September 18, 2022

Ridgeline Study Prompts

Psalm 80

Prayer and Preparation

As you prepare your heart and mind to dig into Psalm 80, take a few moments to pray. Pray with a gratitude and expectation that God won’t waste your time in the Word. We don’t read the bible to finish, we read the bible to be changed. So, ask the Lord to change you in this time. Then when he does, thank Him.

Study

In many ways there is a similar feeling to Psalm 80 as there was in Psalm 77. The psalmist expresses a lack of God’s felt presence in these verses. What seems to be the cause behind such feelings?

Verses 8-11 use a vine to describe how things used to be for the people of God before this psalm was written. What was earlier life like for the people of Israel, based on the description of the vine in these verses?

Application
In the last 5 verses (15-19), we read that the flourishing vine was neglected and suffered harm? When thinking of your spiritual life, can you think of a season of flourishing that eventually ended due to neglect, passive rebellion, drifting, or maybe even intentional defiance toward God? Spend a couple minutes describing and remembering the cause of that transition and the struggle that comes from that sort of drift.

Read John 15:1-11. If you want to be part of a healthy vine, what should you do? What does Jesus teach us about cultivating healthy vines, which in turn also applies to restoring neglected and dying vines? How can you apply that to your spiritual journey right now?