SOAR Discussion Questions  |  14 April 2019

But God

One of the most powerful two-word phrases in the Bible is ‘but, God’. This small two-word phrase allows God to change the trajectory of our life. Too many times we look at things through our own eyes and understanding. ‘But God’ tells us to look at things as God sees it. “But, God” stands totally opposed to the negative roar of the world. The world says no — “But, God” says yes! The world says can’t — “But, God” says can! “But, God” is courageous, confident and conclusive! No matter what the situation, no matter what the problem, no matter how bad it may be, “but God” can make it better! “But God” changes everything.

There are most wonderful places where we can all discover genuine and true love.

But in our most deepest need to be loved, we might still look for others to meet our need, ignore it, deny it, find substitutes, find distractions, crowd it out with activity, avoid places of silence or aloneness, or look to satisfy our deepest inbuilt longing to be loved in wrong places.

BUT GOD …  

Discuss one or more of the following.

1. Share … With who do you feel most loved? or When was a time or moment when you felt most loved? or Who do you turn to be loved? 
2. What do you make of God not being a created being, but the source of all that has being? Does that get you confused?
3. What do you make of God being perfect, lacking nothing and needing no improvement, no process for completion or anything or anybody to be absolutely complete and divinely whole?
4. Thomas Aquinas, a Christian scholar, described biblical love as, ‘To will the good of the other.’ Do you find that an adequate description or is it somehow lacking something?
5. In describing how love changes us and changes the trajectory of our lives, a story was shared concerning one of the men of our congregation who just died. It was said that after previous disappointment, he ‘opened up to others’ when found himself loved by the woman who become his fiancé.  In seeing this change, his younger brother remarked, ‘Where has this man been? I haven’t seen him for years.’ Have you ever seen love ‘open up someone’ and change them, or found yourself ‘opened up’ by love and changed?
6. 1 John 4:7-21 outlines the change that takes place in our lives and the change of trajectory in our lives, when in our human need and longing to be loved, we discover that the most perfect love of God is for us. Have two or three read 1 John 4:19 out loud and how GOD changes everything!

• God has planned a new mobile location for his own divine love this week.
  Read Romans 5:5. Where is this? 

• How will it get there?

• What will it look like and specifically, with who?