TAKE FIVE: SIN

Record the five main takeaways God taught you through the group session and personal studies this week. You may want to choose one truth from each day, or certain days may have been especially meaningful to you.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

A psalm is provided on day 5 each week to help you prayerfully reflect on the biblical truth related to each week’s topic. Psalms has been called the prayer book of the Bible. As you read these prayers, you can relate to the full range of human emotions that are expressed with amazing honesty. In various psalms the writer’s hands are reverently folded, clapping in praise, reaching in desperation, waving in surrender, open in petition, or clenched in angry fists.

Assume a posture that allows you to physically express your heart to the Lord now. A good exercise for today may be to squeeze your hands tightly, symbolic of a sinful heart clinging to its own desires. As you confess your sins in prayer, open your hands toward the floor, symbolic of placing your sin and your entire life before God. Next turn your palms upward, symbolic of your humble willingness to receive His grace and His will for your life in Christ. Finally, lift your hands in surrender and praise, proclaiming that you’ll fully trust in His goodness and follow Him wherever He leads.

Read the following passage as you consider the weight of your sin.

Be gracious to me, God, according to your faithful love; according to your abundant compassion, blot out my rebellion.

Completely wash away my guilt and cleanse me from my sin. For I am conscious of my rebellion, and my sin is always before me.

Against you—you alone—I have sinned and done this evil in your sight. So you are right when you pass sentence; you are blameless when you judge. Indeed, I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me. - PSALM 51:1-5

Read Psalm 51 in your Bible. Let it guide a time of prayerful reflection.