1. What is something you have learned or experienced recently that has caused you to think differently about something you already knew?
2. How have you experienced the comfort of God that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 in your life? What does it mean to you that God is a “God of all comfort?”
3. Matthew 5:4 says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” What have you understood these words to mean in the past?
4. In reference to the second Beatitude, John Stott writes, “It is not the sorrow of bereavement to which Christ refers, but the sorrow of repentance.” How does this challenge your understanding of what Jesus is saying?
5. How does James 4:8-10 encourage us to respond to the sin in our lives? When was the last time that you wept and mourned over sin in your life?
6. How do you resonate with the story of the adulterous woman in John 8:3-11?
7. How do you fight the temptation to view sin in your life as not as bad as the sin of other people? Does our God view sin on a sliding scale from really bad, to not so bad?
8. At its core, sin separates. How is God inviting you to grieve and mourn the sin in your life that is resulting in separation from God?
9. True repentance of our sin, separates us from our sin so that God can obliterate our sin and restore us to a right relationship with Him. How does it encourage you to remember that God obliterates our sin, not us?
10. Jesus says that those who mourn will be comforted. How have you experienced the comfort of forgiveness for sin in your life?
11. Is there any sin in your life that God is inviting you to mourn and repent of? Spend some time in prayer repenting of the sin in your life, and then rejoice over the forgiveness that you have received (1 John 1:9).
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