How’s your prayer life?” the wellmeaning father asked his son. The bright, church-going 14-year-old shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t really pray that much.”
“Why not?” the concerned father pressed.
“I don’t really need anything.”
That honest teenager put words to what many of us are afraid to admit out loud—we don’t pray unless we need something.
In the following pages, staff writer Dennis Fisher takes a look at our common struggle to make time for God. Along the way, he gives us some practical pointers that will help us as we strive to pray, read God’s Word, and serve others in the process.
This Discovery Series Bible Study is based on In His Presence: Spending Time With God (QO718), one of the popular Discovery Series booklets from Our Daily Bread Ministries. Find out more about Discovery Series at discoveryseries.org
Discovery House is affiliated with Our Daily Bread Ministries, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Requests for permission to quote from this book should be directed to: Permissions Department, Discovery House, PO Box 3566, Grand Rapids, MI 49501, or contact us by e-mail at permissionsdept@dhp.org
Managing Editor: Dave Branon Study Guide questions: Sim Kay Tee Graphic Design: Steve Gier
COVER PHOTO: Fred Fokkelman via FreeImages.com
INSIDE PHOTOS:
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ISBN: 978-1-62707-576-3
Printed in Indonesia
Second Printing in 2016
How To Use
DISCOVERY SERIES BIBLE STUDIES
The Purpose
The Discovery Series Bible Study (DSBS) series provides assistance to pastors and lay leaders in guiding and teaching fellow Christians with lessons adapted from Discovery Series booklets produced by Our Daily Bread Ministries and supplemented with items taken from the pages of Our Daily Bread. The DSBS series uses the inductive study method to help Christians understand the Bible more clearly.
The Format
READ: Each DSBS book is divided into a series of lessons. For each lesson, you will read a few pages that will give you insight into one aspect of the overall study. Included in some studies will be FOCAL POINT and TIME OUT FOR THEOLOGY segments to help you think through the material. These can be used as discussion starters for group sessions.
RESPOND: At the end of the reading is a two-page STUDY GUIDE to help participants respond to and reflect on the subject. If you are the leader of a group study, ask each member to preview the STUDY GUIDE before the group gets together. Don’t feel that you have to work your way through each question in the STUDY GUIDE; let the interest level of the participants dictate the flow of the discussion. The questions are designed for either group or individual study. Here are the parts of that guide:
MEMORY VERSE: A short Scripture passage that focuses your thinking on the biblical truth at hand and can be used for memorization. You might suggest memorization as a part of each meeting.
WARMING UP: A general interest question that can foster discussion (group) or contemplation (individual).
THINKING THROUGH: Questions that will help a group or a student interact with the reading. These questions help drive home the critical concepts of the book.
DIGGING IN: An inductive study of a related passage of Scripture, reminding the group or the student of the importance of Scripture as the final authority.
GOING FURTHER: A two-part wrap-up of the response: REFER suggests ways to compare the ideas of the lesson with teachings in other parts of the Bible. REFLECT challenges the group or the learner to apply the teaching in real life.
OUR DAILY BREAD: After each STUDY GUIDE session will be an Our Daily Bread article that relates to the topic. You can use this for further reflection or for an introduction to a time of prayer.
Go to the Leader’s and User’s Guide on page 47 for further suggestions about using this Discovery Series Bible Study.
1 The Starting Point
As we begin to think together about the struggle to make time for God in our lives, it’s essential that we establish a purpose for considering this topic.
The practice of spending time praying and reading the Bible is not our ultimate goal in this life. And the act of seeking opportunities for moments with God can be rather empty—if we do not understand the most important purpose God has for us on this earth.
Before we examine how to spend time with God, it is important first that we are certain that we know Him.
Centuries ago, a religious leader named Nicodemus approached Jesus to find answers to his own spiritual questions. Nicodemus said, “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him” (JOHN 3:2).
Jesus’ response seems surprisingly unrelated to Nicodemus’ comments: “Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again’ ” (v 3).
Their conversation underscored the contrast between physical life and spiritual life. In the garden of Eden, before Adam disobeyed God, he was in a state of complete innocence. But after Adam disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit, a fundamental change took place. A great barrier to fellowship between God and man damaged their relationship. Adam realized this, and he hid from God (GENESIS 3:8–10).
