Is Your Prayer Life Fake? · Group Guide

Discussion Questions

1. 1

   Kent pointed out that the word Jesus uses for hypocrite, hypokrites, was the word for a stage actor — someone playing a role, often behind a mask. Jesus applies it to people praying on street corners. What does a mask look like on someone who is praying?

2. 2

   Kent said the crowd on that hillside already knew God as creator, lawgiver, judge, deliverer, miracle worker, even husband — but Father was new. When you pray, which of those pictures shows up first for you, and why do you think that is?

3. 3

   Kent gave a practical tool: when Scripture does not speak directly to your situation, ask what a good, strong, loving father would be doing with, for, or through his child. Try it on something you cannot figure out right now. What does that question suggest?

4. 4

   "Your will be done" — Kent called it a dangerous prayer, because you do not know what it will cost. He also said spirituality without sacrifice is the modern American evangelical heresy. What has following Jesus actually cost you in the past year?

5. 5

   Kent's three-year-old son Andrew saw a photo of a grandfather he would never meet and said, "and he would love me" — he was sure because it was that man's son telling him about him. Who first made God's love believable to you by the way they talked about him?

6. 6

   "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Kent said carrying bitterness is like swallowing poison and hoping your enemy dies, and that some wounds you have to bleed out slowly. Name what you are still carrying. What is one step you could take this week toward setting it down?