Deo Volente
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James 4:13-17
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
SPIRITUAL PRACTICES
Read Scripture:
Read and complete the O.I.A. for James 4:13-17
Pray the Lord’s Prayer each day this week.
If you missed getting a Scripture journal for the book of James and bookmark, you can download them here.
DISCUSSION GUIDE
Complete the O.I.A. framework for this passage from James.
Questions:
1) What key words did you find in this week’s study?
2) Make accurate observations of the passage by answering ‘who, what, where, when, why, and how’.
3) What do these observations show you about God? What do these observations show you about yourself? Journal your thoughts and share them with someone else or your group.
4) How you are going to apply this passage to your daily life? Journal your thoughts and share them with someone else or your group.
Prayer:
God,
Help me to hold my plans with open hands, ready to release them and surrender them when you tell me to. Help me to look for those ‘interruptions’ and begin to see them as divine appointments. Help me to see how you are moving, how you are working, and to hold your plan, your will… over my own.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
