Redemptive Poverty Work - Student Workbook

L E S S O N 3 | R E D E M P T I V E P O V E R T Y W O R K / 3 3

Redemptive Poverty Work

L E S S O N 3

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Welcome in the strong name of Jesus Christ! After your reading, study, discussion, and application of the materials in this lesson, you will be able to: • Renew your understanding of the concept of redemption. • Reflect on how your poverty work can be redemptive. • Distinguish redemptive poverty work from other types. Pray the following prayer: Lord, train us to hear your voice. When it is time to grieve, help us to grieve. When it is time to rejoice, help us to rejoice. When we grow weary, be the strength in our weakness. And may your most beautiful and perfect will, not ours, be done. Amen. Read John 1.1-8 . Reflect and journal on potential life application. Close this section by listening to “You Are God” and meditate on the Scripture you just read. As someone who has both lived as part of the working poor, as well as ministered among them, I understand how important redemption is. I know what it feels like to desire to have a better life. I’ve felt the weight of being a part of the fabric of a broken community. Genesis 3 (The Fall) really happened, and those who live in the condition of poverty feel it every day of their life. It is a common theme in movies that the hero or heroine is willing to die for the cause. Yet, reality is very few people are willing to go that far. We do know someone who was – Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, too many of us have reduced his story to a simple formula of “God made the world, we are sinners, and so God sent Jesus to save us from our sins.” Creation-sin-Jesus and that’s it. What’s wrong with this formula? Nothing, except it is incomplete. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are known as the Gospels. They were written to serve as tools of evangelism. In fact, the word “Gospel” means good news. It is reading these books where the idea is presented that Jesus Christ served as a ransom for our sins. We were all prisoners to ~ Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals.

Lesson Objectives

Devotion

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