- How is the prayer challenge going? Have you seen your heart move toward praying to God as a Father instead of a landlord?
- Do you have any questions or frustrations about how prayer works? Do you ever wonder why we should pray if God is sovereign?
- Read Luke 18:1-8. Like the widow in the parable, have you ever needed something and the only person who could get it for you was disinterested in helping? How did it make you feel? What kind of outlook is this widow facing?
- In v. 1 what does Luke say is the point of this parable? Have you ever lost heart in praying about anything specific?
In the sermon, we talked about 7 reasons to not lose heart:
- Our prayers matter. (John 15:16) God has ordained prayer as the means by which He brings about His will.
- God always answers prayer. (1 John 5:15) Like a good dad, He answers yes, no and later.
- The Spirit helps us pray. (Romans 8:26-27) When we don’t have words, the Spirit of God prays for us.
- The Spirit teaches us through prayer. (1 John 2:27) The Spirit also shapes our hearts to care about and pray for the things God cares about over time.
- Jesus advocates for us. (1 John 2:1) Like a lawyer, Jesus represents us to God the Father essentially saying, “this one’s with me. Listen to her requests. Treat her like you would treat me.”
- Our prayer is perfect because of Jesus. (1 Peter 2:4-5) Jesus’ perfect prayer life is not only a model for our prayer life, but also the credited to us as if we prayed perfectly.
- We can pray for everything & God will sort it out. (John 14:13-14) God has perfectly rigged prayer for us to enjoy Him and abide with Him and trust Him with the results.
- Were any of these 7 reasons to not lose heart new information to you? Did any of them give you a new way to look at and think about prayer?
- Which of the 7 reasons to not lose heart particularly stood out to you and why?
- How can our group encourage each other to not lose heart in prayer?