† Christian Dating

♀ Relationships ♂
DATING FOR MARRIAGE

▌►NOTES◄▐

Fruit of Bad Relationships (abortions, divorces, disease)

• In our world, 50 million abortions every year
• More people have died of aids in our world than in all the wars America has ever fought 
• Every day 33,000 people contract an STD to the tune of 12 million people a year
•  Over 1/2 of every marriage ends in divorce
  
  These are the fruit of bad dating, bad choices of mate, bad communication to one another, ungodliness in the midst of a relationship.

2 Peter 1:3
"God has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Christ Jesus."

Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

In Hebrew culture there wasn't dating, your mom and your dad picked your mate. In the very beginning when God established a relationship with a man and a women, he brought to man one woman.

If its not in the Bible, should we even date?

Practice for Marriage vs Practice for Divorce

Unless your in a relationship that you know is moving toward marriage, you shouldn't be in that relationship. As a Christian, your accountable to God and your accountable to God's daughter or God's son (whoever your dating) and if your sampling its wrong. Divorce is not an option in a Christian marriage biblically speaking.

"Why you shouldn't court."
Court (7): respectful or flattering attention paid to someone in order to get something
Proverbs 29:5 "A man who flatters his neighbor is setting nets for his steps"
Another words flattery is deceitful trapping.

"The most powerful relationships I see within Christianity today between a man and a woman are those when the man and the woman has purpose not to kiss one another until the wedding alter, until that day - that's phenomenal, that's amazing, that's unbelievable. I don't know if the generation before us did that, but I'm seeing it happen in our generation. ... There's nothing greater on the face of the earth than marrying two people who waited to kiss until the altar. Because you know what they did, they trusted in God all the way. They did not trust in the flesh or the lies of the enemy. They never said, "Well we need to find out how sexually compatible we are", they simply said "God wants us to be together and sex is gonna be just fine, in fact its going to be blessed because the marriage bed is going to be sanctified and holy" and it is a radical thing that some people in our generation are purposing to do."

Definition of Dating: (personal definition of what Christian dating ought to be)
The applying of biblical relational principles to the building up of one another with the expressed goal of marriage.

1. Yes, we have purpose in our heart to get married. I think this is someone I might be able to get married to - how do we relate to one another with Christian ideals, with Christian principles, those things that our Lord Jesus Christ taught, that we would build one another up as Christians are called to do, toward that goal of marriage.

Verses "The One Anothers"
How Christians are called to relate to one another another, a loose idea of how to relate to a guy or girl in a dating relationship.

• John 13:34-35 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
• Galatians 6:1-2 "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. ²Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."
• Colossians 3:12-14 "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."
• 1 Thessalonians 5:11 "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing."
• Hebrews 3:12-13 "See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness."
• Hebrews 10:24-25 "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."
• James 5:16 "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."
• John 15:12-13 "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command."
• Philippians 2:2-5 "Then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus."

If we hold to our definition of the application of biblical principles within that relationship, if we hold to that throughout a guy/girl relationship - even if worse comes to worse, even if we break up with one another, each party is better off then when they went into the relationship. If we treat each other as Christ taught each us to treat one another we come out as better people. Dating ought to bring life in a Christian relationship, it ought to bring fruit, there ought to be a light there, a vibrance there, a dating relationship between a Christian man and Christian woman ought to bring life, new life, fullness of life, freshness of life, but what I always see between guy and girl relationships as I counsel people is death. I see two living, vibrant, on fire Christians and they get together and its just a matter of weeks before their walks are going like this. Why is that? Two primary reasons: Guilt and Idolatry. Guilt because they fell into sexual adultery and that kills a Christian relationship period. It just goes down hill from there on out, why? God won't bless what hes already condemned in his word. He just won't. And the conviction of the Holy Spirit is upon you and the running of the flesh is happening to you, and Satan has an open door into your relationship through sexual immorality and its an absolute nightmare to have sexual immorality in a Christian relationship. The other reason why I see death in a Christian relationship is idolatary. Two on fire people get together and very soon in the relationship they begin to exalt that person above their relationship with Jesus Christ and there is the second kiss of death. In a moment of weeks, either one of them is slipping away or both of them are slipping away. Sometimes a girl is just on fire and she hooks up with a guy whos just luke warm and what happens? Does he get on fire? I wish that was the case, it never seems to work like that. The girl cools off in her walk. So relationships ought to bring life, they bring death, why? Primarily guilt and idolatary.

