-Principles of courtship!
So as we mentioned,
we are using this terminology to just show the difference
but courtship is kind of like the same thing as dating,
getting to know someone
but for the sake of this course,
I'm going to use two different terminologies.
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In dating, the focus is pretty much having a good time.
And people are dating at 16, 15, 14,
now there's even younger.
Courtship is different because it requires both people to be old enough for marriage.
There is, you know, state has age for marriage,
and then there is also common sense.
And personally, my personal opinion as a youth pastor,
and the one who got married at the age of 24,
I think that if your age has the word teen in it,
you should honestly, postpone dating and marriage,
and focus on other things.
Build your finances,
build your walk with God,
build friendships,
develop hobbies,
live an exciting life,
travel,
you know, win souls and make disciples,
learn how to cast out demons,
heal the sick,
I mean, just really live your life.
Marriage is not going to escape you,
It's going to be there.
And so, give yourself over to the things of God.
Give yourself over to your career.
You know, get a degree, get things done.
Establish yourself so then when you go in,
you go in already prepared, you go in with something to offer.
And usually people like that tend to attract people who are similar to them.
Because you don't attract what you want, you attract who you are.
And so courtship requires both people - a guy and a girl,
to be old enough for marriage.
Not fun.
For dating, dating doesn't have to have marriage in mind.
When people date in school, they date why?
Because maybe one day we'll get married but it's just for fun.
It's to have a good time.
It's to have somebody to call,
somebody to text,
somebody to go out with,
somebody to impress,
somebody to show off,
and so all of these external reasons but marriage is not the goal of dating.
Courtship sees marriage as the goal.
Now that does not mean that every courtship ends up in marriage.
There are cases, and we will talk about that in the future lessons
where sometimes things just won't work out.
But it does not mean that a person goes in trying and experimenting
with having no goal and no desire to get married.
It's a really huge difference between dating.
In dating what's involved is your friends and your feelings.
In courtship, you involve your mentors.
You involve your parents.
And that's a really big difference.
See, your mentors, your parents,
now I'm going to go on a length assuming that parents are the ones
that are serving God, and they want the best for you.
And that you have a life group leader, a pastor, or a mentor.
But these people they love you.
These people many times will see your relationship
or this person that you potentially like without all of the feelings that you have.
Because those feelings they will evaporate once facts step in.
Once reality settles in.
I remember I was 16 years of age and I liked this person,
she was in our youth group.
Our youth group was maybe 15, 20 people.
And I told my pastor about it.
I didn't tell this person that I liked her, but I told my pastor about it.
And I told him I want to get married.
My pastor looked at me and he said, "Vlad, are you kidding me?"
He said, "You're 16!"
I was like, "I know but I really love her."
He says, "You don't even know what love is."
I'm like, "But I'm a youth pastor."
He said, "That doesn't mean anything."
And I'm so glad. Looking back today, I'm so glad I didn't get married at 16.
You know, there were few attractions that I had a single person.
But I told my pastor and he kind of said,
he said, "Vlad, you're not seeing clearly, this is not right."
He said, "I don't have peace about it."
And then I prayed a little bit more,
waited for few weeks,
and honestly, I saw exactly the same thing that he saw.
And it saved me from dating the wrong person,
it saved me from attaching myself and honestly wasting time.
And that's what courtship saves you a lot of headache,
a lot of heartbreak,
and a lot of time
by involving your mentors and your parents.
Now I understand this is a very sensitive issue for some people
because some parents are control freaks.
Some parents, you know, they have their own preferences,
and they will push their preferences as God's principles.
But you should still involve their input.
I'm not saying they have to decide for you.
But they do have to be on the decision board.
They do have to be in your circle of counsel
because the more counsel you have from people that truly love you,
the better your decisions will be.
Especially the people that you are going to run to when your heart will be broken.
You want to bring them on board when you are making those decisions
so they'll walk with you through life.
It's one of the best decisions that I think that you can make.
And that's one of the best options that courtship provides.
What do I mean by relationship ladder?
Relationship has 4 ladders.
And courtship follows these steps slowly.
The first level is the spiritual level.
It's where you build your relationship with the other person on spiritual values.
So for example, where you have things in common and you're building
things about God,
you talk about God,
you connect on this level.
