Week 5: Peace to Patience

Welcome back!

Hard to believe it's already been 5 weeks.

This week instead of the usual Valentine's discussion of chocolate, flowers, & love, we talked about Peace.

We studied different aspects of peace in the scripture we had last week, so we talked about how it reflects in our lives. We can receive peace from God, we must share peace through the Holy Spirit, and ultimately we will experience true peace when Christ returns.

We also talked through how difficult it is it imagine a world where there was true Peace. How, in the midst of pain and sickness and death and war, could we truly experience peace.

So to open our creativity we made collages.

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We took a world that is painful and wrote truths in scripture over what was hard and broken. That in the midst of violence and hatred, the Lord offers peace.

I used Lamentations 3:22-23 "Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."

Hopefully that opens your a little as to the possibilities of exploring scripture. What can we do to see scripture in new ways? Bring your example of patience with you next week!



For Study and Homework This Week:

Use these scriptures to further explore the topic of Patience. If one in particular speaks to you more than the others, or if you want to spend more time on one than the others, do it. These are merely a starting point; a place for you to start thinking through what is patience and how does the Spirit inspire patience in us. If you can think of other scripture, please use it in your study and bring it to our Monday night meeting. Also, take time to tangibly explore patience. When have you needed patience? Were you able to respond in patience or did you act before God desired? What lesson about patience could you share with our group?

1 Timothy 1:15-17 / 2 Tim 3:10-15
Joshua 6:1-20 / Psalm 27:14
John 21:1-19 / 1 Timothy 1:15-17
2 Tim 4:2 / Ephesians 4:2
Lamentations 3:19-26 /Micah 7:7

1. What is patience? Some translations say “Longsuffering” does that change how you view patience?
2. Why is patience important?
3. How did Christ demonstrate patience?
4. Why does God value patience?
5. What prevents us from demonstrating patience?
6. How does the world’s view of patience differ from our view of patience?
7. How can we mature in our patience? What would that next level of patience look like?