Glencairn MB Church

Going Deeper is designed for use with your small group, a friend or on you own. Its aim is to create time for you to spend with God and his word. Do as much or as little as you like. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact one of our pastoral staff.

1. Pray for the needs of your Life Group, for our church and our leaders, for personal and corporate renewal, and to allow God’s word to transform us.

2. This Sunday, the message in the Receiving God’s Grace series focused on Offering Grace. What thoughts or questions did the service raise for you? Which thoughts or points encouraged you or posed a challenge to you?

3. Share a personal account of a time when someone extended forgiving grace to you.

4. Read Eph 4:32 and Matt 6:11-15 out loud. Discuss how exactly Christ forgave you. How is his way of forgiving a model for the command in Eph 4:32? How do you explain the injunction in Matt 6:14-15? Based on this comment, are your sins forgiven?

5. Discuss the barriers that commonly stand in the way of forgiving others.How did Jesus overcome these barriers in his forgiveness of you? What in you has to be transformed in order to become Christ-like in the way you forgive?

6. Read Hebrews 12:15 out loud, find it also in the KJV. This verse links coming short of God’s grace and bitterness. How would you know that you are missing the grace of God? What would be the evidence? Let’s define bitterness as “pain we continue to carry” or “pain we have not released.” How does grace-forgiveness-bitterness fit together?

7. What is the consequence of coming short of God’s grace and therefore living in bitterness that Heb 12:15 warns against? Share an example of how you have observed this to be true.

8. Take a moment of silence as you consider how God is speaking to you. Do you sense an invitation to something new? What concrete steps of response do you want to take? How can your group support you in these steps?