Cornerstone’s 40 Days of Experiencing More of the Spirit
WEEK 2: Moving God’s Love From Our Head to Our Heart
Using chapter 3 of Alan Kraft’s book “more” and the message from Doug on Sunday, respond to the following questions before going to your group.
Breaking the Ice
Describe a time in your life when you felt the most loved ... what were the circumstances, who were the people, how did it impact you, etc.
Why is it often so hard to experience God’s love like we experience the love of another human being?
How about for you personally ... what’s the biggest sticking point for you in experiencing God’s love more fully?
Briefly, in just a couple of minutes ...
Looking back at your notes from this message, was there anything that particularly caught your attention, challenged or spoke to you personally?
Did it raise any questions or create any push-back for you?
If you read Chapter 3 in the book More, how did your reading complement and deepen your understanding of this week’s theme?
Exploring God’s Word
Don’t feel pressured to answer every question.
Read aloud the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11–32.
When you consider the personalities in this passage, what general observations about them impact you the most?
Which son struggled the most to experience the father’s love, and why?
Which of the two sons most accurately describes your level of engagement with the Father’s love?
Look carefully at Romans 5:5 and 8:14–16, as well as 1 John 4:18.
According to these passages and the message, what two things most cause us to not experience God’s love?
In what ways have you seen these things interfere with your experience of love in general, and in your relationship with God’s love in particular?
In response to these interferences, what specific things does the Spirit do to help us experience God’s love more fully?
Read aloud Psalm 139:18.
How do you think your experience of God’s love would be different if you truly saw yourself as God does ... His precious son/daughter, the object of His deepest affection, and of infinite worth to Him?
What longing does this create within your soul?
Making It Real
How well and how often do you experience the Spirit testifying with your spirit that you are God’s child?
And, in response to this, how often do you cry out to Him as your “Abba Father?”
What might enable you to experience Him and hear His voice more clearly and frequently?
Are there wounds in your past that make it hard for you to experience God’s love?
What might it look like to invite the Spirit of Jesus into those places, transforming you from the inside out by the Father’s love?
Prayer and Group Support
In advance of praying for specific requests, pray the words of Ephesians 3:16-19 for one another, forming groups of 2-3 in order to do this if your group is larger.
Insert the person’s name in the text where indicated:
“I pray that out of the your glorious riches, Father, you would strengthen
____________ with power through your Spirit in his/her inner being, so that
Christ may dwell in ____________’s heart through faith. And I pray that
____________ would be rooted and established in love, may have
power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long
and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses
knowledge—that he/she may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Breaking the Ice
Describe a time in your life when you felt the most loved ... what were the circumstances, who were the people, how did it impact you, etc.
Why is it often so hard to experience God’s love like we experience the love of another human being?
How about for you personally ... what’s the biggest sticking point for you in experiencing God’s love more fully?
Briefly, in just a couple of minutes ...
Looking back at your notes from this message, was there anything that particularly caught your attention, challenged or spoke to you personally?
Did it raise any questions or create any push-back for you?
If you read Chapter 3 in the book More, how did your reading complement and deepen your understanding of this week’s theme?
Exploring God’s Word
Don’t feel pressured to answer every question.
Read aloud the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11–32.
When you consider the personalities in this passage, what general observations about them impact you the most?
Which son struggled the most to experience the father’s love, and why?
Which of the two sons most accurately describes your level of engagement with the Father’s love?
Look carefully at Romans 5:5 and 8:14–16, as well as 1 John 4:18.
According to these passages and the message, what two things most cause us to not experience God’s love?
In what ways have you seen these things interfere with your experience of love in general, and in your relationship with God’s love in particular?
In response to these interferences, what specific things does the Spirit do to help us experience God’s love more fully?
Read aloud Psalm 139:18.
How do you think your experience of God’s love would be different if you truly saw yourself as God does ... His precious son/daughter, the object of His deepest affection, and of infinite worth to Him?
What longing does this create within your soul?
Making It Real
How well and how often do you experience the Spirit testifying with your spirit that you are God’s child?
And, in response to this, how often do you cry out to Him as your “Abba Father?”
What might enable you to experience Him and hear His voice more clearly and frequently?
Are there wounds in your past that make it hard for you to experience God’s love?
What might it look like to invite the Spirit of Jesus into those places, transforming you from the inside out by the Father’s love?
Prayer and Group Support
In advance of praying for specific requests, pray the words of Ephesians 3:16-19 for one another, forming groups of 2-3 in order to do this if your group is larger.
Insert the person’s name in the text where indicated:
“I pray that out of the your glorious riches, Father, you would strengthen
____________ with power through your Spirit in his/her inner being, so that
Christ may dwell in ____________’s heart through faith. And I pray that
____________ would be rooted and established in love, may have
power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long
and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses
knowledge—that he/she may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”