Discussion Questions | 21 March 2021

The lead up to Easter is a great opportunity for the whole church body to take some time to earnestly seek God’s direction and voice. Prayer and fasting is something we see in the Bible, has been used by some of our great faith leaders through history, and adopted by many churches to help us focus our minds and hearts on God and His design for us.

So we are spending two weeks to intentionally remove things from our lives that distract us and intentionally add things to our lives to help focus our thoughts on God’s Spirit.

Prayer is a conversation with God and needs to be nurtured and grown. Prayer without intention and attention becomes very shallow and selfish. Fasting is a device used to bring our bodies and minds along on this journey of hearing from God.

Please look at joining us for the whole two weeks in prayer and fasting, and we will have a guide that will help for each day. If you cannot join for the whole time, please try to prioritise the second week.

DISCUSSION

This week Ps Kyle asked the question of “What if prayer worked?” Most Christians would say that prayer works, but then we also all wrestle that problem of the times when or prayers seemingly go unanswered. In the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke we see a story that may feel familiar to us all. We see Jesus praying to God the Father asking for Him to intervene and change things.

Luke 22:39-46 is a story of the wrestle of what our flesh wants vs what the Spirit in us wants, the wrestle of having to trust God even when things look different to what we had wanted, and prayer working in ways that we don’t always expect.

Discuss one or more of the following questions:

1. Following this week’s service, what did you most remember and why?

2. Ps Kyle shared about the tension of believing prayer works, but also experiencing “unanswered prayers”. How did this make you feel? Describe that tension in your own words.

3. Read Luke 22:39-46. What do you learn about the character of Jesus in these verses? How can we display that character as a community today?

4. Share with the group a prayer that you feel has gone unanswered and describe your feelings around it. Take time to be honest and allow your Life Group to give you support.

5. Share your thoughts on the idea that “the wrestle can be worship”. The wrestle of admitting that we cannot know everything that God knows and having to allow God to be bigger than our understanding.

6. Do you struggle with persistent prayer? Why do you think that is? Share with the group your prayer habits and find out what each person’s prayer habits look like.

7. After hearing that the temptation that Jesus warned the disciples of was that they would seek to satisfy their earthly desires rather than follow the Spirit’s leading, how does this change the way you want to pray?

8. Do you agree/disagree with this statement and why: “The immature character asks life to meet his/her demands. But the mature character meets the demands of life” – Dr Henry Cloud.

9. What do you think you need to un-learn or learn this week?