THE TEN MARKS
Give
I give my time, talent and treasure to Jesus and others
OVERVIEW – GIVE
DEFINITION OF A DISCIPLE – A disciple unconditionally trusts and obeys Jesus to BECOME like him, BELONG to his family, and BUILD his kingdom by multiplying disciples.
GIVE DEFINITION – I give my time, talent, treasure to Jesus and others.
LIFESTYLE – I make sacrifices in my schedule, use my talents, and give financially to my local church to serve others.
REFLECTION QUESTION – How am I giving my time, talent, and treasures to others in tangible ways?
WHEN YOU’RE DONE WITH THIS LESSON…
When you’re done, you’ll understand what it means to give to others and be able to explain it.
When you’re done, you’ll know how to use the Bible, prayer, and journaling to cultivate the spirit of generosity and giving.
When you’re done, you’ll know how to give using your strengths.
STEP 1: NEW LEARNING
GIVE
QUESTIONS FROM THE READING
In your own words, summarize the big ideas about following Jesus.
What are some of your key take-aways from reading?
As you read Psalm 90:12-17, what do you discover about your time? How does Jesus view your time in Matthew 6:33-34?
In I Corinthians 12:14-31, Paul talks about the importance of every part of Jesus’ body. Like every part of your body matters, every part of Jesus’ body matters. What does this passage tell you about your talents, gifts, and contributions.
After read II Corinthians 9:6-15, what do you discover about God’s generosity in Jesus? How might this shape your view of your money and giving?
Based on what you’ve discovered, how does Jesus want you to obey this week?
WATCH THE FOLLOWING VIDEOS
STEP 2: NEW PRACTICES
BIBLE – PRAYER – JOURNALING
In this step, you’ll integrate three new practices: listen to Jesus in the Bible, talk to Jesus through prayer, and journal. It’s best to spend most of your time in the Bible and in prayer (about 80%) and then follow up with journaling. If you spend the bulk of your time in the Bible and prayer, you’ll experience the biggest impact toward growth.
To incorporate these new practices, you’ll need to make some decisions: when, where, how much, and how long. In other words, when you know WHEN you’ll do these practices, WHERE you’ll do them, and HOW long you’ll do them, you have a much better chance of integrating these practices into your lifestyle.
The important part is this: make a commitment and keep it. When we make and keep our commitments, we increase our ability to hear and obey Jesus.
Here are two questions to help you decide.
Where will I fit these practices into my weekly schedule/routine?
Consider working your way up to four times each week.
How long will I spend each day doing all three practices?
Any amount of time is good to start with but consider working up to thirty minutes at a time.
LISTENING TO JESUS IN THE BIBLE
Each week, you’ll learn to listen to Jesus through the Bible. To do this, you’ll read, think about, and answer questions about a passage. For this lesson, you’ll spend multiple days in EACH of the following texts.
QUESTIONS
As you spend multiple days in each passage, journal the following questions.
// Who is God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit)?
// What is God doing?
// Who are God’s people? Who am I as a result?
// What is God inviting me to do today?
QUESTIONS, PRAYER AND JOURNALING
JOURNAL
As you read and pray, it’s helpful to journal your thoughts, feelings, and insights. Consider journaling to one or two of the following prompts.
What I learned today was…
What I discovered about Jesus was…
What I discovered about myself was…
What I sense I need to do is…
What doesn’t make sense is…
STEP 3: NEW COMMITMENTS
GIVING TIME, TALENT, TREASURE
INTRODUCTION
In this lesson, you were introduced to the eighth mark of a disciple: giving your time, talent, and treasure.
Now, you’ll learn to how you can practically give in daily life. When you give, you participate in reconciling the world to the Father by emulating Jesus’ lifestyle. In fact, giving is one the most life-changing practices disciples can engage. Not only does giving bless the one who receives the gift, it blesses the one who gives.
There are three ways you can start to give your time, talent, and treasure: serve others in your sphere of relationship, join a corporate ministry, and give financially. Each of these three areas are outlined in the worksheets that follow.
To figure out how you can best give, you might consider accessing the following resources.
WORKSHEET
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES