Saturday is a day where we focus on trusting God as we walk more and more in grace.
This is Week 1: Our focus is on Growing in Grace.
My prayer goal for this week is ___________________________________________.
Let’s pray:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Read the following passage from 2 Timothy 2:1-7.
You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer. Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor's crown unless he competes according to the rules.
God’s call for us is to be “strong in grace.” Our goals for the week have been to help us in that by taking some small steps in the right direction. Listen again to the things we desire for God to produce in us under the rubric of grace.
- I am more deeply aware of my sin and my need for repentance, as well as God’s work of grace in my life, enabling me to receive the Gospel.
- I am more and more motivated by grace as opposed to being driven by guilt, obligation and/or duty.
- My love for and worship of God has increased.
- I am being more gracious, patient and kind to the people with whom I interact.
- I have a growing assurance that God is really my loving heavenly father that delights in me as I delight in him.
Which one of these five goals is easiest and most enjoyable to you?
Which is most difficult and awkward?
How have you seen God’s grace this week?
It is possible that you didn’t see many indicators of God’s grace this week. If you didn’t, why do you think that happened?
The Joy of Being a Child of God
Grace makes us children of God, but we often don’t live under grace or as God’s own son or daughter. We tend to think we need to work for God’s love and pleasure and that our position in Christ is tenuous at best, making us feel like an orphan out on our own or as a slave where obligation and obedience forms the relationship.
What do you feel is the main obstacle that is keeping you from living by grace?
What would it look like to truly live as God’s child this weekend?
A Week in Review
We’ve talked a lot about grace this week and looked at it from several different perspectives.
What one thing stuck out from your reading this week that you want to hang on to in the upcoming weeks?
In what one area of your life do you want to see more grace?
What one thing can you do in the upcoming week so that God’s grace would take better hold of your heart and soul?
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, grant us your grace so that we may know you and love you more and more each day and love the people you put in our path. Help us to delight in grace, to revel in it and to live in it each day. May we know that we are your children and may we respond to everyone around us with the grace that you have poured out on us in abundance. O Father, feed us, wash us and transform us with your grace. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Posted on
Sat, October 9, 2010
by Dane Lewis
filed under