Lent 2024: Week 2

The Good News

“Visit us with thy salvation”: we are all loved by God and deeply wonderful. We don’t need our wrappers.

Act of Self Care

Enjoy a hot drink.

Give 

This week Manchester South Central Foodbank are requesting the following items:

  • Tinned tuna
  • Rice
  • Instant Coffee
  • Cooking Sauce
  • Cereal
  • UHT Milk
  • Tinned Tomatoes

Read

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you and will make you exceedingly numerous.” Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

Mark 8:31-38

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Discuss

  1. What does it feel like to ditch a bad habit?
  2. What are your go-to methods to distract yourself from God (eg shopping, social media, watching TV)?
  3. Why do Christians sometimes feel the need to be insulated from God’s presence?

Sing