Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Opening: When have you won something unexpected? A trip? Award of achievement? Class officer elections? The big game?

Scripture: Read Romans 9:1-29.

Connect the Text with Your Life:

• How deeply do you hurt for unbelievers: your friends, relatives, acquaintances, neighbors? As much as Paul (see verses 1-3)?
• How should each of the benefits Paul mentions in verse 4-5 have drawn the Jewish people to Christ? What benefits and blessings have you received that drew you to Him?
• Even though many Jews have failed to believe, God’s promise to them has not failed. What to you is God’s most important promise? Look up passages in the Bible that relate to that promise.

Prayer Focus: That we will always hold on to the assurance that God’s promises never fail!

Monday, November 19, 2012

Opening: Do you tend to see the glass half full or half empty?

Scripture: Read Romans 8:31-39.

Connect the Text with Your Life:

• Did you need another incredible passage to get through today? Here it is! And while they might not be a Romans’ Road passage, verse 31 and verse 38 are passages to memorize and hold onto at all times and places in life.
• Do any of the things Paul lists in verses 31-39 specifically affect you, make you feel far from God? How should you respond?
• Reread this passage and consider what Paul says about God’s love. What new insight came to you?

Prayer Focus: That we would agree with E. Stanley Jones: “I can conquer whatever comes because Christ has already conquered. Everything I meet He has already met. When temptation, sin, difficulty, opposition, misunderstanding, criticism, fear, resentment, inferiority, pride, loneliness – yes, when ANYTHING comes upon me to bully me, I ask that thing to bend its neck. When it does so, I exclaim with joy: ‘There I told you so! There is the footprint of the Son of God upon your neck. He has conquered you. I'm in Him and I conquer in His conquering.’”

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Opening: What has been the most pain experience in your life, when you suffered beyond what you ever thought imaginable?

Scripture: Read Romans 8:18-30.

Connect the Text with Your Life:

• What a tremendous passage of hope when you feel the hurt of life. There is a future glory! Compare this perspective of hope for the Christian and the wishing thinking of the world.
• But it is more than the promise of eternal life. Even life is so difficult that we don’t even know how to pray, God’s Holy Spirit is there (see verse 26-27). What need is on your prayer list right know that is particularly difficult, that you really don’t even know what to pray? How is the Holy Spirit helping you to pray about this?
• Romans 8:28 from the Message Bible reads, “That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”[1] What detail in your past has God worked towards good? What detail today might God be working?

Prayer Focus: That we would have the complete confidence and assurance that God’s got it all in the palm of His hand!

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[1] Romans 8:28 (MSG)

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Opening:  What were you doing last year at this time which still needs completed?

Scripture: Sunday’s message comes from today’s text. Read Romans 12:1 and 2 Corinthians 8:1-7.

Connect the Text with Your Life:

• A year before, the Corinthian Christians had learned of a need in the Jerusalem church and started the process of collecting money. They were the first to give. The other Macedonian churches heard about it and followed the Corinthian lead, except the Corinthians weren’t leading any more. They made a commitment, but had failed to fulfill their commitment. So Paul tells about the spiritual lives and commitment of the other churches. Do you think he is trying to shame the Corinthians or something else?  
• Paul talks about the grace of God in verse 1, then follows by describing the faithfulness of the Macedonian Christians. How do you understand the connect between God’s grace and personal faithfulness?

Prayer Focus: For tomorrow’s worship celebration, that we would glorify Him in everything we do: praise, thanksgiving, song, Scripture, message, and yes, giving.

Message Series: “A Living Sacrifice”

Tomorrow’s Message Title: “Faith“

Friday, November 16, 2012

Opening: When you were young, who caused you to change your behavior by their powerful influence?

Scripture: Read Romans 8:1-17.

Connect the Text with Your Life:

• Another Roman’s Road Scripture here: Romans 8:1. Memorize this verse today.  
• There are some that say that everyone in the world is a child of God. Is that what the Scripture says? Reread verse 14. Would you count yourself a member of His family? Why?  
• Αββα is an Aramaic word for “father.” In the Gemara (a Rabbinical commentary on the Mishna, the traditional teaching of the Jews), it is stated that slaves were forbidden to address the head of the family by this title. Αββα is the word framed by the lips of infants, and signifies unreasoning trust. Contemporary equivalents might be “Daddy” or “Papa.” How does it make you feel that you can call God “Papa?”

Prayer Focus: That we would have complete assurance through the Holy Spirit that we are children of God.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Opening: What New Year’s resolution have you started with good intentions, only to have it fizzle out?

Scripture: Read Romans 7:7-25.

Connect the Text with Your Life:

• This passage is not confusing when you mentally imagine some life improvement you are trying to achieve: lose weight, stop smoking, be a more loving and generous person, etc.  
• In like of Paul’s own struggles, how does it make you feel about your own?  
• What is the struggle in your spiritual life right now?

Prayer Focus: That our answer to everything in life – good and bad – will always be Jesus Christ (see verse 25).

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Opening: Have you ever had a bad habit that you were eventually able to break? How did you do it? Did it take a long time or did you break “cold turkey?”

Scripture: Read Romans 7:1-6.

Connect the Text with Your Life:

• Another day talking about sin. Today, Paul uses a different metaphor: death. And this is a difficult passage. The basic thought of the passage is founded on the legal maxim that death cancels all contracts. He could still have put the thing quite simply. He could have said that we were married to the law; that the law was killed by the work of Christ; and that now we are free to be married to God. But, quite suddenly, he puts it the other way, and, in his suddenly changed picture, it is we who die to the law. How can that be? By baptism we share in the death of Christ. That means that, having died, we are discharged from all obligations to the law and become free to marry again. This time we marry, not the law, but Christ. When that happens, Christian obedience becomes, not an externally imposed obedience to some written code of laws, but an inner allegiance of the spirit to Jesus Christ.[1]  
• When Paul talks about being “released” from the obligations of the law, is he discouraging  religious living or spiritual disciplines?

Prayer Focus: That we would “serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.”[2]

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[1] Barclay's Daily Study Bible, Romans 7:1-6

[2] Romans 7:6 (NLT)