Habits of Grace
The Word
The Word is the Bible - it is the primary way God reveals himself to us. Through it we know who God is, who we are, and how to trust in God in all of life.
- Gives you rest in God’s presence and freedom from the slavery to ‘do more’
- Reminds you that God is in control
- Helps you to trust in the finished work of Jesus, not in what you can accomplish
- Your soul is restored and healed outside of the ‘hurry’
Week 1 – Hearing God in Scripture
- Focus: Scripture is not just content to master, but a voice to hear.
- Practice: Begin each day with 10–15 minutes in Scripture (e.g. Psalms, Gospels). Use the lectio divina method:
- Read (slowly)
- Reflect (what is God saying?)
- Respond (pray it back to God)
- Rest (be still in His presence)
- Challenge: Choose a consistent time and place to meet with God in His Word. Share your plan with someone in your community.
Week 2 – The Story We Live In
- Focus: The Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus—and reframes our own.
- Practice: Read a short narrative passage each day (e.g. creation, Abraham, Exodus, Ruth, Jesus’ parables). Ask: Where do I see the character of God? How does this connect to Jesus?
- Challenge: Identify one “competing story” (e.g. success, fear, busyness) shaping your life. How does Scripture invite you into a better story?
- "competing story" - a story that challenges a familiar or lived narrative in your life.
Week 3 – Meditation and Memorization
- Focus: Scripture transforms us when we meditate on it deeply and store it in our hearts.
- Practice: Choose 1–2 verses to meditate on and memorize (e.g. Psalm 1:1–3, John 15:5, Romans 12:2). Repeat them morning and night; write them out, speak them aloud.
- Challenge: Go on a 10-minute Scripture walk—repeat the verse slowly, let it soak in, and ask God to speak through it.
Week 4 – Scripture in Community
- Focus: The Word of God is meant to be read and lived together.
- Practice: In your group, read a passage out loud together (e.g. Colossians 3:1–17). Listen for repeated words or themes, then discuss: What is God calling us to believe or do?
- Challenge: Pair up with someone this week to share what God is teaching you from His Word—pray for each other to live it out.
Podcasts
“Jesus in all the Bible” is a 3-4 minute daily devotional podcast that walks through the bible and shows you how all scripture points to Jesus.
Books
Chapters 1-3 of How to Read the Bible for All it’s Worth by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart
Videos
Sabbath
Sabbath is a day set aside to cease from your work, rest from your burdens, celebrate life and delight in God’s unhurried presence. It is God’s good gift of repetitive and regular rest given for your flourishing.
Sabbath is a day set aside to cease from your work, rest from your burdens, celebrate life and delight in God’s unhurried presence. It is God’s good gift of repetitive and regular rest given for your flourishing.
At Kingscross, we practice Sabbath as a countercultural act of resistance to the endless productivity of the world. It reminds us that:
- We are not slaves, but sons and daughters (Deut. 5:15).
- Our worth is not in our work, but in God’s love.
- Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, offering us true rest for our souls (Matt. 11:28–12:8).
Sabbath is about ceasing from what is perceived as necessary to live and embracing what gives life. We stop, rest, delight, and worship—declaring trust in God’s provision and joy in His presence.
Week 1 – The Invitation to Rest
- Focus: Sabbath is God’s gift, not a burden.
- Practice: Choose a 4–6 hour time block to unplug, slow down, and enjoy something restful (e.g., walk, nap, reading, shared meal).
- Challenge: Reflect on what you need to stop in order to rest well. Write a “Sabbath intention” for your coming weeks.
Week 2 – Embracing Delight
- Focus: Sabbath is a day of joy, not duty.
- Practice: Begin your Sabbath with something that brings delight—music, nature, a special meal, art, laughter.
- Challenge: Make a “Delight List” with your household or community: What activities make your soul come alive in God? Try 1–2 of them this week.
Week 3 – Saying No to Hurry
- Focus: Sabbath is resistance to the tyranny of urgency.
- Practice: Before Sabbath, prepare your home and your heart—finish chores early, set the table, power down devices.
- Challenge: For one Sabbath day, turn off your phone or place it in a drawer. Reflect: How did this affect your peace and attention?
Week 4 – Worship and Presence
- Focus: Sabbath reorients our hearts to God.
- Practice: Spend intentional time in worship—sing, read Scripture, journal, or take a silent walk with Jesus.
- Challenge: Attend church not as a task, but as a rhythm of rest. After church, share what you sensed God doing with someone close to you.
Service
Service is seeking to do good to everyone, especially to other believers. (Galatians 6:10, Philippians 2). Using our varied gifts to minister to others before ourselves, shaped by a desire to serve rather than be served.
