| 1. How is God changing your life?
2. Read this text through several times slowly. Have different people in your small group take turns reading it aloud and expressing how they understand the tone and emphases of the passage.
OBSERVE
3.Jesus is giving his disciples an outline of some of the things God wants to hear from us. What are those things? Do you think they are in any particular order? If so, why or why not?
REFLECT
4. If prayer is conversation with God, what do verses 1-4 tell us about the conversation God wants to have with us and what does he most want to hear?
5. How does Jesus' outline for prayer compare with your typical prayers? What are the similarities and differences?
6. In verses 5-13, Jesus amplifies some of the assumptions about why conversation with God matters and what about our attitude and efforts to pray registers with God. What are the qualities Jesus emphasizes? Why do you think he does so?
7. What kind of response do you think you would have had had you been there when Jesus gave such teaching? What is your response now?
8. If verses 5-13 tell us some of what matters from God's point of view about prayer, do these same things matter to you? Have these concerns affected the way you pray? If they did affect the way you pray, what difference might they make?
ACT
9. One of Jesus’ fundamental assumptions is that prayer involves honest, dependent conversation with the God who knows us and will be good to us. We should pray in ways that reflects that confidence. How does this text call you to grow as a person of prayer?
10. How can you encourage this in one another's lives?
11. Who could you help take their next step in following Jesus? |