On the topic of ministry, on the topic of your values,
your vision, and your faith.
Now people who say, "No man, I don't want to do that.
I just want to focus on love and everything."
Those things are not going to last.
What you want to last is your values, your convictions, and your faith.
And so courtship focuses first on that.
Where you take a season and you honestly build your relationship with God
with each other, you encourage that.
Where you talk about God.
And then it progresses to level two.
The level two is social.
It's where you share activities not your feelings.
Meaning you have common activities and a group of friends.
Hiking,
playing sports,
going out,
and some kind of activities where you share your activities not your feelings.
See dating starts right away where you share your feelings.
And people's relationships are so shallow.
They don't even know each other.
They don't even know what the other person likes.
They don't even know about each other's family.
They don't know about each other's hobbies.
They don't know about each other's beliefs and doctrinal convictions.
They don't know about each other's values and their vision for life.
The only thing they know is love emojis,
and I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,
and that's all.
And usually those relationships are so flaky and they are so shallow
because they don't have any depth.
There is no spirituality.
There is no shared activities.
There is just feelings.
Feelings are like weather, they change.
And then courtship progresses after that.
Now this could take months, this could take longer,
but you don't skip over this.
This is not like, "Hey, on the first date we talked about God,
"on the second date we went hiking,
and on the third date we already told each other we love each other."
You want to take time.
Let it progress slowly.
So that your roots are grounded and that your relationship is not shallow.
Level number three, it's where the emotional comes in.
It's where you share feelings.
And this is already around the engagement period.
Where you share your feelings for each other.
Now sharing your feelings is different than sharing your nudes. Okay?
The culture we live in today,
they share their feelings and their next stage is sharing their nudes.
Sharing their naked photos with each other.
That's not how Christ wants us to have relationship.
We share things spiritually,
we share activities,
and then we begin to share our feelings.
And this is around the engagement period.
And then the last stage is when we share our bodies.
And that's the physical stage.
It's the wedding time.
And so this is the progression of our feelings,
of our emotions, our words, and our physical.
In dating world today, it's the opposite.
You right away go and you're sleeping with the person,
and they usually never develop any shared activities,
they never develop any friendship,
they never develop any connection,
parents aren't involved, marriage is not the goal.
We're just simply having a good time.
Now you may say, "Well, I like that better."
Well, look at the results.
People end up not finishing their careers,
getting their hearts broken,
the value for sexuality and their body is so low.
They get pregnant with children who grow up in broken homes.
A lot of times they get diseases through these kinds of relationships
and all kinds of other stuff.
It's not God's will for us.
God wants you to choose a higher road.
A better road.
I'm not saying you are a better person but you can find a better way.
And God's way is a better way.
Now you know, I took this path.
And this is not because I'm better than other people.
It's not because I'm the smartest person.
But I was trained in my younger years.
I've read a lot of books on relationships, on courtship and on dating.
And I made a decision, I want to do it God's way.
My parents gave me a good example of how that's to be done.
And so when I met Lana,
we took a season,
she lived very far from here, three and a half hour drive,
and so we got to know each other.
We tried to plan things around church - conferences, hiking trips,
some other activities, to build activities.
And within about three, four months after I got to know her more
I met her pastor,
I met her parents,
I asked for permission to marry her,
I asked my pastor for his blessing,
I asked my parents,
and then I proposed to her.
And then after that we started to become more emotionally engaged.
And when we got married, that's when our physical relationship took off.
And until then, that physical relationship was bare minimal, almost non-existent.
Why? Because we have a whole marriage to explore each other's bodies.
To explore that physical relationship.
But until then, I wanted to explore her personality,
develop friendship,
develop activities,
get to know her as a person,
and develop the foundation of friendship.
And I would encourage you,
whatever journey that you are in with God right now,
choose God's way.
It leads to life.
The broad way, it will lead to destruction.
You will see,
you can look at your friends and other people,
their lives are in shambles.
And some, they have a relationship with God.
They just don't have any reverence.
They don't have any fear of the Lord.
They don't do what God says to do.
They just simply, Hallelujah, Hallelujah on Sunday and that's it.
But they live by their own passions instead of by God's principles.
God's principles work.
And if we submit our passions to God's principles,
it will work for us too.
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