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    Devotions for Dating Couples: Building a Foundation for Spiritual Intimacy
    Devotions for Dating Couples: Building a Foundation for Spiritual Intimacy
    Devotions for Dating Couples: Building a Foundation for Spiritual Intimacy
    Ebook205 pages3 hours

    Devotions for Dating Couples: Building a Foundation for Spiritual Intimacy

    By Ben Young and Samuel Adams

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    About this ebook

    If you are like most dating couples, you are looking for more than just a companion—you want a soul mate! This dynamic book will help you discover how to make your most important love relationships—with God and your potential mate—strong, lasting, and radiant.

    The essence of a true soulmate relationship is that of deep spiritual connection and a shared commitment to God. Learn to enrich your inner lives while building a strong foundation for a lasting marriage as you focus on basics of love, prayer, Bible study, forgiveness, and more.

    Relationship experts Ben Young and Samuel Adams, authors of The Ten Commandments of Dating and The One, give user-friendly tips for nurturing your personal walk with God and enhancing your spiritual connection as a couple through in this 9-week devotional. As you read through the daily lessons for individuals and the weekend studies for couples, you will:

    • Become a great lover by learning to love God first
    • Develop the essential disciplines of a lasting relationship
    • Focus on the important things in life
    • Discover a sense of spiritual purpose and meaning
    • Understand that grace is not just for "beginners" – it is for you, every day

    Whether you are dating seriously or engaged to be married, these daily personal devotions and weekly couple's devotions will help you discover the way to lifelong love.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThomas Nelson
    Release dateOct 6, 2002
    ISBN9781418571528
    Author

    Ben Young

    Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong.

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    • 2/5
      The concepts covered in this book are extremely basic, to the point that if you are Christian, you believe in these things. My boyfriend and I didn't really find this book useful, since we already knew we shared the same basic beliefs.
    • 5/5
      cartea e faină, e baza despre creștinizm mai mult și eu cred ca asta e cel mai corect
    • 5/5
      I loved it, easy to read and understand, full of truth of God's word.

    Book preview

    Devotions for Dating Couples - Ben Young

    Devotions

    FOR DATING COUPLES

    OTHER BOOKS BY

    BEN YOUNG AND DR. SAMUEL ADAMS

    The Ten Commandments of Dating

    The One

    Devotions

    FOR DATING COUPLES

    Building a Foundation of Spiritual Intimacy

    BEN YOUNG & DR. SAMUE L ADAMS

    01-Devotions_for_Dating_Couples_0003_001

    Copyright © 2001 by Ben Young and Dr. Samuel Adams

    All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

    Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

    Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

    Scripture quotations noted KJV are from the KING JAMES VERSION.

    Scripture quotations noted The Message are from The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary English. Copyright © 1993 by Eugene H. Peterson.

    Scripture quotations noted PHILLIPS are from J. B. Phillips: THE NEW TESTAMENT IN ENGLISH, Revised Edition. Copyright © J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

    Scripture quotations noted NKJV are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson Publishers.

    Scripture quotations noted NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

    Scripture quotations noted NASB are from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Used by permission.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Young, Ben.

      Devotions for dating couples : building a foundation of spiritual intimacy / Ben Young & Sam Adams

        p. cm.

      ISBN 0-7852-6749-2 (pbk.)

     1. Single people—Religious life. 2. Dating (Social Customs)—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Adams, Sam. II. Title.

    BV4596.S5 Y68 2002

    248.8'4—dc21

    2001054382

    Printed in the United States of America

    01 02 03 04 05 PHX 5 4 3 2 1

    To our parents, Ed and Jo Beth Young and Alex and Paula Adams—thank you for leading us to salvation and showing us the value of a daily walk with God.

    CONTENTS

    Introduction

    Week One: Love

    Week Two: Grace

    Week Three: Prayer

    Week Four: The Word

    Week Five: Simplicity

    Week Six: Forgiveness

    Week Seven: Community

    Week Eight: Purity

    Week Nine: The Spirit

    About the Authors

    Devotions

    FOR DATING COUPLES

    INTRODUCTION

    Have you ever stopped to consider how much time, energy, and emotion you spend on your outer self, the externals of life? Think about it. The overwhelming majority of your life is spent on the externals—making money, eating, exercising, entertaining, shopping, sleeping, and so on. Such focus and attention are legitimate and even necessary for basic living. However, in contrast, consider how much attention you give to your inner life. How much time do you actually spend nurturing your soul? Is your relationship with God a priority? If it is, then this devotional will guide you toward a more active, on-going relationship with your Creator, God.

    Devotions for Dating Couples is designed to encourage you to take a look inside and focus more deliberately on your inner life. First and foremost, it is a resource to help you enhance and nourish your spiritual life and your personal relationship with God. There is no greater endeavor than the process of developing a deeper connection with God. This guide will lead you on your spiritual journey.

    In addition, this devotional is a resource to help serious dating couples (or engaged couples) begin to build a foundation of spiritual intimacy in order to promote the kind of marriage that will last a lifetime. We are convinced that the essence of a true soul mate relationship is that of deep spiritual connection. Unfortunately far too many people are merely concerned with finding a companion or a playmate rather than a soul mate. A true soul mate relationship can be attained only when there are a solid level of spiritual compatibility and a mutual agreement that the marriage centers on a relationship with God. Once you find a partner who has the potential for a true soul mate relationship, then you can start to lay a foundation of spiritual intimacy upon which to build in years to come.

