[UP] What giving does God want to enable through you?

Challenge: Release & Increase!

Learning with Moses - Numbers 11:24 - 30

Last week we saw how Joshua got to tag along with Moses as the people were led by God. The journey was not always enjoyed by the people, and this week the scene is one of complaining and moaning - the people had God-provided food to eat, but they wanted real meat! This got to Moses and led to a sense of burden. He felt he had to carry all 1.5 million people himself.

Experiences with Moses - Excerpts from Exodus 24, 32 and 33

What do other people see in our lives? Is it something attractive and worth imitating? Watching someone and doing like-wise was in the rabbi-disciple culture at the time of Jesus, but it also goes back much further. In Exodus we see Joshua tagging along with Moses, seeing how he did life, his priorities and reactions. This mini-series will look at 'The Discipled Leader', echoing our look at 'Jesus the Discipler' from earlier in the year.

[OUT] Do you live a life worth imitating?

Challenge: Review one area of your life

Corporate Prayer - Acs 4:23 - 31

Having looked at Nehemiah, Jeremiah, and David in prayer, as well as the Lord's prayer, we now look at an example of the early church praying together. They were united in response to a threat - Peter & John told not to speak about Jesus. This was a threat against the very purposes of God.

David in Prayer - 1 Chronicles 16:8 - 36

The people of Israel were defined by their story - of God leading them out of slavery, of making promises and covenants with them. God had instructed them to make an ornate box - 'the ark' - in which they kept etched tablets of stone. This was a focus to help them in their worship. Many years on they were finally able to settle in the land God had promised, and now they had a king who could establish them as the people of God in the land of Israel. David succeeded in bringing the ark to Jerusalem, to form the epicentre of their worship. It was a day of great celebration. Since the people were to be characterised by their worship of God, David appointed people to praise - not just on that great day, but each day thereafter. The 1 Chronicles passage records a poem of praise written for the occasion.

[IN] Do you feel part of God's bigger purposes

Challenge: Contribute one sentence of praise per day

A Troubled Soul - Mark 1:35-39 and Jeremiah 20:7-18

Jesus did a life on life training course for his disciples. His habits would be a model for them, one bed-rock habit being withdrawing to pray. In Mark 1 he does this, and when the disciples come after him he is not simply drawn to the needs of the crowd but instead demonstrates the discipline of OFF and follows a call to minister elsewhere. His prayer time seems to set an inbuilt metronome ticking with the presence of God.

Nehemiah's Prayer - Nehemiah 1:5 - 11

Nehemiah and his people were in exile. He was serving a foreign king and acutely aware of the devastation and shame on his people back home. The walls of Jerusalem were in ruins and their plight was desperate.

[UP] What level of confidence do you have to approach God in prayer?

Challenge: Use Nehemiah's prayer as a model for your own prayer