New Normal | Week 3
Big Idea: Change always begins with doing something different than you did in the past.
Getting Started
What is a New Year’s resolution that you have made for yourself?
What will need to change for you to accomplish this goal?
Change always begins with doing something different than you did in the past.
Read Exodus 3:7
And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.”
God knows our frustration of where we are. He hears us and wants to take us where we need to be.
2. What keeps us from making the changes we know we need to? Fear? Laziness? Excuses?
Read Exodus 14:10-12
And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. 11 Then they said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? 12 Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Leave us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.”
When the cost of change got difficult, the children of Israel wanted to go back to what was destroying them and away from what God had promised.
3. Have you ever made a change that didn’t have some degree of sacrifice or difficulty involved?
Change is always difficult but also beneficial.
There is always a desert before the promise land.
Read Exodus 14:14
The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.
Are you relying on your own strength and willpower for change?
Have you invited God to join your battle against this need for change?
God provided the way for the Israelites to escape, but they had to trust God and move forward through the difficulty.
Read Philippians 1:6 And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
Next Step: Choose to Change
Write down one real life change you need to make.
Embrace the change you need.
Submit it to God and invite him to the battle.
When the going gets tough, and it always will, don’t give up and run back to what is comfortable.
Instead, focus on the promise and benefits beyond the challenge, knowing that God is fighting with you and for you.
Invite another believer to join you and help you with encouragement and accountability.