    This resource is for couples who are in a long-term dating relationship with a view toward marriage. It is not necessarily intended for couples who are casually dating or in the early stages of a relationship. In fact, it’s possible to develop spiritual intimacy too soon before a relationship has the opportunity to grow more naturally. Therefore, we advise you to be cautious and mindful of this danger. In our book The Ten Commandments of Dating, we warn couples to take their relationship slowly and allow for a natural bonding to take place over time. We offer seven slow-motion dating strategies, one of which is the need to avoid praying together until the relationship has a chance to grow and develop in other areas. In the spirit of this principle, we suggest that spiritual intimacy should be reserved for committed couples in the later stages of the relationship, committed couples who have their eyes on marriage.

    A USER-FRIENDLY GUIDE

    We hope to make this devotional a user-friendly guide that enables you to explore core issues of spirituality. We’re not interested in confusing you with profound theological conundrums, nor are we concerned with trivial or nonessential religious legalism—they just complicate true spirituality. Our focus is on the basic, foundational aspects of spirituality: the Christian virtues and practices of love, grace, prayer, Bible study, simplicity, forgiveness, community, purity, and living in the power of the Holy Spirit.

    A significant part of the process of developing a rich, rewarding spiritual life is just a matter of showing up and paying attention. It’s not so much about doing more for God; it’s about being in His presence. When we make ourselves available to God, to listen to the whisper of His Spirit, or when we put ourselves in positions of solitude and simply allow ourselves to be still and know, we make room for God to be a part of our lives. Only when we take out the distractions of our chaotic lives do we allow God to participate in transforming our lives and relationships into all He intended them to be.

    HOW TO USE THIS DEVOTIONAL

    This devotional is designed to be used daily for nine weeks. Each week is devoted to one primary discipline or area. The first five days of the week (Monday through Friday) will challenge you on your individual walk with God and should be done alone. At the end of each daily devotional there is a place for further meditation on designated portions of Scriptures. The Christian version of meditation is about reflection and focus on a particular topic. Far from the Eastern version of meditation, which encourages you to empty your mind, this form of meditation encourages you to fill your mind with the things of God and then take the time to reflect or chew on them. Doing this allows you to redirect your attention toward God’s principles and truths.

    Of course, we want you to be prayerful as you study and read Scripture during these nine weeks. We have provided a section at the end of each week devoted to prayer. We have found that having some form of structure during a prayer time is helpful. Feel free to use the suggested outline (P.R.A.Y.). In addition, please use the space provided to write down or journal your thoughts and prayers to God.

    Saturday is reserved for you and your partner to answer questions and share insights from the previous week of study together. We hope to stimulate meaningful discussion between yourselves about the most important aspects of the Christian faith. Keep in mind that the ultimate goal of this devotional is to enhance your relationship with God, both as individuals and as a couple. Our prayer is that God will use this study to stimulate growth, to bless you with fresh insights, and to encourage a deeper walk with Him.

    Sunday provides the opportunity for you and your partner to attend church together. We are convinced that one of the greatest ways to enhance spiritual compatibility is to praise and worship God together with a group of believers. Furthermore, church attendance can be a catalyst for sharing with each other the things that God may be teaching you. We have provided a place for you to take notes on the sermon/message for that day as well as any relevant insights to discuss at a later point.

    We are certain that God relentlessly pursues a closer relationship with you, and to that end, He is not hard to find. Eugene Peterson said it best in The Message: Starting from scratch, [God] made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us. He’s not remote; he’s near. You see, God is always waiting for you with open arms, and He longs for a deeper connection. So come along and let us encourage you on the spiritual path toward a deeper relationship with eternal God.

    WEEK ONE

    Love

    They do not love that do not show their love.

    —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

    We must grow in love and in order to do this we must go on loving and loving and giving and giving until it hurts—the way Jesus did.

    Do ordinary things with extraordinary love.

    —MOTHER TERESA

    Love has nothing to do with what you are expected to get.

    It’s what you are expected to give.

    —ANONYMOUS

    MONDAY

    True Love

    This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins . . . And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

    —1 JOHN 4:10, 16

    Do you remember when you fell in love? That first glance? The first time you held hands? The thought, Could this be the one? Few things on this earth can compare with that magical experience (most of which are illegal). Let’s face it. The feeling of romantic love is flat-out intoxicating. I remember that initial connection with my wife, Julie, when I thought, Nothing could be better than this!

    You know what? I was dead wrong. Oh, sure, that passionate love was great (and it still is). Passion and romance are certainly legitimate forms of love and important in the process of bringing men and women together. But passionate love is just a taste of something better. It points us to a higher love, a true love. Believe it or not, there is a love that runs deeper, stronger, and truer than any form of earthly romance—God’s love.

    God is not only the Author and Designer of love; He is the very essence of this thing we call love. He is the pure Embodiment of genuine love. Therefore, it stands to reason that our need

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