James 1:27 & 2:14-17

Spend some time praying for clarity regarding your spiritual health.

Read 1 Peter 2:4-5

• Notice the term “living”. The house God builds is alive and filled with life.

• Consider what it means to be a “holy priesthood”. How does this change our identity and actions?

• What does it mean to offer spiritual sacrifices? How do those sacrifices find expression in a church setting?

Throughout scripture, God’s people and the church find definition through biological metaphors and references. Let us do a spiritual health checkup today using those ideas.

• Movement – Living things move and respond. How are we moving and responding to the Lord and the world around us?

• Respiration – Living things breathe. Prayer is breathing in God’s Spirit and exhaling God’s will. How are we doing with this?

• Sensitivity – How aware are we of God’s work around us?

• Growth – All things grow and change. Are we?

• Reproduction – Disciples make disciples. Who are you discipling?

• Elimination – Repentance is required to stay healthy.

• Nutrition – What we take in matters to our health. Are we taking in the things of God?

Being a Living Stone connects us to other Living Stones as God works among us. How’s your spiritual health? How can increase health here?

Pray the Lord’s Prayer through several times (Matthew 6:9-13)

Read Luke 11:1-4

• Notice that the disciples observed Jesus praying, saw something different about His prayer, and asked to be taught how to pray.

• There are six different elements to the Lord’s Prayer.

• Look for how this prayer speaks to God’s character, kingdom, provision, forgiveness, guidance, and protection.

• Compare how Jesus taught His disciples to pray to how you pray. What are the similarities? What are the differences?

The Lord’s Prayer is not a word for word, repeat after me, exercise. It is a consistent, reliable, and intimate path for a disciple to know and do God’s will. Let us walk down this path today.

• Acknowledge the holy nature of God.

• Seek and see the Lord’s Kingdom as a true and present reality.

• Recognize our need for the Lord to provide each and every day.

• Embrace forgiveness as one who has been forgiven and forgives others

• Follow the guidance of the Lord as we do His work in this world.

• Rely on the Lord’s protection in the midst of struggle, sin, and evil.

Conceptually, the Lord’s Prayer looks and feels right. It is easy to say yes to. It is harder to put into practice.

How can we more fully incorporate this prayer into our lives with God?

Pray for God to show you how to best connect with Him, His community, and His work in the world.

Read Luke 6:12-19

• Notice the progression of Jesus in this passage.

o He began with prayer on a mountain.

o He called and chose His disciples.

o He went to the crowds to teach and heal.

• The life of Jesus has a rhythm to it. This progression repeats often.

• People sought Jesus. All in the crowd tried to touch Him. The life of Jesus drew people towards Him.

Who is Jesus to you?

• Perhaps we get bogged down in religious pictures of Jesus. He is the savior, the one who gets us into heaven, the central figure of Christmas and Easter, a historical figure, and the one we talk about in church.

• Jesus is and was alive. He has personality. His life provides a reliable model for our lives. He shows us how to live well.

• We don’t understand Jesus from a distance. Consider what it would be like to know Jesus as His disciples knew Him. This is possible.

• The life of Jesus changed the world. His impact changed lives. His disciples modeled His life and changed the world.

Challenge: Pray like Jesus, join the community Jesus created, reach out to those Jesus sought, and live a life of impact as you follow Him

Spend time in prayer seeking God’s calling and purpose for your life.

Read Ephesians 4:7; 11-16

• The gift of grace have roles attached. Which role resonates with you?

• The roles have a purpose. Consider how you fit into that purpose both practically and potentially.

• Reflect on Paul’s picture of the church. Everyone engaged, everyone connected in unity, everyone with purpose, and built up in love.

• Do you ever felt disconnected, uncertain, or lost in your pursuit of God?

To Each of Us. Everyone has a role in God’s Kingdom. Everyone has a place and a purpose.

• What does it mean to be spiritually mature?

• What does it mean to be tossed to and fro in this scripture?

• Reflect on your present condition. Are you more like a spiritual child or are you established as a spiritually mature disciple of Jesus?

• In what ways are you growing up into Christ?

Paul’s picture of the church is beautiful.

• It is disciples who are fitted together perfectly, fully functioning, and continually growing in love and service to God.

• How are you equipping, building up, standing in unity with, and becoming more and more like Christ?

• What’s missing? Take steps today to pursue God’s call on your life.

Spend some time considering the “God moments” of your life.

Read Matthew 17:14-21

• Pay attention to the disciples. What were they trying to do? How successful were they?

• Notice the reaction of Jesus. How would you describe His emotions?

• Consider that it was the disciples who came to Jesus to ask why they could not do what came so easily to Jesus.