- Allows you to identify with and become more like Jesus who took on the nature of a servant
- Is obeying the glorious calling of all who follow Christ
- Comes with the promise of heavenly reward and honour
- Is an overflow of what Christ has done in your life
Week 1 – The Posture of a Servant
- Focus: Jesus took the form of a servant (Philippians 2:5–11). Serving flows from humility and love.
- Practice: Reflect on Jesus washing His disciples’ feet (John 13:1–17). Then serve someone in a small but sacrificial way—without expecting recognition.
- Challenge: Ask God to reveal areas of pride or self-protection that keep you from serving freely. Pray, journal, or talk to a trusted friend about it.
Week 2 – Seeing and Meeting Needs
- Focus: To serve like Jesus, we must slow down enough to see the needs around us.
- Practice: Take 15 minutes each day to pray: “Lord, who can I serve today?” Be attentive in your home, work, or community—then respond with one act of service.
- Challenge: Keep a journal of small needs you observe this week. At the end of the week, prayerfully choose one to meet in a more intentional way.
Week 3 – Serving with Your Gifts
- Focus: God has uniquely gifted each believer for the good of others (1 Peter 4:10, Romans 12:4–8).
- Practice: Take 10–15 minutes to reflect: What are my gifts? Where do I experience joy and fruitfulness? Ask others for feedback. Consider where your gifts and others' needs intersect.
- Challenge: Take one step toward using your gifts in service—within your church, small group, or neighbourhood. Join a team, offer to help, or initiate something simple.
Week 4 – Joyful, Hidden Service
- Focus: Some of Jesus’ greatest acts of service were hidden, quiet, and unnoticed.
- Practice: Choose a way to serve someone this week anonymously or without seeking praise. Do it joyfully.
- Challenge: Reflect: What was stirred in me when no one noticed? Share what God revealed with someone you trust.
Community
Community is joining with people who share a common Saviour and a common mission in Christ. Jesus brought us into God’s family and united us to all the other believers in His body, the church.
- Become more known and loved as you seek to know and love others
- Can encourage one another towards love and good deeds and carry each others burdens
- Experience the breadth of God’s gifts and goodness through others
- See different facets of who God is, reflected in different members of the community
Week 1 – The Call to Community
- Focus: Jesus invites us into a spiritual family where love defines our relationships.
- Core Practice: Gather with your small group or community to share a meal and read Acts 2:42–47.
- Challenge: Set a shared intention: What kind of community do we want to be? Write a communal rule of life.
Week 2 – Being Present
- Focus: Community requires presence—not just attendance, but attention and availability.
- Core Practice: Spend time with a member of your community outside your normal meeting (e.g., coffee, walk).
- Challenge: Turn off your phone for one hour daily this week while with others and reflect on how it affects your presence.
Week 3 – Practicing Vulnerability
- Focus: True community is formed when we risk being known—weakness, wounds, and all.
- Core Practice: In your group, share a personal story where God met you in pain or failure.
- Challenge: Confess a burden or sin to someone you trust and invite prayer and accountability.
Week 4 – The Practice of Forgiveness
- Focus: Community is sustained by grace. Forgiveness is not optional—it’s essential.
- Core Practice: Read Matthew 18:21–35. Reflect and pray together about forgiveness in your relationships.
- Challenge: Take a step toward reconciliation with someone you’ve withdrawn from or held resentment toward.
Fasting
Fasting is the self-denial of an appetite for a period of time, in order to seek God on matters of concern for others, ourself or the world.
- Exposes emptiness and reorientates you to embrace your need for God’s presence
- Reminds you to turn to Jesus, who alone can satisfy
- Is a means of partnering with God for break through
Week 1 – The Heart of Fasting
- Focus: Fasting is about seeking God, not performing for Him (Matthew 6:16–18).
- Practice: Fast from one meal this week and spend that time in prayer, Scripture, or silence.
- Challenge: Reflect: What surfaced during the fast? Distraction? Desire? Frustration? Dependence? Journal and bring these insights to God.
Week 2 – Fasting and Desire
- Focus: Fasting reveals and reshapes our desires (Psalm 42:1–2; Philippians 3:7–10).
- Practice: Choose one day this week to fast from sunrise to sunset, drinking water only. Begin and end with prayer.
- Challenge: Ask God: What am I truly hungry for? Use your hunger to lead you into deeper longing for His presence.
Week 3 – Fasting for Others
- Focus: Fasting is not only personal—it is intercessory and communal (Isaiah 58:6–12).
- Practice: Choose a half-day or meal to fast and pray for someone specific: a friend, your church, your city, or a global issue.
- Challenge: Let your fast lead to action. Ask God how you might serve, encourage, or give in response to what you’re praying for.
