One of the most common questions that comes up when we talk about relationships is, "how do I know that he / she is the ‘one’?" I think we’ve all asked the question of whether someone is our ‘one’ at some point, so today we’re going to be looking at what the Bible says about this, and how to choose your bae wisely!

Asking the question of whether you are dating the ‘one’ actually comes out of a place of fear; fear of failure that you won’t be able to make your relationship work. So if that comes from a place of fear we need to take it a step back to a place of fearless and ask ourselves a question ‘how does God see me?’ In the Bible it tells us that if you are a Christian here that God sees you as a son or a daughter adopted into his family. A friend of mine Dan Blythe said something that in a preach once that I love about this subject. He said “We have been adopted into the ultimate royal family, as princes and princesses of the King of Kings. Now, when it comes to relationships, royalty don’t settle for anything other than royalty. So why would we, as members of God’s royal family, settle for anyone who’s not also in God’s royal family? Just remember, ‘bae ain’t bae if bae don’t pray’!

What Is Dating?
When we are dating we are seeing whether him or her are compatible to yourself and vice-versa. The thing we want to discover more about when dating is the persons character, to see if they have been born again (John3:3-8). Does this person share the same desire to more like Christ (Phillipians2:5). Does this person want a relationship where Jesus is bang slap in the middle of it? Does this person push you closer to Jesus or does this person push you away from him?

Have you ever heard someone say my boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, they are everything to me! Are they your everything? One thing we want to make sure when you are dating is that your boyfriend or girlfriend love Jesus more than they love you. That might sound crazy! But lets look at what the Bible says.


In Matthew 10:37 it says:
37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."


Now this bible verse is talking about a mother, father, son or daughter, but lets take that verse and put it to relationships.
“Anyone who loves their boyfriend or girlfriend more than me is not worthy of me.”




Another question that we can often ask is ‘How Young Is Too Young?’
Now this can vary from person to person. Maybe a 17 year old is mature enough to start dating before a 25 year old.




Are you mature enough?
There will be people in this room who will say yes and some who say no, but you need to be honest about it to yourself. Maybe pray about it and ask God for wisdom


James 1:5
“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him”


Why not ask your Discipler. If you haven’t got one let me encourage you to find someone, find someone who is slightly further down the line with their Christian walk, someone who has more life experience. Maybe that is a youth leader or someone who you are already close to at church, but why should you get advice from other Christians? What does the Bible say?


In Proverbs 12:15 it says;
“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, But a wise man is he who listens to counsel.”

It might be hard to hear their advice, but let them speak into your life. Is it vulnerable…yes! But they are pushing you towards Jesus and are looking after your heart. Start thinking about the future as well, start thinking about University and if that is something you are interested in. Start thinking what is God calling me in life. If he is calling you to be a missionary in Africa and you were to date someone who is adamant that they are staying in Hastings then you need to rethink that, what is God calling you too?





In a relationships you are both very vulnerable to temptation. As emotions begin to develop, the attraction deepens and hormones kick in, the enemy uses this is a weapon. When we get to this point the enemy can use our vulnerability and temptation, mix it in with what the world says a relationship is all about and if we aren’t rooted in Christ and the foundations are secure then we are in for a rocky ride. In a time of life where we are learning more about what a relationship should be in the eyes of the world thanks to Instagram we become more vulnerable, we become more fearful and we feel more pressure of what a relationship should be like. How secure are you to Christ?
Like I said at the beginning dating is the beginning of seeing if a person is marriage material and if you aren’t even considering marriage then maybe you shouldn’t date. Why risk the temptation in the long haul when you could focus on your relationship with God now.

No matter when a person decides to start dating whether that be 15 years old or 50 years old, the timing should always be on a foundation of faith, knowing who they are in Christ and with the person finding out what God is calling them to do. We all know the verse in the middle and it gets used a lot with youth work, but I think this is key to relationships.


