REALLIFE STUDY GROUP

"Fill Up!"

 

ICEBREAKER: How many cavity fillings do you have and what is your favorite snack to fill up on?

 

INTRODUCTION:  I believe God longs to fill us up with the best thing He has to offer us, Himself.  God desires to not only rest upon us but to actually live within us or, in other words, to fill us up.  The problem is that we are already so full of so many other things. We are full of stress, fear, anxiety, bitterness, pride, uncontrolled passion and many other toxins. Let's face it, so often we are just full of ourselves. So God must empty us first of all this emptiness in order to fill us with His fullness. To be filled with God is to be filled with something or someone bigger, greater, richer, stronger, better, healthier and the list goes on and on.  The Bible says in the presence of the Lord is fullness of joy.  So get ready to be filled up with God. Let's give Him our limitations, let the healing begin and watch what happens when we truly let God completely fill us up!

 

CONFESSION: I believe and decree that...

·        God is filling up the void

·        God is filling in the blanks

·        God is filling in the answers

·        God is filling out the forms

·        God is filling me up with His promises

·        God is filling the whole earth with his glory as the waters cover the sea

·        God is filling me up with the good of the land if I am willing and obedient

·        God is filling the empty vessels in order to pour out the best He has saved for last

·        God is filling the cavities in the mouths of my soul formed by the garbage we have been eating from Hollywood

·        God is filling the church with a new sound, a sound of a rushing mighty wind, a sound like a still small voice, and a sound like the sound of many waters

·        God is filling and refilling me again and again and again

·        God is not only filling me with the bread of life but with a righteous, holy hunger for more

·        God is filling us up for the purpose of emptying out our emptiness

·        God is filling me up with His fullness...his omnipresent, ubiquitous, omniscient, eternal, omnipotence.

 

DEFINITION:  Fill up: means to be satisfied or content, to be totally and completely consumed, to be absolutely at peace, to be filled to the brim or to our capacity with all of God's fullness

 

OUTLINE:  6 Things that limit God from filling us up.

We Are:

1.    Wounded: Hole in our soul, instead of being whole in our soul. We are hemorrhaging rather than overflowing.

2.    Preoccupied: Filled with something else, distracted by other passions, disappointments, and aspirations

3.    Defiled: Discolored and tainted by wrong influences & affections

4.    Satisfied: Only filled half way, and we settle for less

5.    Stunted: Our capacity is much too small. We see ourselves much smaller than God sees us

6.    Proud: Vessel versus the Content; Sometimes we think the vessel is more important than the contents of the vessel.

 

TEXT: 2 Kings 4:1-3; Ephesians 5:16-20; John 2:1-11

 

STUDY GROUP QUESTIONS:

1.   How does Ephesians 5:16-20 tell us what not to be filled with and how to stay filled with God's Spirit?

2.   In Acts 2, the disciples got fed up, filled up and fired up! Name one thing they might have been fed up with in our society today.

3.   Identify one thing God had to empty out of you, or people in general, to make room for his fullness.

4.   In 2 kings 4 a widow must borrow vessels to fill up with oil. What could you use a little more of?

5.   Also in Acts 2, the first thing that happened as a result of getting filled up with the spirit was that their language changed. Besides praying in the Spirit, how has or how should your language change since you accepted Christ?

a.    More positive

b.   More encouraging

c.    More stable

d.   More praying

e.   More consistent

f.     No more cursing

g.    No more lying

h.   No more gossiping

i.      No more nasty talk

j.     No more quarreling

k.    No more complaining

l.      No more murmuring

m. No more accusing

n.   No more shaming

o.   No more out of control raging

p.   No more belittling (demeaning)

q.   No more division

r.     ____________________________________________________

6.   Which of the things that limit God from filling us up do you need to work on?

 

PRAISE REPORTS & PRAYER REQUESTS:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                       

 

ACTION POINT: This week I will spend some time evaluating what I really need to fill my time and my life with. Maybe I need to empty my garage, my garbage, my basement, my attic, my closets, my trunk or even my mind of all the clutter so God can give me something fresh and new.