Week 4 – Fasting as Rhythm
- Focus: Fasting is not just a response, but a regular rhythm of life with God (Luke 5:33–35).
- Practice: Choose a regular day or time (e.g., once a week or once a month) to incorporate fasting into your life rhythm.
- Challenge: Share with a friend or small group how God has been forming you through fasting. What next step are you sensing?
Podcasts
Check out the first episode on fasting from The Rule of Life Podcast: Fasting 03 To Amplify Our Prayers. Top tip: you will hear from Nas Tapping's father in this episode!
Books
Chapters 11 & 15 of Godʼs Chosen Fast by Arthur Wallis
Worship
Worship is to honour and adore the Trinity as the supreme treasure of life. All of life is worship, but it is only when we worship God with our lives that our world is ordered rightly.
- Fulfilling your God-given purpose and longing to adore and praise your Creator
- Drawing near to God and bringing him joy
- As you taste and see that God is good, your heart desires are oriented towards him
- Keeping company with Jesus in all circumstances
Week 1 – Worship as Response
- Focus: Worship is our response to God's revelation—His glory, grace, and goodness (Romans 12:1; Psalm 95:1–7).
- Practice: Set aside 10–15 minutes each day this week for personal worship. Use a worship playlist or sing aloud.
- Challenge: Begin each worship time with this prayer: “God, I want to see You rightly and respond with all that I am.” Journal what stirs in your spirit.
Week 2 – Worship Beyond Music
- Focus: Worship is expressed in every part of life—work, rest, giving, serving (Colossians 3:17).
- Practice: Choose one ordinary activity this week (e.g. cooking, commuting, parenting, working) and consciously offer it to God as worship.
- Challenge: Write out what it would look like to worship God in your Monday-to-Saturday world. Ask: What hinders or helps my awareness of His presence?
Week 3 – Corporate Worship
- Focus: Worship is deeply communal—we are formed together as we behold God together (Hebrews 10:24–25; Revelation 7:9–10).
- Practice: Arrive early or stay late at Sunday worship to pray, connect, or reflect. Be fully present during the service—stand, sing, listen, give, pray with intentionality.
- Challenge: Encourage someone after the gathering—ask what God spoke to them. Let worship spill into fellowship.
Week 4 – Worship in Suffering
- Focus: Worship is powerful in the midst of pain. It trains our hearts to trust even when we don’t understand (Habakkuk 3:17–19; Acts 16:25).
- Practice: Bring a current sorrow, burden, or disappointment to God in worship. Use lament Psalms (e.g. Psalm 42, 77) as your guide.
- Challenge: Create a “playlist of hope”—songs that help you anchor in truth during trials. Use it to worship when emotions are dry or heavy.
Podcasts
Check out “WOR/THˮ Podcast. This week listen to Season 1 Episode 2 Comfort vs Confrontation
Reading
Read Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Meditations on Psalms
Generosity
Generosity is the willingness to freely and abundantly give of your resources for God’s purposes. It is orientating your heart to be like Christ’s - “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20v35)
- Grows your trust in God’s provision in your life
- An earthly investment in an eternal inheritance
- Practically demonstrates that nothing you have is your own, everything belongs to the Lord and comes from Him
- A means of imitating Christ who poured Himself out for you completely
Week 1 – God Is Generous
- Focus: We give because God first gave to us—abundantly and without measure (2 Corinthians 8:9; John 3:16).
- Practice: Reflect on God’s generosity in your own life—make a gratitude list of how He has provided for you spiritually, emotionally, and materially.
- Challenge: Pray this prayer daily: “Father, show me where I’ve been living out of fear or scarcity. Teach me to trust Your provision.”
Week 2 – Practicing Financial Generosity
- Focus: Giving financially reorients our hearts from ownership to stewardship (2 Corinthians 9:6–11).
- Practice: Choose an amount or percentage to give away this week—whether to your church, a ministry, someone in need, or a cause on your heart.
- Challenge: Make it personal—attach a story or prayer to your giving. Ask God to bless and multiply it for His purposes.
Week 3 – Generosity of Time and Attention
- Focus: Generosity includes how we spend our energy, presence, and attention (Romans 12:10–13).
- Practice: Give someone your undivided attention this week. Listen well. Serve without being rushed.
- Challenge: Look at your weekly calendar and ask: Where can I carve out time to serve someone else’s needs over my own convenience?
Week 4 – Secret and Joyful Giving
- Focus: True generosity flows from love, not recognition (Matthew 6:1–4; Acts 20:35).
- Practice: Perform an anonymous or hidden act of generosity this week—pay for someone’s meal, leave a gift, or meet a need quietly.