• The key is faith. Even a little faith can do great things.

Kairos. Kairos is a greek word used to describe a moment in time, a significant event, where God breaks into our circumstances and provides a new way of thinking.

• What are some of your Kairos moments? How did they feel? How did they change you?

• Have you ever ignored, turned back due to fear, or explained away a God moment? Why?

• Repentance is hard. It changes the way we think, act, and understand the world. Repentance is a fundamental aspect of discipleship.

• Belief is visible. It takes action. It does what Jesus does.

• To repent and believe during and following a Kairos moment causes us to grow and more fully embrace what it means to follow Jesus.

The disciples had too little faith. It stopped them. Are we so different?

Let us be a disciple-making people as we follow Christ.

Pray for clarity in how to follow Christ as a disciple.

What if?

• What if we lived in harmony with God, ourselves, and each other?

• What if people saw in us what it means to “live well”?

• What if the challenge of following Jesus was connected to joy?

Read Matthew 16:16-24

• Imagine Peter’s excitement at speaking truth and being called “rock”.

• Imagine Peter’s sorrow at being called Satan and a stumbling block for expressing his desire that Jesus not face suffering.

• Being a disciple is accepting the invitation of Christ.

• Being a disciple is facing the challenges that Jesus gives us.

A Disciple is a Learner

• Peter correctly answered the question “who do you say that I am?” while also incorrectly pushing back on what Jesus was sent to do.

• It’s almost as if Peter acknowledged the Savior while denying the work of the Savior. Jesus would not let that go unchallenged.

• Following Jesus isn’t a comfortable, cozy acceptance of an easy status quo that suits our preference.

• Jesus invites us to follow Him. Then Jesus challenges us to become more, join a greater work, and be different than we are today.

Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. A challenge and an invitation. Will we accept both and join God in His work?

Spend some time in prayer.

• Ask the Holy Spirit to help you examine how you respond to others.

• Pray for strength in the pursuit of God and His Will.

Read Matthew 26:47-56

• Consider the tension of this moment. Swords, crowds, violence, and arrests. Notice how Jesus responded differently than others.

• Pay attention to the sword and the ear. Peter acts in what he considers a proper way and Jesus stops him. Why?

• Compare the strength of Jesus to the power of the chief priests, crowd, Peter, and others. The one of greatest strength chose the weakest role.

Read Matthew 5:3-10

• This is the start of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is laying out how God’s Kingdom works. Notice how different than expected it is.

• “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Meekness is not passive, submissive, fearful, powerless, etc. Meekness is strength under control. Strength that finds itself in a position of perceived weakness.

• Where do we seek meekness in Matthew 26:47-56?

Read Matthew 5:38-39

• You have heard it said…but I say. Jesus is changing the status quo.

• The art of discipleship keeps us from becoming the evil around us. It is knowing and living in the strength of God even when we appear weak.

• Where are we pretending to be strong that keeps us from true strength?

Spend some time in prayer

• Ask the Lord for a reality check on your relationship with Him.

• Ask the Lord to show you what keeps you from taking the next step.

Read John 4:13-14

• This is a central verse in the story of the woman at the well. It would be good to read the entire story in John 4.

• Notice the change. Jesus shifts from talking about water at a well to life.

• Consider what makes you thirsty in life. What exists in your life that keeps you going back to the same well over and over again?

• Reflect on the idea of living water that quenches all thirst. What is Jesus offering this woman?

Read Matthew 13:44-46

• What are people willing to do to receive the Kingdom of Heaven?

• Do you desire the Kingdom of Heaven above all other things?

Read Ephesians 4:28

• The thief is always thirsty in life. The thief always needs more.

• Notice how Paul shifts the thief from taking to creating to giving.

• Theft is transformed into generosity. Thirst finds living water.

Living well empties our hands to receive what is of greatest value. How empty are your hands today?

Spend some time in prayer.

• Ask the Lord to show you how your faith has translated to action.

• Ask the Lord to show you what He desire you to do through faith.

Read James 2:18-26

• What does James think of a person who believes faith and works can exist separately from each other?

• Consider the faith of Abraham, who was willing to give the Lord what was most important, most loved, and most precious.

• Consider Rahab, a prostitute who put everything at risk to show mercy and hospitality to God’s people. How did her faith take action?

• Reflect on what does faith without works look like today.

Faith and works exist together. Each is essential for faith to come alive.

• How has faith changed you, your family, and your community?

• What are the roadblocks to your faith taking action?

• How much of faith is defined by words rather than actions?

Abraham had a “now I know” moment. What was talked about became fully known through action.

• What is your “now I know” moment of faith?

• How does faith take action today?

• What is it that God is calling you to pursue?