PRAYER FOCUS:

MISSIONS: Pray for Joel and Adrienne Charest, missionaries we support monthly. They are in Pemba, Mozambique. Pray for their effectiveness in training and empowering local leaders.

LOCAL • EARLY • TOGETHER: Pray for opportunity to do the unremarkable in order to bless, encourage and connect people to Christ this week.

MULTIPLICATION: Pray for opportunity and provision to multiply into new communities.

What are people in your world striving for?
*up to six answers

Big house
Nice car
Fashionable clothes
Plenty of money for dining out
A big enough budget for luxury travel
An attractive spouse
To neither look nor feel fat
To eat whatever you want without gaining weight
To hold your own in a political conversation
To learn to dance without looking stupid
To be attractive as you age
To be the life of the party at least once
To know what you want and have the confidence to go after it
Visit every continent
To do as little as possible
Spiritual maturity
Live in a beautiful, serene place
Volunteer in a disaster zone
Go to a major sports championship
Pilot a plane
Spend New Year’s in New York City
Have at least one true best friend
Feel relief from social judgment
Reconcile with an enemy
Be remembered in a positive way after death
Know that you made a difference in someone else’s life
Feel important to others
Live each day without regret
To quiet negative thoughts
Have plenty of energy to enjoy each day
Age gracefully without wrinkles and without going bald
Finish a marathon or an ironman triathlon
Not be afraid of intimacy
Have many children and grandchildren
Stay married to the same person
Find meaningful work
Be recognized as talented or even brilliant
Pursue your calling while supporting your family financially
Publish a book
Make enough money to care for aging parents

First Dialogue Question:

What stands out to you about the answers given?
Are you striving for similar or different things?
Why?

Second Dialogue Question:

What do people in your world (local) think God wants them to strive for?

Third Dialogue Question:

What do YOU think God wants people in your world (local) to strive for?

Fourth Dialogue Question:

If you remove distant, long-term, epic and remarkable from your perspective of what God wants you to strive for, what are you supposed to strive for?

Fifth Dialogue Question:

What can (or has) focusing on the distant future, the epic, the safe, the secure, the selfish… cause(d) you to miss today?

Final Dialogue Questions:

What can (or has) focusing on the distant future, the epic, the safe, the secure, the selfish… cause(d) you to miss today?

Take It Deeper Questions:

Read James 4:13-17.
What tends to distract you the most when you need to get something done?
What are the differences between striving to get ahead and striving to do God’s will?
With the distant future and epic things removed from the answer, what is God’s will for you?
How are you personally focused by the word of James 4:17?

Reading Plan:

10-21 - James 5:1-12
10-22 - Matthew 6:25-34
10-23 - Matthew 7:1-6
10-24 - Matthew 7:7-12
10-25 - Matthew 7:13-20
10-26 - Matthew 7:21-29
10-27 - Luke 6:17-26