“Jesus the Servant”: Weekly Leader Training—Unit 24, Session 2: Jesus Feeds a Multitude
The passage for our study this week, John 6, contains a nugget regarding Jesus’ deity and His supernatural knowledge: Jesus saw the hungry crowd, and already He knew how He would feed them. Yet Jesus took this opportunity to test Philip with a question, not for His sake but for Philip’s. A test shows something about the …
Continue Reading“Jesus the Servant”: Weekly Leader Training—Unit 24, Session 1: Jesus Casts Out Demons
In His brief conversation with the demon-possessed man in Luke 8, Jesus asked for the demon’s name, perhaps to highlight the complexity of the scenario for His disciples who were with Him. He certainly did not do this as a means to gain power over the demon. He already had the power. No, this was …
Continue Reading“Jesus the Servant”: Weekly Leader Training—Unit 23, Session 5: Jesus Teaches About the Good Shepherd
As we will learn in this session, Jesus in John 10 painted a picture of two voices calling out to sheep: one is the good shepherd and the other is a sheep thief, and they are both calling the sheep to follow them. The sheep respond to and follow the voice of the shepherd but …
Continue Reading“Jesus the Servant”: Weekly Leader Training—Unit 23, Session 4: Jesus Teaches About Treasure
In this passage, Jesus reminds us that God is our Father, not an austere miser in the sky waiting to withhold good things from us. We can trust Him to do right by us and by our earthly treasure because He has stored up myriad eternal treasures for us. In fact, the greatest treasure is …
Continue Reading“Jesus the Servant”: Weekly Leader Training—Unit 23, Session 3: Jesus Teaches About Prayer
When we read the way Jesus teaches about prayer in this passage, we might be tempted to picture God a bit like a magical genie. All we have to do is ask, and we’ll be given whatever we want, right? Whatever door we knock on, God will open it, and whatever we seek, it will …
Continue Reading“Jesus the Servant”: Weekly Leader Training—Unit 23, Session 2: Jesus Teaches About the Cost of Discipleship
Jesus is not a salesman trying to make a commission, nor is He a modern-day influencer trying to garner as many followers as possible. Actually, in the passages covered in this week’s session, Jesus seems to be almost trying to deter new followers, refusing to sugarcoat the high cost of following Him by painting the bleakest picture …
Continue Reading“Jesus the Servant”: Weekly Leader Training—Unit 23, Session 1: Jesus Teaches About Discipleship
So often those who knew Jesus missed the fact that He was the Messiah because He did not come to earth in the way that they had envisioned. While they expected Him to throw off the yoke of their Greco-Roman society, He was crucified under its reign. By turning the Jews’ expectations of the Messiah …
Continue Reading“Jesus the Servant”: Weekly Leader Training—Unit 22, Session 4: Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ question about the man who was blind wasn’t what they expected. They asked Him for a cause, but Jesus responded in terms of purpose—this man had been blind all of his life so that the works of God would be displayed in him. God used the healing of this blind …
Continue Reading“Jesus the Servant”: Weekly Leader Training—Unit 22, Session 3: Jesus Heals a Man at Bethesda
Jesus approached the disabled man and asked a curious question: Do you want to get well? The answer seems obvious—of course, he wanted to get well! Why else would he be lying there at the side of a pool that offered the hope of healing? Why wouldn’t the man want to get well? He didn’t …
Continue Reading“Jesus the Servant”: Weekly Leader Training—Unit 22, Session 2: Jesus Heals a Woman and Raises a Girl
Life isn’t easy. Things happen. Look at Jairus and the woman who suffered from bleeding. Mark 5:22 says Jairus was a synagogue leader. He was a community leader. Everyone knew him. He was well off. Then his daughter got sick. And as time went on, she grew worse and worse until she was at the …
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