You may think of yourself as a Christian because you attend church or grew up in a family that worshiped together . It is of eternal importance that you know for sure .
Sin had created an insurmountable chasm where once there had been an intimate union between God and man. That same alienation affects each of us today. Here’s how the Bible describes it: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way” (ISAIAH 53:6).
The tragic result of this rebellion against God is spiritual death. We cannot have any kind of fellowship with God—the subject of this booklet—until that changes.
That’s why Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John 3 are such good news! Jesus told him that each of us can be made alive again on the inside. God’s Holy Spirit can come inside us and restore our fellowship with God.
The Lord is eager to forgive our sin, restore a relationship with God, and give us the gift of eternal life.
But how does that happen?
First, we must admit that we are sinners and that we cannot save ourselves. In Romans 3:23, we read this: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Next, we must recognize that our sinfulness has serious consequences. Later in Romans we read, “The wages of sin is death” (6:23).
“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord .”
ROMANS 6:23
But here is the good news—the best news. Christ took our punishment for our sins when He died on the cross. Here’s how Paul, who wrote the book of Romans, explains it: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (5:8). Jesus, the perfect One, gave up His own life as our substitute. He died for us. He rose from the dead to prove His power over death, and He still lives today in heaven as our Savior.
Here’s where we come in. John 1:12 says, “to all who did receive him [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
If we recognize our sinful condition and then put our faith and trust in Jesus to forgive us our sins through His death, burial, and resurrection, we receive the gift of eternal life and the pleasure of fellowship with God right now. When that happens in our lives, we will want to get to know God better through reading His Word, the Bible. We will want to talk to Him in prayer.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God . ”
2 CORINTHIANS 5:21
And we will want to feel the closeness of true fellowship with Him.
So, if you have trusted Jesus as Savior and long to spend valuable, encouraging, and uplifting time with the Lord, read on. Enter His presence and spend time with the God of the universe, the master Creator, and the author of your salvation.
The Starting Point
STUDY GUIDE
To know how to have a personal relationship with God. read pages 6–9
MEMORY VERSE
John 1:12—
“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God . ”
Warming Up
Who is your best friend? How did you and he or she become such good friends?
Thinking Through
1. Why do you think the author says that “The practice of spending time praying and reading the Bible is not our ultimate goal in this life” (page 6)? What then is our ultimate goal in this life?
2. Why would it be meaningless for you to spend time with a stranger or one who with whom you would not want to develop a personal relationship?
3. Why is spending time with a loved one so important?
Going Further
Going Further
Refer What does John 1:12 say about your relationship with God?
Digging In ReadRead John
3:1–5; 14–18
1. What does it mean to be “born again” (v . 3)?
2. Jesus says that “everyone who believes may have eternal life” (v . 15). What does it mean for you to have “eternal life”?
1 Nicodemus . . . . 2 came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.”
14 “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life.”
3. What do verses 16–17 tell you about how you can have a personal relationship with God?
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already.
Prayer Time >
Use the Our Daily Bread article on the next page as a guide for reflection on spending quality time with God .
Reflect
How do you become a child of God? Why is it necessary for you to “receive Jesus” and “believe in Jesus” to have a relationship with God?
If you have a personal relationship with God, why would it be important for you to spend time with God?
Our Daily Bread : For reflection about time with God
Check the Oil
When I helped our daughters learn to drive, I included a little instruction on basic auto maintenance. We visited a local service station where the girls learned to check the oil every time they put fuel in the car. Today, years later, they often remind me of my sixword slogan, “Oil is cheap; engines are expensive.” Adding a quart of oil is nothing compared to replacing an engine. Maintenance is also important in our spiritual lives. Taking time each day to read the Bible, pray, and listen to God is a key element in avoiding a breakdown. In Psalm 5, David wrote, “My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning I will direct it to You” (v 3 NKJV). In the verses that follow, he poured out his heart in praise, thanksgiving, and requests to God.
Many people find it essential to begin every day with the Lord. Before checking email, catching the news, or eating breakfast, they find some quiet moments alone to read a portion of God’s Word, praise Him for His greatness, thank Him for His love, and seek His guidance. Others spend time reading and praying at different times of the day.
It’s not magic—it’s maintenance, as we ask the Lord each day to fill our hearts with His presence on the road of life.
—David McCasland
PSALM 5:3—
My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning I will direct it to You (nkjv)
