Prayer: Daily Dependence
Selected Scriptures
Connect:
Share how you have seen God in the Highs and Lows of your week.
Prayer:
Pray that God would lead your discussion time and bring fresh insight, conviction, and hope through your time together.
Review:
The disciples once asked Jesus, “Teach us to pray.” Which means they realized they didn’t know how to do it. So he teaches them the prayer known as The Lord’s Prayer. In Matthew 6, Jesus doesn’t just give words to say, he reshapes how prayer works—the posture, the priority, and the practice of prayer. This series walks straight through Jesus’ teaching, helping us move from religious, performance-driven prayer to relational, trusting, God-centered prayer. We’ll learn to pray the Jesus way, and this week we look at the consistent discipline of acknowledging God’s provision, pardon and protection along the way…
The Grand Tour of the message: Thinking back on what you heard this Sunday…
o What did you learn about God?
o What did you learn about people?
o What did you learn about yourself?
o What do you want to commit to putting into practice?
Reflection:
Personal Experience & Discussion:
Share about a time where forgiveness was difficult for you, and yet you decided to forgive. What made forgiveness difficult, what changed when you acted on your choice to forgive?
Reflective Discussion (Remember to look at the context of the verses as you are reading!):
Jesus prayed, ?Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” the phrase, “Your will be done on earth as in Heaven” is a description of what life looks, feels, behaves like when we acknowledge the Dominion of the King. Trace that theme through to following Scriptures and discuss how our lives would need to change in order for God’s will to be done here, in our case, our daily lives, “as in Heaven”… (Prov 3:5,6; Ps 37:3-8; Rom 6:11-14; Phil 2:5-8; 1 Pet 4:1-2, v19)
Jesus taught us to pray for “daily bread”. This type of ‘just in time’ provision seems so alien to us in times of plenty, yet so deeply resonant in times of need. Read the following Scriptures and discuss a godly perspective on the future when it comes to provision. (Josh 1:9, Ps 9:10, Ps 91:1-2, Prov 6:6-8, Eccl 9:10 and 11:6, Jer 17:7-8, Is 26:3, Phil 4:6-7, Col 3:23, Eph 5:15-16).
Forgiveness is tough; we all know the release of being forgiven, but choosing to forgive feels like we are surrendering to injustice… and yet we are told to do that. Discuss: How and Why did God give us a mandate to forgive others? (Matt 18:21-35; Matt 6:14-15, Luke 23:33-34, Eph 4:32, Col 3:13, Luke 17:3-4, Rom 12:19, Philemon 1:17-18)
Temptation is not sin; yielding to it is sin. Some of us are tempted most deeply by lust, others by pride, others by rage, others by laziness and others by power… but we are all basically dethroning God as King in our hearts. Use the following verses to discuss our response as believers to temptation (Ps 119:9,11, Luke 21:34-36, Rom 13:14, Rom 12:1-2, 2 Cor 10:3-5, Eph 6:10-18, 2 Tim 2:22, Gal 5:19-25, James 1:13-14)
Application:
Starting with a commitment to trust the Lord with our daily provision, commit to spending time this week praying that God would re-arrange our priorities to align with His.
Prayer:
Have different members of your group take a different section of your closing prayer time, one taking Adoration of Who God is, another Confession or our need for His forgiveness, another Supplication asking for our needs of provision and protection, and another Thanksgiving for a He has done, and will do.
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