If you apply the one anothers to your dating relationship. That relationship will be as iron sharpens iron. You will grow in holiness in that relationship. You will grow in purity in that relationship. You will grow in fire in that relationship. And if you apply those, even should you break up, you'll be more on fire, more in love with the Lord, more ok than when you went into it. Because you spent however long it was building one another up towards Christ, that's the way a Christian relationship ought to be and that's what I mean my definition of dating. The concentrated effort of applying those one another principles.

Principles for Dating

1. Be satisfied with Jesus
   That's where it starts, that's where it ought to end.
   - There's often a reason why the longing for a significant other has not been fulfilled and that's because you have not been satisfied in Jesus Christ yet and God will never bring an idol into your life. Your saying God bring me a man or bring me a woman and hes saying "Not until your content with me and me alone. I'm not going to bring something into your life that's going to be an idol."
   -You want to start Christian dating off right? You've got to let Jesus Christ be your first love.
   -"And when you search for ME with all your heart (you will find your bf or gf? No. Your major? No. The right house to buy? No. Which surfboard to get? No.), you will find ME. And you will come to ME and you will pray to ME and I will listen." That's the desire of God, that your relationship will begin with him and end with him.
   -Matthew 6:33 "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."-Until you love God with all your heart mind and soul (Mark 12:30), you can't love your neighbor with all your heart, mind, and soul. Your neighbor is your significant other.
2. Evaluate the Character of Your Potential Significant Other (pre-dating)
   -Proverbs 22:3 "A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it."
• You want to pursue what they are, not what you wish they were. 
• Set a standard now, that you WILL NOT compromise on. (A list)
• God has the best for you. - Note: Your going to marry a sinner.
• Observe them in different contexts with different people. - Do they study the Bible? Can they teach you a Bible study? Do they pray? Go to church? Nurture their relationship with Christ regularly?
• Test them in righteousness, holiness and character now
• Their character now is your life later. Pursue what they are now, not what you hope them to be.
  
  
  1. Proverbs 27:15 "A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day" - Submissive attitude?
  2. Ephesians 5:21 "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."
  3. Ephesians 5:24-25 "Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
     
  
  Do they have a fear of the Lord?
  
  1. Prov 1:7 "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline."  
  2. Prov 8:13 "To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech." Do you hate evil or do you flirt with evil?  
  3. Prov 9:10 ""The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."  
  4. Prov 10:27 " The fear of the LORD adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short."  
  5. Prov 14:26-27 "He who fears the LORD has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge. The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death."  
  6. Prov 15:16 "Better a little with the fear of the LORD than great wealth with turmoil."  
  7. Prov 16:6b "through the fear of the LORD a man avoids evil." 
  8. Prov 19:23 "The fear of the LORD leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble."
  9. Prov 22:4 "Humility and the fear of the LORD bring wealth and honor and life."  
  10. Prov 31:30 "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised."
      
      -Example "Sin Has Consequences": Two kids begin to roll a snowball down a hill, it gets bigger and bigger, like our sin does. It multiplies, its about to run into a house. There's a family, a fire, presents, a tree. The snowballs now as big as the house and they see its about to go into the house and kill the house. The two kids drop on their knees and ask for forgiveness, they're forgiven then for eternity. But the snowballs going to go through the house, people are going to die. Sin has consequences in the here and now.