Investment Tips For Dating

Investments Tips About Dating

10/21/07 Proverbs Proverbs 4:20-27 1 Corin 7:32-40

One of the most difficult things about this process called dating, going together, going steady or whatever the term is for it today is that most of the time it ends up being a painful process for one or both of the people involved. Check out a story that’s been true and continues to be true (Show video clip Everybody Plays The Fool—This can be seen at our website www.glenvillenewlife.com under the section “Words and Illustrations)

Has anyone here been guilty of playing the fool once or twice in your life? Recently we began singing a song, with the lyrics, “I love myself so much, that I can love you so much. That you can love you so much, that you can start loving me.” When I first heard that song, I thought the person was being egotistical with an overestimation of his or her own importance. But then I realized, it had the message of Jesus in it, when Jesus said, “love your neighbor as yourself.” If you do not love you very much, then it follows you will not love your neighbor too much either.

Dating begins with loving yourself so much, that you will not do anything that’s not in your best interest. I mean your best interest in relationship to your own life, your family, and your relationship to God. When we hear the word dating, some of us immediately start to giggle and get goose bumps because we think something romantic or sexual is coming on the horizon. Here comes our beautiful princess or our handsome prince to sweep us off our feet and carry us off to some mystical place where joy and love fills the air. Tell your neighbor, “it’s not going to happen and there is no such place.”

There is no verse in the bible that says you shall date or you shall not date. We find instances in the bible where parents arranged for marriages to take place as with Isaac and Rebekkah. We also see that David saw and fell in love with Michal and they got married. We saw in our New Testament reading a situation in which a couple was seeing each other and trying to decide on marriage or not. Our goal therefore is to look for principles in the bible to lead us into make wise choices.

To understand dating, we first need to understand ourselves, and what we are capable of getting into. First of all, we all have a heart that’s sinful and needs to be changed by the power of Jesus Christ. We all are subject to giving in to temptation and disobeying God. If we do not put barriers around ourselves to keep us from sinning, then we will most certainly fall into sin. It is foolish for any of us to say or to think, “oh that could never happen to me.”

We all have an incredible ability to deceive ourselves into thinking, we have things under control when we really do not. We get upset with our parents who want to limit our dating saying, “oh you don’t trust me.” If you admitted the truth about you to yourself, you would not trust you either.

We are given some powerful wisdom from Proverbs 4:23 (NIV) 23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. The key to us navigating through relationships will depend on how well we guard our hearts. Have you made the decision that anything coming into my heart, must first pass through my God. It is easy to fall in love with the wrong person. Ask for the opinion of those you trust about the other person, before you go head over heels for him or her. Remember, the person you are dating is putting his or her best appearance forward which mans there are some hidden land mines.

Let’s look at the purpose of dating from a Christian perspective. As Christians, whatever we do is to be done to the glory of God. We ask ourselves the question “is this pleasing in God’s eyes.” One goes dating in order to learn about or to get to know the other person. The big issue ought to be, what kind of a friend will this person be. You see if your goal for dating is to find someone you would like to spend your life with in marriage, you need to be looking for someone who would make a great friend.

We have bought into the lie, that the way to know someone is to have sex with the person as though what happens in sex, proves how much you love someone or how great a lover they will be. A date is reduced to how quickly can I get your clothes off you and get into bed with you. Nothing more is known about the person than before.