Last week I suggested a few bullet points of how you could practically serve another brother or sister (or group of people) in deepening your discipleship in Christ. One of the suggestions was to ask specific application questions of one another.
Discipleship is more than a meeting. Accountability questions can be dodged and become legalistic. I’m certainly not suggesting they be used in such ways. Use them to simply stimulate each other’s thinking about how to apply the Bible more fervently, specifically, and intentionally to daily life. Recently, the way I have used these questions is to have someone choose a question for the group to think on through the week. When we get back together, we start off by talking about how we lived out (or perhaps did not) the application of the question. It has proved to be a helpful stimulus for me and others.
Some of these questions were taken from a list one of our elders found online, and some of the questions were developed by a good friend who used questions he was asking himself after listening to various sermons at church. They are a random list given in no specific order.
Here are some of those questions:
- In what ways am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am?
- How am I a slave to dress, friends, work, or habits?
- How did the Bible live in me today?
- Am I enjoying prayer? Why/Why not? How so?
- Am I defeated in any part of my life? How, why, in what ways?
- How do I spend my spare time?
- How and in what ways do I see pride manifesting itself in my life?
- Is there anyone I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward, disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?
- Do I grumble or complain constantly? How/over what? How am I confronting it?
- What sin have you mourned this week?
- How do you see the authority of Christ working in that/any sin in your life?
- In what ways did you prioritize Christ this week? What was competing for that priority?
- What dominated your thoughts this week? Were they kingdom oriented?
- Did you live this week as though you were eagerly awaiting the kingdom that is to come? In what ways did you see it?
- What were some things you asked of the Lord this week?
- Did you rejoice in Christ this week? Why/why not?
- Did you have any opportunities to share Christ this week? Did you miss any opportunities? Did you moderate your Christianity and thereby lose any opportunities?
- Am I praying for unbelievers that God has providentially placed in my life?
- Have I harmed any relationships with my words or actions recently and if so have I done anything about it?
- Am I seeking to saturate my closest relationships with the gospel and how?
- Am I treating my body as a good steward as I anticipate having the strength and vigor necessary for decades of service to the Lord.
- What am I doing to make sure prayer is a priority?
- Did I insist upon doing something this week about which my conscience was uneasy?
- Am I holding resentment toward someone? I If so, what am I doing about it?
- How have I been relating to Christ in real, practical ways this week?