A quick practical point, before we end is we all have the ultimate partner. Maybe for you its blue eyes, brown hair, 5 foot 7 inches, interested in video games and sushi whilst loving make up and fashion, but not loving the winter and loving dogs and has muscles and knows every word of the bible in every translation and every language. We have a massive list and if they don’t hit every single thing I want the checklist can be unachievable. You wont find a ‘perfect’ person. You wont find the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend, but remember that if they love Jesus then that is the ultimate call of their life. Of course you need to be sexually attracted to them as well as having a deep emotional connection, but something to think about when looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend.




1 Timothy 4:12
12 Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.


Set the example to the church. Lets be the leaders of this church. Lets show the church that not all young people are sleeping around and doing whatever, but we are putting God bang slap in the middle of our relationships and number one in our lives.

 

Do you ever wonder why God put you where you are? Maybe you live in an area of the UK, or apart of the world where there is war and your town is broken and you call to God and say "God why am I here?!" "I don't understand God!?" "God please can I move elsewhere?!"

I recently moved to the lovely seaside town (totally didn't just Google to see if it was a town or city...what's the difference anyway?). After not living by the seaside for 4 years I have got to admit I am so glad to be back. Every morning when I wake up and open my blinds in my room I get the privilege of seeing God's amazing creation with the sea. What do you see when you look out the window? Maybe it's your garden where everything is orange because of the autumn breeze or maybe you see someone else's room from the flat's across the road, maybe you see a bus stop where you know at 8:36am every weekday, young people get on the bus because you can hear them chatting. Wherever you live, a town, city, countryside or in a boat find things to love about the place you live.

When I post a photo about Hastings on Instagram or Twitter I use the hashtag #LoveHastings. If you are a social media person, whether that be Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat why not put #Love(InsertThePlaceYouLive). Find anything from the big to the small. It could be that you really don't like the place you live and you walk past a flower and something about it sticks out - take a photo, document it, enjoy God's creation. Maybe you love where you live - show it off.

I recently worked with a company called NCS, where I had the chance to work with a bunch of awesome young people and I spoke about #LoveHastings. When I asked them what do you love about Hastings, they all responded with nothing, to which I responded, well what don't you like about Hastings then? Oh my if I didn't stop them then I believe they might still be going on with what they don't like. The problem is, being the humans that we are, we can so often get caught up in the negative and not think about the positive of God's creation. But, we may just have to look harder for it and that is what I did with these young people. I got them to look harder for it and they spoke about the good things and it was like a domino effect. One by one they are talking about #LoveHastings.

Maybe you have gotten this far and you are like, OK I guess I can love where I live, but I still don't understand why God has put me here. Trust me when I say, I have been there too. I moved to a town called Whitehawk, in Brighton and when I moved there when I was 10 years old - I had heard bad things about Whitehawk. Basically what I heard was don't move to Whitehawk. But now 12 years later, I love Whitehawk and I am so glad God put me there, because it was there where this journey started and my faith started building. You see, I believe that where you currently live is all apart of God's AMAZING plan for your life! I 100% believe that! Jeremiah 29:11 says this;

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. "

Proverbs 3:5 says "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understandings". This can be so hard. To trust someone else can be such a challenge and everyday we have to take a deep breath and say God, today I want to say I trust you afresh again. God's plan for your life is amazing and isn't there to harm you. Remember God wouldn't put you somewhere if he knew you couldn't handle it. When you feel like you can't handle it, you can't take where you live anymore or the thought of living in New York sounds much more amazing than living in Bognor Regis, remember that you have the God that created the Universe living inside you and he believes in you and if you feel like you can't do it then you have a God who can do anything with you.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths" Proverbs 3:5-6

So love where you currently live, enjoy where you currently. You don't know when that season will end and a new chapter will open. Be thankful to God for what you have rather than what you currently don't have in your life. Love where you live.

Sometimes life brings its challenges, sometimes in life whether you believe that there is a God of the Universe, whether you believe in the big bang or whether you believe in nothing what so ever, life brings its down days.


