Chapter 1
Our Once-in-History Opportunity
Out Live Your Life by Max Lucado ...
To listen to Max's audio recap of this chapter, go here.
Author of "Out Live Your Life" Max Lucado is providing the first chapter of the book for free from his website - to read it click here. Other chapters of the book will be posted here on the Lisa & Eric page, for free, for one week at a time. To purchase Out Live Your Life, click here. All author royalties from the book will go towards building water wells in Uganda.
Questions for Discussion
1. Think about someone who did something ordinary for you but it made an extraordinary difference. What small thing could you do that would have a big impact?
2. In what ways were the early disciples ordinary people? How would you have felt if you had been part of the 120 people who heard the words of Jesus just before he ascended (Acts 1:1–11)?
3. What lessons did you learn from the story of Nicholas Winton, who saved so many from the Holocaust? In what ways was he ordinary? What did you think of the fact that he didn’t share the story with anyone until his wife discovered the scrapbook?
4. Review the idea of strengths and weaknesses presented in 2 Corinthians 12:9–10. Remember a time when you felt weak yet God gave you the strength to do something for him. Explain.
5. If Jesus told you to recruit eleven of your ordinary friends and relatives to change the world, whose names would you put on the list? How could your group make a difference right now?
Ideas for Action
■ Engage in routine acts of kindness. Apply measurements of time to your service for others. Are you doing something daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly to show compassion and meet needs?
■ Take part in random acts of kindness. Don’t forget to work outside your routine as well. When God gives you an unplanned opportunity, react with compassion, and experience the joy of these divine appointments.
■ Get involved in radical acts of kindness. Plan a more-intense, sacrificial, and strategic response to the needs of the world. Think big, get prepared, and enlist others to join you (start with the list of eleven people you created earlier).