Part 4 – New Peace
Leader Guide
Do you feel the pressure of the Christmas Season? To create memories and make everything perfect for everyone around you? Although Christmas is a crazy time of year, we can find perfect peace now and forever in Jesus Christ. Let’s look at how we do that!
What you will need: A Bible or your Bible app, a notebook, pen, and highlighter. The verses highlighted below are linked so that you can easily access them during your study time.
Jump Start
1. What part of the Christmas season is the most stressful for you? What part is the most fun?
2. Read Luke 2:8-19. What things might have been overwhelming to Mary? Amid utter chaos, how did Mary gain and maintain peace?
3. Read John 14:26-27. What kinds of things does the world promise will give us peace? Does “following Jesus” guarantee peace? How does “hanging out with Jesus” change you?
4. Seize our thoughts. Read Isaiah 26:3, Hebrews 13:5, Psalm 139:14, and 1 Peter 5:7. What thought patterns can destroy our peace? How do you overcome them? What can you “cast” on Jesus?
5. Pursue Jesus. Read John 16:33. How do you live “in Me” as Jesus says? Where does your time really go? Examine your life priorities and determine if you are really pursing Jesus...or something else?
6. Action Steps: Choose at least one!
a. Memorize one verse this week! Combat the thought pattern that you usually fall into. (Maybe Google verses that deal with your issue: for example, fear, peace, worry.)
b. Commit to praying every fifteen minutes.
c. Reading the Word of God for fifteen minutes a day.
d. Worship with some praise music.
e. Serve on a Cove Team.
f .Have a devotion time with your children every day, talking to them about Jesus.
Deeper
7. Read Luke 12:22-31. In these verses, Luke’s account of the “Sermon on the Mount,” Jesus warns us about setting our hearts on issues/needs that cause us to worry. When we worry, how is this a problem of the heart? What does He teach us is the cure for this? How do you seek His kingdom in a time of worry?
8. Immediately following the Luke account, read Luke 12:32-34. How do the words in verse 32 give you comfort? Are the directions in verse 33 impossible for us today? What incredible promises are found in verses 33 and 34 how you live?
9. Is there a time when Jesus could have worried? Do you think He was tempted in this area? Read Matthew 26:36-46. Instead of worrying, what did Jesus do?