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The Wisdom of Waiting
Waiting is a blessing. Learn to enjoy waiting. It's God giving you a chance to rest and grow, and it's one of the ways to HIS blessings. Isa 40:31

Waiting and Praying
"Why did they pray?  Was it to convince God to send down His Holy Spirit? No, as they waited they prayed and as they prayed God prepared them for what was about to take place.  When we pray we don't line God up with us - He lines us up with HIM.  Prayer aligns your life with God who is power so that He can choose to use you to demonstrate His power through you."

The American Dating Lifestyle
Be on guard for submitting to a lifestyle of sin as no big deal, because it is a big deal to God, and it comes along with discipline.

Possessing Truth
When sinful people hear the Truth, in their arrogance, they reject it. Grace is given to the humble, resulting in freedom (Jn 8:32). Remember, you may “have” the Truth, but you may not “possess” it - there’s a difference (one is knowledge, one is faith).

Deserved Suffering
If you continue to disregard the Word of God, refusing to submit to it in humility so that faith results, then you are setting yourself up for pain. This is self-inflicted in the same sense that if you walk into a lion’s cage, you can expect to be bitten (is that the lion’s fault???).

The Godly Way
If you want to get to know someone with a sight on possible marriage, do so in a classy way, humbly courting them, and NOT putting yourself in situations of temptation.

Prov 6:27 NIV
Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?

Wisdom and Waiting
Be on guard against the seductions of contemporary romance. It's a lie that will give you false hope, and skewed vision.

Wisdom and Waiting
If you go beyond biblical courting, you will blur your vision. Once intimacy enters the picture, you become biased, not seeing if you have a true soul connection or not. Any sexual intimacy will blind you from being truthful about the relationship. (You'll want to stay in it even when you see "ugly" things in the other person, because YOU SELFISHLY don't want to lose the intimacy.)

Jesus On Personal Responsibility
In Jesus’ eyes, as our Great Shepherd (Heb 13:20), it’s imperative that His sheep take responsibility for themselves (Lk 12:42-48), lest they remain stuck in the thicket indefinitely.

Gal 6:7
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.

Imagine A World...
-...where “dating woes” didn’t exist…talk about peace!
-...where only married people had or even contemplated sex…talk about stability!
-...where single people were preoccupied with Jesus Christ instead of romance…talk about contentment!!!

Adolescent Strategy
The problem with the "fairness" argument is that it is wholly based on human viewpoint. Only an arrogant human has the audacity to say they can choose a better mate for themselves than God can. Only an arrogant person attempts to stuff "dating" into the holy category of "courting".

The Beginning of Discipline
When a person chooses a sinful lifestyle, they immediately take on the daily pressure of living outside of the will of God. This robs them of their peace and contentment, for an unsettled conscience serves as an agitator. If they aren't agitated, they may have a bigger problem (salvation?).

The Beginning of Wisdom
Do not make the mistake of comparing your personal relationships with those the world keeps. God holds His children to a different standard. (Psa 111:10)

“your sanctification”
Such is the very will of God. The Bible immediately couples this thought with "that you abstain from sexual immorality" (1Th 4:3), revealing the contrariness of sexual sins (not just sexual intercourse that leads to conception).

Wisdom and Waiting
The world's ways are opposite God's ways, and the Lord is saying "best keep your distance so you don't get burned, AGAIN, and so you can receive My true blessings".

Heb 13:4
Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

Dishonoring Marriage
The problem isn’t just the physical act of adulterating the marriage bed; in fact, the greater problem, as is the case with any sin, is that people no longer see fit to HONOR marriage!!! (Heb 13:4)

Satan’s Counterfeit Marriage
We might consider American dating as Satan’s counterfeit to godly marriage. The prior satisfies the lusts of the flesh while disregarding the Sovereign’s divine will for marriage/family.

The Godly Way
God's heart is for unselfish love and care for one another, under the safety and commitment of the umbrella of marriage. Sexual intimacy outside of that umbrella is evil in God's eyes.

2Co 6:14-15
Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?

Satan’s Counterfeit Marriage
Satan entices believers with “attractive” unbelievers. While believers ought to “flee” from this, they often fall prey to their lusts, regardless of Biblical warnings (2Co 6:14-15).

Marriage and Sex
The concepts of marriage and sex should be so tightly knit in your soul that you can’t think of one without the other. If marriage were a blueprint, sex would be the innermost private room in the finished home.

1Co 6:13
Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.

Ro 12:1
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Counterculture
The life a believer is meant to lead is literally opposite from the one the world leads. In effect, we are the “counterculture”, being in the minority.

Straddling the Fence
Most immature believers make the mistake in thinking that they can remain culturally relevant AND serve the Lord, without any friction.

“abstain”
to hold back, keep off, be distant; in context, means to distance yourself from evil (e.g., the trap of American dating)

Defenders of Virtue
Instead of looking for ways to violate each other’s virtue, we ought to be devoted to it! (1Ti 5:1-2; Ro 12:10; 1Jn 2:16; Pr 31:3; Php 2:3-4)

Prov 31:3
Do not give your strength to women,
Or your ways to that which destroys kings.

Ps 119:9
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By keeping it according to Your word.

The Gift of Life
True satisfaction is a gift from God. If we charge through life with sinful abandon, we risk ruin. There are many things to enjoy, but they must be enjoyed in faith and obedience. (Ecc 11:9)