If you are at PCI, I encourage you to buy the workbook for your daily devotions over the next seven weeks. If you are not currently with PCI, these devotions will be a scaled down version of the workbook, but similar to what you normally do each week.
Reality #1: God is always at work around you.
DAY 1: Jesus is Your Way
John 14:6 (Jesus said) “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.”
1. What is the difference between “Jesus is the way,” and “Jesus shows the way?”
2. Read God’s call to Abram (later to be called Abraham) at the beginning of his story…
Genesis 12:1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” 4 So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
3. How much detail did God give Abram?
4. How did Abram respond to God’s direction? (vv. 4-5).
5. How would you have responded?
6. Which of the following would have helped you respond to God’s direction:
___ Remembering God is absolutely trustworthy
___ Agree with God that you will follow Him one day at a time
___ Agree to follow God even when He doesn’t spell out the details
Our memory verse for the week is:
John 15:1 (Jesus) I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in Him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
7. Jesus uses an analogy of a vine and branches. What happens to branches when you lop them off the vine?
8. What happens if the branches are slightly pruned but allowed to grow?
9. Being a Christian is more than following the truths of the bible. It is also following Jesus, day-by-day as He gives you direction. Yield yourself to Him, and His direction.
DAY 2: Jesus is Your Model
1. God generally leads us through the bible. Instead, what people want to do is follow their own feelings or thoughts. They rely on their experience. To do so is to invite disaster.
2. What is the difference between these two questions:
a. “What is God’s will for me?”
b. “What is God’s will?”
3. With the first question above, you may not have any idea what the answer is! But to the second question you already know more than you think you do! What things come to mind with this second question?
John 5:17 Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” 19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these.”
4. Jot down your answers below, based on these verses from John:
a. Who is always at work?
b. How much can the Son do by Himself?
c. What does the Son do?
d. Why does the Father show the Son what He is doing?
5. If these things were true for Jesus while He lived here, but more true should they be for you? How do these verses encourage you?
6. Review our memory verse for the week:
John 15:1 (Jesus) I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in Him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
7. What is your biggest takeaway for you from today’s devotional?
DAY 3: Learning to be a Servant of God
Philippians 2: Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!
1. Jesus’ central purpose is identified in this passage–his death on a cross. But Paul is here teaching about Jesus’ attitude. Write down words that describe His attitude.
2. If we are going to be serve God, we must be moldable and available.
Jeremiah 18:1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.
3. These verses describe clay (you) and a potter (God).
a. What is the role of the clay?
b. What is the potter trying to do with the clay?
c. What prerogatives does the potter have? (Look for at least three!)
Read 1 Kings 18:15-39
4. At whose initiative did Elijah offer this challenge?
5. What was God’s work in this event?
6. What was Elijah’s work in this event?
7. God initiates events. Some of those He wants you to initiate. Some He initiates and wants to use you in what He is doing.
a. Are you available for Him to use you?
b. Are you moldable? Can He work in you to make you a servant?
8. Review our memory verse for the week:
John 15:1 (Jesus) I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in Him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
DAY 4: God works through His servants–part 1
1. Experiencing God involves seven “realities.” This week we’ve been looking at Reality #1. Today’s study will look a the first 3, exhibited in the life of Moses.
Reality #1 – God is always at work around you.
Exodus 2:23 During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.
2. What was God already doing for Israel? Write down at least four items.
3. Which of these items are important to you?
Reality #2 – God pursues a loving relationship with you (that is real and personal)
Exodus 24:12 The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction.” 15 When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, 16 and the glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the LORD called to Moses from within the cloud. 18 Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
4. What evidence demonstrates God wanted a real and personal relationship with Moses?
5. How does it strike you that God wants a real and personal relationship with you?
Reality #3 – God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.
Exodus 3:8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey–the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
6. How did God want to involve Moses in the work He was already doing?
7. Are you available to God? God can use your life if you’re willing!
8. Which of these three “Realities” strikes you the most?
DAY 5: God works through His servants–part 2
Yesterday we studies Realities # 1-3. Today we’ll introduce Realities #4-7.
Reality #4 – God speaks to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.
Exodus 3:2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight–why the bush does not burn up.” 4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” 5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. 7 The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey–the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
1. What did God reveal about Himself, His purposes and His ways?
Reality #5 – God’s invitation to you involves a crisis of belief that requires faith.
Exodus 3:11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
2. What did Moses have trouble believing about God?
Reality #6 – You must make major adjustments in your life
Hebrews 11:24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel. 29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.
3. What adjustments did Moses have to make?
Reality #7 – You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.
Exodus 14:15 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. 17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen.
4. How do you think Moses felt when He saw God’s deliverance of the Israelites?
5. Which of Realities #4-7 struck you the most? Why?