Life Group - Study Guides

It’s difficult to hear and distinguish the voice of God amid the noise and distractions of our everyday lives. Even beautiful or important distractions (like toddlers and deadlines at work) can keep us preoccupied just enough to miss out on what God is speaking to our souls. This week, let’s be intentional about making time, space, and quietness for God to reveal Himself to our spirits.

Daily, we are faced with decisions about what we do next. Will we walk with God when it is challenging? Will we react in the moment or pre-decide to obey His commandments and His leading? Let’s look at three young men who laid it all on the line to remain obedient.

Life teaches us a lot of things through experience. The things we’ve learned about spiritual matters through the Word of God and the Spirit of God are also a treasure of information. Have you ever considered that you may be the exact person to invest in a child, a student, a new believer, or struggling friend? God uses us to invest in and lead others. In turn, this helps grow our own faith and knowledge. Let’s become the people who pour into others, encouraging them and helping them grow!

We have the authority and power to take control of our thoughts, using the spiritual armor of the Spirit. But before we go into battle, we need to recognize the enemy’s strategy to capture our thoughts. We must learn how to hold our thoughts up to the light of God’s Word, debunk the lies, replace them with God’s Truth, and take captive anything that is not of Him.

This week, we watched clips from the movie “Unbroken.” Amid trials and struggles, what keeps you moving forward? Certainly, personality and character play a part, but real strength comes from purpose. Let’s see how knowing God’s plan for our lives empowers us to overcome and see beauty through the pain.

In our services this week, we watched clips from “We Bought a Zoo” and then discussed the biblical principle of leaving the past behind to move on to a better future. The Mee family is dealing with grief, but all sorts of traumas, failures, and even past successes can render us immobile and unable to move forward. God though, encourages us to move forward with courage.

If you attended in person, you know that the movie we discussed this week was “the 33,” about the Chilean miners who were underground for a total of 69 days (about 2 and a half months). It was about two and a half weeks before they even had contact with the world above them. You may not be in a crisis right now, but when things look dark or seem disastrous, how will you react? Let’s gain some perspective now.

God has been so kind and gentle with us. He asks that we love others, care for others, be patient with them, and so many more commandments about our attitudes toward others. Sometimes the simplest things can be hardest. Let’s break down what it means to “be kind.”

All throughout the Bible, we see God reminding His people to celebrate, to pause for a moment, and to remember the times of victory and success. We were created to worship and celebrate. This week, we’re going to unpack the Feast of Tabernacles (also called the Feast of Booths) and discover how it points to Jesus.

Have you ever walked around with a nagging sense of sadness and worry, like after you scratched your spouse’s car? Or maybe worse, you felt horrible after you were caught gossiping, deeply hurting a friend. Some guilt goes far beyond that temporary angst. Some feelings of shame last a lifetime, unless we meet the Savior, the High Priest who has covered our sin.