I recently finished teaming up with NCS (NCS is a Youth Project Programme) which means it's time to look for a job. It is time to earn some money to pay bills, rent and with Christmas coming up, it is time to buy some presents. Well I have been unemployed full time for three weeks, only working on Saturdays and applying for jobs can be pretty boring. Application forms, repeat, CV sending, research on the company etc. It can often feel like you aren't getting anywhere as there is no immediate response. You have to wait. I have found I am not very good at waiting. It can be pretty disheartning when you apply for jobs and you hear nothing back, it almost makes things feel so much worse. I would rather hear back saying sorry you don't have the job then nothing at all. I am currently thinking what's the point. It got to a point the other day where it just hit me pretty bad. The enemy was telling me lies about myself and lies about God:

• You Aren't Good Enough...
• You Won't Get A Job...
• If God Loves You Then Why Isn't He Providing?

I recently joined Kings Church Hastings and I love this church. I love the people in it from the Leadership team to the little old ladies. I have never felt so welcome in a Church before. I couldn't speak more positively on a Church like this one. At the moment as a Church we are doing 40 Days of Hungering After God. During these 40 days I want to growing in my relationship with God, I want to experience it in a new fresh way and going forward in Prayer.

I have been asking God to provide me with money or a job and I got to the point where I needed God to breakthrough. 1 John 5:14 says this:

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us."

I went for a prayer walk. I just find prayer walks help me engage with God, it helps me not get distracted and to just enjoy God's creation and as I walked and turned a corner I saw a rainbow right in front of me. It hadn't been raining and I am pretty sure you need rain as well as sun to make a rainbow, but there was a rainbow right in front of me and I was reminded on Genesis 9:16:

"Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."

God won't break his promises. The rainbow is a reminder of this. God won't break his promises to me. Jeremiah 29:11 says this:

"For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 

So when things don't seem to be going right, or things don't seem to be going the way you thought they might, we know we can trust God in his promises and his plans for us. I know he has the perfect job out there for me in Hastings and I know he has plans for me in my future, all I got to do is trust him because although it can be hard to see sometimes, his plan is way better than mine.

“¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
⁶ There was a man sent from God whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from The Father, full of grace and truth.
¹⁵ (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with The Father, has made him known.”

When we look into John 1:1-18 we can see that the author of this gospel wanted to make clear that God The Father and Jesus The Son, although are two different creations, they are also one creation. Mind boggling! Let’s just look at the first sentence. In the beginning was the word, yet the word was with God and at the same time was God. How can the word be three things? Does God being three things sound familiar? Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If we look deeper into the word, we learn in verse 14 that the word became flesh, with that flesh being Jesus Christ. Jesus wasn’t made when he was put together in Mary’s womb, Jesus was around from day one of creation with God. Wait, what, mind blown! Jesus was around on day one of creation with God, when God made the world, Jesus was hanging out in heaven! He was alive back then! If we exchange the word ‘word’ with Jesus then we get to see how the trinity is starting to emerge from John’s gospel.

¹ In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God. ² He (Jesus) was with God in the beginning.
Does this change your mindset on the trinity? When we understand that when the word is Jesus it changes the sentence and how we can look at the trinity emerging. John uses this as proof of the trinity. John uses this as a way to say that there has always been a Jesus and a God since day one. Since day one Jesus was the co-creator of the universe.

If you would like a bit more proof that Jesus and God are one in the same, then John writes it during verse 18.
¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God.
 Well, what is being said? No one has ever seen a physical God, yet the The Son of God, who is also God, has been seen. Jesus became a real life fella “¹⁴ The Word became flesh” Jesus became man. Jesus walked among fellow men and women. Jesus ate with other people. Jesus walked with other humans. Jesus was a human. Fully man, fully God. The trinity continues to emerge when Jesus Christ came physically to earth, whilst God The Father remained in heaven.

Peter is just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the trinity, and the Bible is full of verses about the trinity and whilst sticking with John in John 15: 26 he mentions about the Holy spirit. The trinity is truly something to get buzzing about. In the main passage I have been talking about John only just gets excited, but when we read further on and we get to see the we get to hang out with Jesus through the Holy Spirit, and because we get to hang out with the Holy Spirit we get to be more like Jesus.

“When the Helper comes, whom I [Jesus] will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me . . .”