This week's Life Group Questions
For reflection and LIFE Group facilitation
***Pastoral note: The topic of healing is one where our community will have different experiences and theological convictions. I want to encourage a listening posture. Be wise, thoughtful, and understanding remembering that there is mystery surrounding God’s timing and selection with healing. God offers complete healing to some and in certain ways while offering partial or delayed (meaning not in this life) healing to others. It is a good practice to hold these differences with open hands and present them before our loving Father. Just as Jesus compassionately takes the blind man by the hand, as brothers and sisters we should listen well and not place a burden of expectation of healing on anyone or for any particular need. Still, we all hold fast to the certain hope that Jesus does offer life with Him; As Christ has risen, all who are in Christ will rise and walk into complete and perfect healing in the life to come.
Prayer: Jesus, as we reflect together on encountering You as loving healer, may we be open to Holy Spirit who lives and dwells in us. Open the eyes of our heart that we may see and trust You, Amen.
1. Read Mark 8:22-25, Colossians 1:15-20, Philippians 1:6
2. Reflect on this encounter with Jesus as well as this passage. What do you receive from this or what captures your focus?
3. As you think of Jesus as Loving Healer, consider sharing a personal story of encountering Jesus as loving healer (spiritual, relational, physical, emotional). How/where does Jesus meet you as a loving healer? You can use the framework of a loving healer who is caring, relational, and transformational to share your healing encounters with Jesus.
4. After the initial and partial healing, the man tells Jesus that he sees people but they look like trees, walking. What areas in your life continue to be “people look like trees, walking.” In other words, in what areas of your life are you longing to see or experience more healing? What do you do with that longing?
5. Take some time to pray together celebrating God’s healing (from the stories shared) and expressing an open posture for more as God wills (from the ongoing longings shared).
***Pastoral note: The topic of healing is one where our community will have different experiences and theological convictions. I want to encourage a listening posture. Be wise, thoughtful, and understanding remembering that there is mystery surrounding God’s timing and selection with healing. God offers complete healing to some and in certain ways while offering partial or delayed (meaning not in this life) healing to others. It is a good practice to hold these differences with open hands and present them before our loving Father. Just as Jesus compassionately takes the blind man by the hand, as brothers and sisters we should listen well and not place a burden of expectation of healing on anyone or for any particular need. Still, we all hold fast to the certain hope that Jesus does offer life with Him; As Christ has risen, all who are in Christ will rise and walk into complete and perfect healing in the life to come.
Prayer: Jesus, as we reflect together on encountering You as loving healer, may we be open to Holy Spirit who lives and dwells in us. Open the eyes of our heart that we may see and trust You, Amen.
1. Read Mark 8:22-25, Colossians 1:15-20, Philippians 1:6
2. Reflect on this encounter with Jesus as well as this passage. What do you receive from this or what captures your focus?
3. As you think of Jesus as Loving Healer, consider sharing a personal story of encountering Jesus as loving healer (spiritual, relational, physical, emotional). How/where does Jesus meet you as a loving healer? You can use the framework of a loving healer who is caring, relational, and transformational to share your healing encounters with Jesus.
4. After the initial and partial healing, the man tells Jesus that he sees people but they look like trees, walking. What areas in your life continue to be “people look like trees, walking.” In other words, in what areas of your life are you longing to see or experience more healing? What do you do with that longing?
5. Take some time to pray together celebrating God’s healing (from the stories shared) and expressing an open posture for more as God wills (from the ongoing longings shared).