10th June 2012

Cell Questions Into the wilderness

We have started a series looking at how God carries us and challenges us in places of wilderness. We are facing some of the toughest times as a society for many decades. We are facing huge economic uncertainty with the continuing economic crises; anger and mistrust of politics and the media; ongoing ecological damage and over-use of natural resources. Besides these general issues many of us face our own personal and family trials. We all learn how to live life from those around us our politics; our media; our families all teach us how to live for good or ill. Gods plan was to take the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. But this wasnt just about freeing slaves physically. God also needed to take Egypts way of living out of the Israelites. Egypts politics of having an all-powerful Pharaoh, a slave based society where you looked down on those weaker than yourself. God didnt want the Israelites to live like the Egyptians. He was calling a people who would become His rulers and priests and represent Him. He therefore wanted them to learn how to care for the weak, be humble and live lives of love and grace. One of the places that God so often takes people in the Bible is into the wilderness to help form them into the image of Christ. It is so often the place that we need to go to strip away all that we have learnt and to open us up to God. This is often a painful and a humbling experience. But like diamonds, which are created from common carbon under intense pressure and in intense heat over a long period of time, we also have our characters refined and reformed in the wilderness. God does this not to punish us but rather to make us fit to rule and reign with Christ in the age to come. We want God to raise a magic wand and fix everything now, He wants to train us to be fit to rule and reign as monarchs and priests, Read Exodus 15:22-27 together 1. What areas can you think of where we have been unhelpfully shaped by the culture around us? This can be personally or as a church or more generally in society. What do you think that God is saying to our culture/church/personally through the current crises that we face? 2. Do you depend on God more when life is easy or when life is difficult? Why do you think that is? 3. If God is training us to become a people of priests and monarchs then what lesson do you most need to learn to enable you to become more Christ-like? Of the issues that you are facing are any of them challenging you in this area (i.e. is God putting His finger on this weak spot to highlight it to you)? 4. How have you grown in faith and/or in character as a result of difficulties in your life? In what ways?