(Scroll down for subsequent sessions)
Answer each set of homework questions via the chat box at the bottom of the page.
Submit homework responses in the chat box in the following format: “Session 1, 2, etc.: 1. Your Answer. 2. Your Answer. 3. Your Answer.”
Session 1:
Before what you heard in the teaching, what would you have said was the most important teaching of Christianity (no wrong answers)? (i.e., salvation, grace, avoiding hell, love, etc.).
What characteristic do you tend to think is dominant about “God?” (i.e., all powerful, gracious, wrathful, etc.) Why?
From your observation, what characteristics dominate the “god(s)” of the world right now?
Session 2:
Share how you tend to address God in prayer (i.e., God, Father, creator, Jesus, Lord, Almighty, etc.)?
Share how your understanding of God as a Father, might shift how you relate to him going forward?
Say a simple prayer, but intentionally address and direct your prayer to God as your father (i.e, Father, thank you…., Father, you know my...., Father, my situation is…., etc.). Afterward, give a brief description of how this experience was for you.
Session 3:
Share where you tend to notice the love of God appearing most in the world? (no right or wrong answer, just sharing your observation/experience).
In light of what we covered about creation being a result of God sharing his triune love, how might that impact/change how you relate to God as a creature (a part of creation) going forward?
Take a few minutes to walk outside or look out the window and observe how many facets of creation point to the love shared between the Father, Son, and Spirit. Share 1 or more observations from this experience.
Session 4:
Before this session’s teaching, how would you have generally described what went wrong with creation to get us where we are today?
What are ways that we, or society around us, try to deal with sin through behavior modification, rather than addressing the distorted desires (distorted love) behind the behavior?
Reflect on 2 Timothy 3:1-5, “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” From the list the apostle Paul gives, which “distorted love” stands out to you? Why? (if you’re willing to share)
Session 5:
Before this session, how have generally thought of the Holy Spirit (e.g. force, person, other)?
John 14:31, [Jesus said] “I love the Father and . . . I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” Describe one way that you’ve noticed in your life where the Holy Spirit is untwisting your desires from what you want, to what your heavenly Father wants? (no one right answer, just what you notice the Spirit doing in your life).
Describe how you generally incorporate the Holy Spirit into your prayers?
Session 6:
Share how you remember God first being described to you (what qualities were emphasized, e.g. holiness, perfection, love, justice, mercy, etc.).
What perception of God do you generally see unbelievers rejecting?
Read through Psalm 145 and notice the qualities of God mentioned, but read them through the lens of the life of Jesus. Note in the comment below, how Jesus illuminates or gives greater clarity to *one* of the descriptors given to God. (i.e., God’s great deeds in light of Jesus healing the outcasts of society. It’s not so much God’s dominance as much as doing what no other being focuses on doing).
Session 7:
Looking back on this learning experience, what point(s) or idea(s) from the book (or teachings) stood out to you the most?
Before this learning experience began, on a scale of 1-10, where would you rank your awareness to be able to generally tell someone about the 3 in 1 nature of God? Having gone through this learning experience now, on a scale of 1-10, where would you rank your awareness to be able to generally tell someone about the 3 in 1 nature of God?
After having completed this experience, in your own words, how would you describe God in a simple phrase or sentence?