Session IV  Stay In Love With God

 

“By attending upon all the ordinances of God…” Discipline 2004 ¶103

Statement #1 – We have been set apart by God to be stewards over creation. We have not been very successful at our calling when we consider the size of our carbon footprint either individually or as a nation. With global warming a reality, the receding of the polar icecaps underway, the loss of a chunk the size of Connecticut off Antarctica, we are called to put on the mind of Christ in order to change our circumstances.

Statement #2 – Many of the choices we have made in our lives lead us nowhere. It is a transformed heart that makes a difference in our world and in our lives. We cannot fix ourselves – we need God’s help.

 

Consider this scripture: Psalm 105:4. Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually.

 

Read: Stay In Love With God (pp. 51-63)

 

Questions:

1. We have come to a time when our lifestyles are competing with the creative breath of God. As the “called out ones of God,” how are we prepared to show our love for God today?

2. Tell your story of a heart transformed by loving God alone.

3. John Wesley understood that the spiritual disciplines lead to and maintain faith by putting into practice what we have come to believe. Name some of the spiritual disciplines named in this chapter. List the ones you are not familiar with.

What spiritual disciplines do you practice? How frequently? What is the outcome of those disciplines that you can describe?

4. What do you believe is the moral compass in our lives today?

5. How is it possible to live “from the inside out?” What does this phrase mean to you?

6. Keeping Genesis 1:27 in mind, how does the phrase “in the image of God” apply to

humankind?

7. Faith journeys are usually typified by a series of starts, missteps, forgiveness, and restarts.  Do you believe this statement? Have you had experiences that look like this?

8. What new spiritual disciplines might you want to put into practice to continue the

transformation of your life in Christ and to more fully love God?

 

Additional Scriptures

Genesis 1: 27. So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Colossians 2: 6-7. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

John 21:15-17. When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.

John 21:18-19. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’

John 4:1-4. Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’ – although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized – he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria.

1 Peter 1:22-23. Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.