Does God Always Answer Prayers? · Group Guide

Discussion Questions

1. 1

   Kent gave a grammar lesson: ask, seek and knock are present imperatives — keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. Read Matthew 7:7 that way out loud. What changes when it stops being a one-time request?

2. 2

   Read verses 9-11. Jesus argues from the lesser to the greater — if you, being what you are, know how to give good gifts. Kent said to picture the best father you have ever known and multiply him by about a trillion. For some people that picture is hard to build. What comes to mind for you?

3. 3

   Kent said plainly that Jesus did not get what he prayed for in the garden — that cup did not pass — and that if he had, there would have been no atoning sacrifice. How do you hold that next to "everyone who asks receives"?

4. 4

   Dorothy Sayers wrote that whatever game God is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair — he was born in poverty, died in disgrace, and thought it was worthwhile, because he thought you were worthwhile. Which of those two is harder for you to believe today: that God kept his own rules, or that he thought you were worthwhile?

5. 5

   Kent sat and listened for an hour to a woman in Coconut Grove whose beliefs he thought were nonsense — and because he listened, she asked him what he believed. Who in your life have you been arguing with rather than listening to?

6. 6

   Kent said you may not be able to answer the hard questions, but you are the world's leading authority on you — what your life was, meeting Jesus, what your life is now. Take three minutes and tell the group your version. Then name the one person you will tell it to this week.