DISCOVERING GOD LEARNING GUIDE

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TableofContentsINTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 3

PURPOSE ................................................................................................................. 3 GOAL ...................................................................................................................... 3 LEARNING OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................ 3 LEARNING GUIDE ....................................................................................................... 4 RESOURCES .............................................................................................................. 4

2. WHAT SHOULD YOU KNOW ABOUT GOD? ...................................................... 6

2.1 GOD IS LOVE ................................................................................................. 7

2.2 HIS HOLINESS ............................................................................................... 9

2.3 HIS DESIRE .................................................................................................. 11

1. HE CREATED YOU ............................................................................................ 12 2. TOGETHER WITH GOD ..................................................................................... 14

2.4 HIS LOSS? ................................................................................................... 15

THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIN ................................................................................. 17

2.5 HIS JUSTICE ................................................................................................ 18

2.6 DISCOVERY AT HOME ................................................................................. 20

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER: ................................................................................. 20

2.7 RESOURCES ................................................................................................ 23

SAMPLE REFLECTION GUIDE ....................................................................................... 23

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INTRODUCTION Purpose Discovering God is a privilege and a noble cause. We consider ourselves honoured to be the guide on your side. In this session, the purpose of the learning guide is to help you grasp some of the basic, yet essential attributes of God. Knowing God will fuel your understanding and draw you closer to Him. To this end, your access to this guide will help you remember the key takeaways as you continue to grow in your knowledge of God and how much He loves you.

Goal To equip you in your search for an authentic relationship with God and purposeful living. The selected topics are mapped out to engage you no matter where you are at in your journey; whether you are beginning, are seeking to restore their relationship with God or simply looking to know more about God and how He intimately works in your life. You are welcome to We invite you to evaluate your progress as you move through the learning guide.

Learning Objectives Given the in-class session, the learning guide and exercises, participants will discover five critical attributes about God’s character:

• His Love • His Holiness • His Desire • His Loss • His Justice

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Learning Guide The Learning Guide consists of three components: • Learning Guide; • Discovery at Home; • References and Resources; This learning guide has been specifically designed using an interactive participant-centered approach to learning. Actually, it has been simplified to serve as a self-study guide as well. It is a supplement to your guided session and intended to help you apply your learning and reading immediately. Tips Tips are included into the guide to reinforce the learning. Where necessary, the tips review, emphasize, and clarify various learning points. You can easily spot the tips by a shaded box.

Resources This section includes information, additional passages for further reading and any pertinent information to help in discovery and journey with God.

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Got Questions? What questions do you have about the nature of God? Who is God? How do you relate to God? Does He care about you? The good news is that the Bible has the answers. So before we begin, please write any questions you have about God below.

You will reassess these questions before the end of the session to see if they were answered. The facilitator is more than willing to discuss or follow up with you via email or a phone call. Use the space below for additional questions if necessary.

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2. WHAT SHOULD YOU KNOW ABOUT GOD? Throughout the history of mankind, the interpretation and worship of god or god’s is evident everywhere we look. From mythology to archaeology we can see that the subject of god has been interpreted and practiced in many different ways. Religions all around the world have been born out of man’s effort to understand god and connect with god. So where do you begin? You could look at history to try and piece him together, but you may end up with some kind of weird rock-dwelling, soul-eating, eccentric human hater with severe sleep apnea. Unfortunately, despite the fact that humanity - left to their own interpretation of god - has come up with some pretty crazy ideas, we continue to look to our own thought and our own interpretations to find him. So let’s try something different. Coming out of the first chapter (session) of Discovery Class, you likely find yourself somewhere between thinking there is something pretty special about the Bible and believing that it is the Word of God. In any case, you are about to do something that few have done- you are going to look to the Bible to find the true story of God.

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2.1 GOD IS LOVE Fill in the blanks as you follow the session. It’s okay to ask the facilitator if you’ve missed anything. There are a lot of pre-conceived notions out there about God and some of them seriously contradict what the scriptures have to say about Him. There are few things in the scriptures that ring as loud and as true as God’s love. In 1 John 4:8 it says _____________________________________________________

A statement like this cannot be taken lightly. What is the difference between someone who is capable of love and someone who is love?

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What does the scripture mean by this? Is it possible that God defines love differently than you do and can therefore make such a claim? In 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, love is defined with more clarity and precision than any dictionary could offer. It also introduces us to an entirely new standard for what love really is. If this is God’s definition of love, then what is 1 John 4:8 really saying about God?