- Challenge: After the act, spend time in joyful worship. Thank God that He sees and delights in your offering.
Podcasts
Check out Intro to Nehemiah on the Spoken Gospel Podcast.
Books
If you would like to learn more about “spiritual financial advisors” and the potential for practical gospel living, consider reading The Barefoot Disciple: Five Money Habits For Modern Disciples by Yoel Frank. This is available in print or audiobook.
Prayer
Prayer is simply communication with God. Through it we are able to pour out all of our hearts in a divine dialogue.
- Grows you in relationship with God and in dependence on Him
- Exercises your faith and leads to a heart of gratitude
- Brings you into agreement with God and His will for you and the world
- Builds your intimacy with God as He hears and answers your prayers
Week 1 – Learning to Talk with God
- Focus: Prayer is a relationship, not a ritual (Matthew 6:9–13; Luke 11:1).
- Practice: Begin each day with 5–10 minutes of conversational prayer. Use the Lord’s Prayer as a framework: Adoration, Surrender, Dependence, Forgiveness, Protection.
- Challenge: Ask: How do I view God when I pray? Reflect on any distortions and invite God to reshape your picture of Him.
Week 2 – Creating a Daily Rhythm
- Focus: Prayer becomes powerful when it becomes regular (Psalm 5:3; Daniel 6:10).
- Practice: Set a daily prayer rhythm (e.g. morning, midday, evening). Use cues—like meals, commute, or transitions—to pause and pray briefly throughout your day.
- Challenge: Choose one Psalm (e.g. Psalm 23 or 86) to pray each day. Let God’s Word shape your words.
Week 3 – Listening and Silence
- Focus: Prayer is not just speaking—but listening (1 Kings 19:11–13; John 10:27).
- Practice: Set a 5-minute timer once a day this week to sit in silence before God. Begin by saying, “Speak, Lord—Your servant is listening.”
- Challenge: Journal what surfaces in the silence—distractions, emotions, or insights. Ask the Spirit to speak through them.
Week 4 – Intercession and Kingdom Prayer
- Focus: We join God’s mission through intercession—praying His will be done on earth (1 Timothy 2:1–4; Matthew 9:37–38).
- Practice: Choose 3 people or situations to pray for every day this week. Use their names. Be specific. Ask boldly.
- Challenge: Pray with someone else once this week—whether in person, over the phone, or in your group. Watch how your faith is stirred when prayer becomes shared.
Witness
Witness is the Spirit-empowered yet ordinary act of sharing Jesus and his Good news (Gospel) with others. It involves both our words and our works—how we live and what we say—so that others might see and hear the good news of Jesus.
- People are searching for truth, identity, and purpose. We have the joy of sharing the good news that leads to life and freedom.
- The Gospel story invites us to participate with God. Witness is one of the most tangible and rewarding ways to do this.
- Sharing our testimony builds faith by reminding us what we have received in Christ.
- Few things evoke a greater sense of joy than participating with God in the journey of someone giving their life to Jesus.
Week 1 – Seeing Where You Are Sent
- Focus: Witness begins with seeing where God has already placed you (John 20:21; Acts 17:26–27).
- Practice: Create a “relational map”—list 5–10 people in your life (friends, family, coworkers, neighbours) who don’t yet follow Jesus.
- Challenge: Pray for them by name each day. Ask God to open your eyes to opportunities and open their hearts to His presence.
Week 2 – Sharing Your Story
- Focus: One of the most powerful witnesses is your personal story (John 4:28–30; 1 Peter 3:15).
- Practice: Write out your story of faith in 3 parts:
- Life before Jesus
- How you met Him
- What life is like now
- Life before Jesus
- Challenge: Share your story with someone you trust. Then, ask God for one opportunity this week to share it with someone who doesn't yet believe.
Week 3 – Embodying the Gospel
- Focus: Witness includes not only words, but a life of love, humility, and distinctiveness (Matthew 5:14–16; Titus 2:10).
- Practice: Choose one way to intentionally embody Jesus this week in your workplace, neighbourhood, or home—through service, encouragement, or radical kindness.
- Challenge: Fast from complaining or self-promotion for a week. Let your posture of peace and hope witness to a different kingdom.
Week 4 – Speaking the Good News
- Focus: At some point, we speak the name of Jesus (Romans 10:14–15; Colossians 4:2–6).
- Practice: Prepare a simple way to explain the gospel (e.g. “3 Circles”, “two ways to live”, “3-2-1”, “Creation–Fall–Redemption–Restoration”, or your own 2-minute gospel summary).
- Challenge: Ask God for one open door this week to share the hope you have. Step through it—even imperfectly—with courage and love.
