have formed a relationship without seeking God’s guidance as to whether there was hope for success.
Would you make a big business decision—certainly not as important as marriage—without first determining your chances of success?
Some marriages should never take place, regardless of how the couple feels and whether they are converted. Later portions of this book will more thoroughly address why. All those who select a mate without God’s direction are “rolling the dice,” with no assurance whatsoever that the relationship can work long-term.
Many readers may have already made the mistake of marrying the wrong person, sometimes more than just one. In almost every case, lack of maturity was involved with one or both spouses in the previous marriage. If this is you, you could be reading this book for guidelines (if the marriage failed), asking how to do better the “next time.” (This is another question that will be addressed later.)
No matter how “mature” one may be (and mature teenagers would be the last to ignore sound advice), it should now be clear that anyone of teen age cannot possibly develop true, godly love. This does not mean you cannot date, but that you must adjust your definition of dating. ALWAYS keep it general. Teenagers should NEVER allow themselves to get serious in a one-on-one relationship. (See chapters 7 and 8 for much more detail.)
An unconverted mind can practice the principle of “it is more blessed to give than receive” (Acts 20:35) to a certain degree, but, lacking God’s Spirit, a carnal mind that is also immature cannot even begin to face and overcome the trials and challenges of marriage.
Parents of Teens
If you are a parent of teenagers, you should be careful not to force your children to date only those of your choosing. (This is qualified later in the book.) If you do, you will drive them the opposite way.
God Himself is a parent and, like every parent, He wants the very best for His children. However, He recognizes that He made human beings as free moral agents, able to make mistakes, but also able to learn from them. And while experience is a very good teacher, it is far better (and less painful) to learn from instruction and from the examples of others.
Parents are responsible for teaching their children God’s Way. As your children grow older, you should be gradually giving them more responsibility. Under your overall guidance, this will help them learn to make right decisions. During the late teens, a teenager should be making some of his own decisions. But there may be times when you need to intervene. If your teenager wants to spend time with the wrong companions, disregard all protests—step in and stop the contact! As parents, you are often the only ones truly guiding your teenager. Be willing to take the time to actively teach them God’s principles and truths—and to intervene when necessary to protect them from themselves.
Be assured that if you do not teach your teenagers, someone else will—and it will probably not be what you want them to learn!
Emotional Maturity is Vital
Most people in the modern age no longer base decisions and actions on solid moral values. They have been programmed to act according to their feelings. Very few are any longer taught that they must learn to control their emotions.
A well-known singer once recorded what became a famous song, titled “Feelings.” My father enjoyed this particular tune, and I came to enjoy it as well. Looking back, it became, in a sense, prophetic of our entire age—and this age has had an impact on you, and it will directly affect how and with whom you form relationships in your life.
This has been called “the age of feel good.” Most people now make decisions, come to conclusions or react in given situations based almost exclusively on how things feel to them. For more than a generation, most human beings have become subtly conditioned—by education, pop psychology and society—to listen to, and stay in tune with, their feelings, as a guide to their course of action in any given situation.
Part of this conditioning involves people having been virtually trained to look for and almost exclusively respond to their FEELINGS. They have even been taught to elevate their feelings to the point of almost continually asking themselves how they feel—about almost everything!
This represents an enormous change in the overall way that most people think and react—and view the circumstances in which they find themselves. Dating and courtship are not exceptions, and may have been affected more than most other areas of human activity.
Here is what is different—what has changed today. The vast majority of people, including society as a whole, once generally reacted to circumstances, and the environment around them, based on the VALUES that they had been taught—based on ethics, principles, morals, beliefs, integrity and overall character. This meant that people once viewed matters much more on the basis of right versus wrong, good versus evil, proper versus improper, wise versus unwise, and even law versus sin.
Sadly, and so tragically, a regard for VALUES of almost any kind now carries very little weight in the thinking of most in the world. Today, hurt feelings, emotions and perceptions have become much more important—have been given much greater credence in people’s thinking—than at probably any other time in human history.
There is no aspect of life left unchanged by this trend.
Living Daily “Soap Operas”
Millions of children and teenagers today cannot handle even the simplest obstacles, problems and challenges so basic to everyday life. In part, this is because they have never or only rarely been told “no” by their parents or other authority figures—they have rarely been denied anything. Therefore, seemingly every “issue” or crisis causes them to “go to pieces.”
The result has been that much of today’s generation is living out a kind of daily “soap opera.” Everything involves emotional melodrama because society has been and is being conditioned, now through the recent phenomenon of “reality television,” to continually await the latest twist, next chapter or new episode being played out on screen.
More often than ever, when young children do not get their way, they throw temper tantrums if not disciplined. Usually, parents do nothing, but as these same children grow up, they eventually realize that it is unacceptable for an adult to fall to the floor, kicking and screaming. So, most—but not all—learn to hide or suppress tantrums.
But little has changed on the inside. While teens and adults may have learned to cover up some or most of their emotions on the outside, many are still screaming, crying and going to pieces inside. This is exactly why so many grow up appearing to be mature but, in reality, have remained terribly immature.
Many young people and even adults today battle moodiness, often brooding and becoming easily annoyed when they are not the center of attention. In the pursuit of happiness, most of society almost constantly caters to their every whim and desire—without regard for the consequences. Just look at the pampered athletes throughout professional sports, and these are the “role models” that millions of children, teens and young adults are copying.
Today’s teenagers are also much more easily influenced by their peers than just a generation ago. Rather than using their own minds and character to make sound decisions, they succumb to the easier path of following the crowd. Acceptance has become all-important in today’s world. Worse, and even more common, most individuals now refuse to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for anything—feeling, in the age of “victimhood,” that almost nothing is ever really their fault. The “blame game” has become epidemic.
By the age of 16, a teenager has usually reached a certain level of physical maturity. It is at this point that he may begin to think more seriously about life. Yet—and this is critical to comprehend—it is usually not until around age 25 that one reaches a significant level of mental maturity. But even this applied more to generations past.
What About You?
The above examples of immaturity are best described as an epidemic afflicting millions today. What is your maturity level? Are you certain that you are growing in maturity—enough to properly handle dating, and possibly courtship, assuming you are of sufficient age and conversion?
Real maturity is absolutely essential to successful dating. This is true for two reasons. First, most people do not find it pleasant to date an