Rules of courtship

1. Courtship is not where you choose who to marry, it is where you test your choice.

2. The beautiful thing is that the test in courtship is both ways, you are both a candidate and an examiner.

3. Even if you heard God, courtship is when you see how you match. What do you need to adjust and what is a prayer point?

4. You are both God's imperfect gifts. Courtship is where you learn the kind of imperfection you are dealing with.

5. Courtship is where you come to and may have to run back to God and ask 'is this the one or I should expect another?'

6. Oftentimes, courtship is God's major test for your own readiness. It can stretch you so hard your immaturity snaps.

7. When you start having sex, you have stopped courting, you have started marriage! That thing blinds too much.

8. The more premarital sex goes on in the world, the more marriages will fail because discipline and preparation is lost.

9. Failed courtships account for a lot of failed marriages. The lost art of preparation is the reason for bad performance.

10. Whilst I don't prescribe any length of time, you better get yourself some time before marriage to relate and familiarize; to appreciate who you both are on a basic level, to reasonably forecast the full weight of what your combination will be, to reasonably predict outcomes and appreciate signals of both pleasures and pressures.

11. Courtship must not end in marriage if you realize the choice was a mistake or the choice is corrupted. The next points will explain.

12. God anointed King Saul but rejected Him. God can give you a partner and because of their personal choices reject them before marriage.

13. I know you have been going out for so so and so years, but that's not enough to marry a person you suddenly realize is outside GOD'S order for you.

14. Don't lie to yourself about the truth in courtship; marriage tells bitter truths to those who lie such lies.

15. Don't stay in the relationship on blackmail when your heart knows it's over.