Love is… 1 Corinthians chapter 13 is very famous and probably the most used passage at weddings. Why? It’s the kind of love we all desire in our relationships. What a blessing to know that God is the source and the standard of perfect love.

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2.2 HIS HOLINESS Revelation 4:6-8 describes God’s throne in the only language that mankind can understand. It speaks of four living creatures that surround it and day and night without pause cry out “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”. Later on, Revelation 21:23 explains that Heaven has no need for a sun or a moon because the Glory of the Lord gives it light. As awe-filling as this might be, it is hard to really fathom it. When the scriptures use the term “Holy” it means _________________________.

Moses puts some meat on the bones when he explains the holiness of God in Deuteronomy 32:3-4. “I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, _________________________________ and all ______________________________________. A faithful God _________________________________, upright and just is he.” In Exodus 33 and 34 we get to see firsthand what happens to Moses when he actually stands in the presence of God’s holiness.

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In Exodus 33:18-23 Moses asks to see God’s glory.

What stands out to you about God’s response?

Exodus 34:4-8 God does it, He actually shows Moses His Glory while at the same time explaining ways in which His holiness can be seen by you and I. Is there anything that God says that jumps out at you and why?

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We get to see what happens to Moses after he experiences the presence and glory of God in Exodus 34:29-30.

God has many more attributes like His wisdom, faithfulness and sovereignty that won’t be talked about in detail in Discovery Class, but would be an exciting topic for personal study.

2.3 HIS DESIRE

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and

the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

Genesis 1:1 What better place to start than at the beginning? This moment in scripture is one that displays the power of God like no other moment, that by His words alone, “Let there be light” all that we know and marvel at about our world and the universe came to be. With what we know today about science and the study of our planet there should be no debate that there is an intricate ________________ to our world and everything living in it. Where the debate lies is in its source, “Where does all of this come from?”. The scriptures answer that question without apology, that God is the _____________________. So why would He do it? What _____________________ could He possibly have?

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1. HE CREATED YOU Genesis 1:26 – 31

The scripture in Genesis says that God created man in His own image. In God’s mind there was something very different about the creation of man from everything else. Genesis 2:7 says: “Then the Lord God _____________ a man from the dust of the ground and _________________________________ the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

Everything else in creation was made by merely speaking - but not you. The care and intimacy that God put into the creation of man sets you apart from the rest of creation!

What does Psalm 139:13-16 say about your value to God?

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When you look around today, you see that even though there are over eight billion people on the face of our planet, God has made it so that we are distinguishable, different from one another, unique in personality and form. God knew you before you were born and He intimately formed you.

“And God Blessed them.”

In Genesis 1: 28-31, it shows us that it wasn’t enough that God would intimately form and breathe life into man. We learn that all of the work, all of creation was in preparation for man and ultimately would be a gift to man. There is so much more to this gift than what simply meets our eyes.

It is as though when giving us the gift of creation He said, “This is so you won’t forget me.”

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

Romans 1:20

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2. TOGETHER WITH GOD God puts Adam and Eve into the Garden of Eden. The garden had everything they could ever ask for, and God was there with them. God was actually in the garden, He walked with them and talked with them in the light of the day (Genesis 3:8).

And God had everything He wanted. When you ask parents of children why they had kids, you may get a response like this “I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to. I mean why not?”. In the heart of man there is a longing to be close, to have relationship. This is the image of God in us. God created you so that He could have a close relationship with you and you with Him. It is only for a moment that we get to see God’s desire fully realized. Although there is not much in the scriptures devoted to this period, it is important that you take a moment and consider the significance of it, and not for the sake of man, but to really know God’s story.

Write your thoughts below

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2.4 HIS LOSS? Genesis 2:8-9 This scripture gives an important piece of detail about the Garden that will help us understand what happens next. There were two trees in the garden that were different from the rest. The Tree of ___________,

and the Tree of the ______________________________________________________

The first tree was meant to keep them from death so that they could be in the garden with God forever. The second tree was different (Genesis 2:16). God specifically tells Adam, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will ___________________________.”

It is not known how long Adam and Eve lived in the garden with God, it could have been a month, it could have been a thousand years.

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Genesis 3:1-13 This is the part of one’s story that you never want to hear, and for God’s story it begins when Satan enters with terrible intent. His tactic? To plant a thought in the heart of man, _______________________________. Satan: “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God” Like God! Until this moment they were everything that God wanted them to be. They were perfect the way they were and hadn’t had any reason to think otherwise.

