Feel free to discuss or ask additional questions as they arise
Week 2 – All Good Gifts
Read: your notes from Sunday morning’s sermon.
Intro: This week at church we talked about trusting God in all aspects of life, including money. To recap, we looked at several scripture references that answer some questions we have about money. Grab your bible and review these verses now.
Psalm 24:1 – “Where do all resources come from?”
Deuteronomy 8:18 – “How can we get these resources?”
Luke 6:36 – “When can I get these resources?” and “Who decides how much I get?”
Proverbs 10:22 – “Can I be free from financial problems?”
Questions:
- In the sermon this week Rob mentioned several reasons why people may not trust God with their finances – those were Ignorance, disobedience, selfishness, worry, and immaturity. Which of those do you find yourself most identifying with, and why?
- Read 1 Timothy 6:17 – does this passage reveal something important about wealth? Why then is it SO important to put our trust in God and not wealth?
- What makes God trustworthy? Discuss together and give examples where you’ve experienced the trustworthiness of God.
Spiritual Practice: Prayer Week 3 – Prayer and the Imagination
Last week we talked about how we must listen to God while we pray, because prayer is the act of working together with God. Dallas Willard said this about prayer: “It would be of course a low voltage spiritual life in which prayer was chiefly undertaken as a discipline, rather than as a way of co-labouring with God to accomplish good things and advancing his Kingdom purposes.” This co-laboring with God is what we are trying to get to with our prayers.
One way to be able to pray more effectively is to use our imagination. The imagination is a tool given to us by God, and we can certainly use it in our prayer lives. I’m going to share an excerpt from Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline to illustrate this:
“I was once called to a home to pray for a seriously ill baby girl. Her four-year-old brother was in the room, and so I told him I needed his help to pray for his baby sister. He was delighted, and so was I since I know that children can often pray with unusual effectiveness. He climbed up into the chair beside me. “Let’s play a little game,” I said. “Since we know that Jesus is always with us, let’s imagine that he is sitting over in the chair across from us. He is waiting patiently for us to center our attention on him. When we see him, we start thinking more about his love than how sick Julie is. He smiles, gets up, and comes over to us. Then, let’s both put our hands on Julie, and when we do, Jesus will put his hands on top of ours. We’ll watch the light from Jesus flow into your little sister and make her well. Let’s watch the healing power of Christ fight with bad germs until they are all gone. Okay?” Seriously, the little one nodded. Together, we prayed in this childlike way and then thanked the Lord that what we had prayed was the way it was going to be. Now, I do not know exactly what happened, nor how it was accomplished, but I do know that the next morning Julie was perfectly well.”
This week begin to use your imagination as you pray for difficult situations. This doesn’t have to be a grand example like the one above. But imagine what you are praying for as you are praying for it. Let the Holy spirit lead you. Remember, we aren’t trying to manipulate God into doing things. We are responding in prayer to the things the spirit lays on our hearts.
Closing verse: Romans 8:26 – “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ”
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