01/09/2024

OUR FATHER…. IN HEAVEN

Please use the questions below as a guide for your devotions this week, and/or for your group meeting if you belong to a small group. You might not get through all the questions – that is Ok – but I pray that they will help you grow in your faith and in your understanding of the Bible. 

If you would like me to visit your group, then please let me know – contact Lesley on 0445333430 or admin@plettmethodist.co.za to set up a visit. If you are not part of a group, and would like to join one, then contact Don on 0834129877 and don@prism-ic.co.za 

Theme: “Our Father … In Heaven!”  

Start 

We have the adage: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Do you have a favourite picture that speaks to you? What is it? What does it say? 

Getting into the Word

The following comment from me might help in explaining the focus of the study this week: “I have wondered for a long time, as to whether we as Western people, have lost the ability to truly acknowledge and worship God …. In every way. I have long feared that God has been so deliberately, and successfully, remodeled into a sellable commodity by so many preachers and churches, that any “real” acceptance of, understanding of, and appreciation of, and worship of God as the only Divine Power and Authority has been lost! God has been moved out of the mainstream of life!”

I wonder if Jesus was grappling with a deep frustration when he said in Matthew 15:7-9: “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, 8 ‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’”

What is your response to my comment, and to the words of Jesus in Matthew 15? 

Reading: Matthew 6: 9-15

Key verse that we will focus on this week: Verse 9 – Pay close attention to the words Father, Heaven, Hallowed. 

  • Who is God to you? 
  • What has He done for you? 
  • What aspects of His nature has he revealed to you?
  • Do you see God as your heavenly “Father”? Do you see him as your Creator, as your Saviour, as your Deliverer, as your Protector, as your Counsellor, as your Comforter …. How do you see God? 
  • Do you live each day, with God as the ultimate authority in your life to lead and guide you in your decisions and actions? If so, how do you do that? If not, why not? 
  • The word “hallowed” means “Holy.” Do you make, hold up, God’s name to be seen as “Holy” each day? If so, how are you doing that? If not, why not? 
  • What does it mean to say Father … in heaven? Why the emphasis on heaven? 
  • Read Romans 8: 15-17. What does this Bible reading mean to you – if anything? 

Focus for the week ahead:

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) (Prayer for Peace)

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. 

God bless,

Tim.