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked”

Wouldn’t it be great if God was just bluffing, but God can’t lie. Couldn’t He have just turned a blind eye, but He sees everything. God had warned Adam and Eve that Death was the consequence of eating the fruit. The truth of it was made very clear for all of mankind and its name was SIN. God had to watch His loved ones take on feelings that they were not created to bare. They turned from children without a care, to a man and woman turning on one another in fear of their own Father.

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THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIN ____________________________________________________________ - Genesis 3:7 It was never the will of God that you would have to feel such a thing as this. Rather than healing as anything that comes from God does, it eats away at a man until there is nothing left but hopelessness and hatred. ___________________________________________________________ - Genesis 3:12 Husband turns on wife, neighbour on neighbour, broken marriages, broken families, abandoned children, where the closest thing to peace is in SILENCE and DISTANCE. If you consider the challenges we face in our world today, much will be found to have roots in this very thing. ____________________________________________________________________ - Genesis 3:9

For the first time God would call for Adam and Eve and they would not come. Man hid from God, and for good reason. For the innocent, the holiness of God brings comfort and security but for the sinner it is judgment and wrath. Sin had brought a Spiritual Death to man, and separation from their God. In Genesis 3:22-24, the scriptures explained that with man having died spiritually, God could not allow them to live forever. He removes them from the garden and any access to the tree of life.

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2.5 HIS JUSTICE Do you remember what Moses said when he was explaining the Holiness of God in Deuteronomy 32:3-4?

It just so happens that our understanding of justice is a little different from God’s. When

there is brokenness and unrighteousness, the Lord’s justice is in restoring what is, to its former glory.

From the moment man was separated from God, He had every intention to restore man

back to Himself.

In Genesis 3:15 God, while rebuking Satan, gives him the first prophesy of man’s

salvation.

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and hers;

he will crush your head,

and you will strike his heel.”

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“ForGod so lovedtheworld thathe gavehis one andonlySon,thatwhoeverbelievesinhimshallnotperishbuthaveeternallife.ForGoddidnotsendhisSonintotheworldtocondemntheworld,buttosavetheworldthroughhim.”

John 3:16

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2.6 DISCOVERY AT HOME

Wow, Isn’t God amazing? What a back story! Here’s the most amazing thing about it: You’ve only just grazed the surface! Through the Scriptures, from cover to cover, you get to witness just how much God’s love and holiness are extended to save us from the consequences of our

own sin. Every time mankind gives Him reason to throw in the towel, He proves to all of us that HE IS LOVE and is not capable of giving up on us. That’s YOU included! Here is some suggested material for you to discover.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER: When pondering a bible passage, reading it a few times, even at a slower pace, helps capture the intention and meaning of the passage. Imagine God speaking to you as you read. What is He desiring for you to know about Him, you and your journey with Him. 1. Romans 1:20 What does this Scripture say about God and about you?

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2. Considering everything you have learned about God in this chapter, what would obeying God mean for your life?

TALK ABOUT IT! Later in the week share what you have discovered with your DISCOVERY partner (if you were introduced to discovery by a friend). Alternatively, share with a friend or email the facilitator about your progress and questions you may have.

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Make sure to take notes as you personally witness the life of Jesus.

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2.7 RESOURCES

Sample Reflection Guide As you read through the Gospel of John (John’s account on the Life of Jesus), answering some of the following reflective questions will help you gain the most from your reading and make the Gospel more relevant to your life. Remember: The Word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4:12). How do you read your Bible? Some prefer to read a chapter at a time while others prefer to read a whole book in one seating. Still, there are those who would rather listen to the Bible. Fortunately, you can listen to the Bible @ https://www.biblegateway.com/ or download your copy of the Bible App). All are great ways to learn. So choose the medium and the pace best for you.

1. What was Jesus’ message?

2. One of the key themes in John’s book is “Belief” – As you read, note down what

Jesus is inviting you to believe.

3. How did people respond to Jesus?

4. Who or which groups believed His message?

5. Why did some have a hard time accepting Jesus’ message or His identity?

6. What impressed people about Jesus?

7. Who is Jesus speaking to and why?

8. Because Jesus’ message is applicable today, what is He asking of you?

9. John’s book identifies a number of “I AM” statements. As you encounter them,

pause and reflect on how they apply to you today.

10. What are you learning about Jesus and the people that followed him?