DAY 1

Read Luke 13:1-9

• What is wrong with the fig tree?

• If you were to relate your life to the fig tree, what condition are you in right now?  

• The gardener wants to dig and fertilize another year before the owner of the garden cuts the fig tree down?  What would digging and fertilizing look like in your life right now?
  

DAY 2

Read Luke 13:10-17

• Describe the woman’s condition.

• In what way does the woman’s physical condition relate to the Pharisee’s spiritual condition?

• If Jesus were to say the words to you today, “You are set free from your infirmity,” what freedom would you want from Him?
  

DAY 3

Read Luke 13:18-35

• What do we learn about the Kingdom of God from this scripture?

• Why do you think Herod and the Pharisees are so opposed to Jesus?  What might they stand to lose in this new kingdom?

• In what ways has following Jesus been costly for you?
  

Day 4

Read Luke 14:1-6

• Describe the man’s condition.

• In what way does the man’s physical condition relate to the Pharisee’s spiritual condition?

• In what area(s) of your life are you feeling overfull at the moment?
  

Day 5

Read Luke 14:7-14

• What does Jesus notice about the guests at the dinner?

• In what way do Jesus’s instructions to people hosting and attending banquets encourage them to avoid the condition of overfullness?

• According to Timothy Keller in Generous Justice, “In Jesus day, society operated largely on a patronage system.  People with means created influence networks by opening doors and giving resources to people who in turn provided business opportunities and political favors, and watched out for their patron’s interests.  In this kind of culture, banquets were necessary.  They were expensive, but they paid off because that was the way that business was done.  Dinners were ways to sustain and reward current patronage relationships and also were opportunities for creating new ones.  That is why the only people you invited were your own peers and existing relations, as well as “your rich neighbors.”  Jesus’s advice would have looked like economic and social suicide.  He commanded that his disciples should share their homes and build relationships not with people from their own social class (or higher) who would profit them, but with people who were poor and without influence, who could never pay them back with money or favors.”  Knowing this information, in what way could you personally apply this scripture to your own life?
  
  

DAY 6

Read Luke 14:15-35

• What three excuses were given for not attending the banquet?

• How would you translate these excuses into modern day terminology?

• Jesus goes on from this parable to talk about counting the cost of following Him.  In verse 33, He says “In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.”  What do you find yourself clinging to rather than entrusting to God?

DAY 7

Review The Week

• What stands out the most to you?  Why?

• What do you most need from God right now?

• Keeping a record of our prayers is a good way to guard against forgetting how God has worked in our life in the past or missing the answered prayers of our present.  Briefly summarize your prayers from this week.