"Connection Issues" Discussion Guide

Recap

  1. How did you address the flaws and failures in your life and bring them to God over the past week?

Main Thought

People crave connection, and it’s because God designed us to be that way. He wants us to communicate with Him constantly. (Our souls will feel incomplete until we find our fulfillment in Him.) Yet we often experience “connection issues” when trying to connect with God. Perhaps we’re distant from God because of our sin, or maybe we don’t know how to pray. There might be too many distractions in our lives. God sent Jesus to resolve our connection issues! We can come boldly before God, starting from wherever we find ourselves right now.

As an added bonus, some of the spiritual gifts that God gave His Church can help enhance our connection to God in both personal and corporate settings. These include:

  • Knowledge: The divine strength or ability to understand and to bring clarity to situations and circumstances often accompanied by a word from God.

  • Discernment: The divine strength or ability to spiritually identify falsehood and to distinguish between right and wrong motives and situations.

  • Intercession: The divine strength or ability to stand in the gap in prayer for someone, something, or someplace believing for profound results.

Main Passages

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
- Psalm 42:1-2

17 pray without ceasing…
- 1 Thessalonians 5:17

16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
- Hebrews 4:16

Discussion Questions

  1. The spiritual gifts of knowledge and discernment (specific expressions of prophecy), as well as the gift of intercession (a gift to pray for someone or something), help the Church connect to God. Do you think you have any of these gifts? Have you ever seen them in use?

  2. Do you feel like you have any “connection issues” in your relationship with God? What might be causing those issues?

Application

  1. Resolve your connection issues and get closer to God, either through prayer or in His Word.