For those who are sticking it out and still reading Respectable Sins, what is it doing in your heart? While this process is uncomfortable, I am also hopeful because I know God is at work and will use what we are learning to transform and change us to be more like His Son.

Questions for you this week:

1. How is a lack of self-control “like a city broken into and left without wall” (Prov. 25:28)?

2. Read and discuss (2 Timothy 3:3, Titus 2:2,5,6,11-12, 1 Peter 1:13, 4:7, 5:8, 2 Peter 1:5)

3. Define self-control.

4. Does self-control come from our own will power? Where does it come from?

5. How can we exercise self-control is areas like eating and drinking?

6. What verses can we store up in our heart to help us battle temper?

7. How can we exercise self-control in our spending?

8. Bridges points out that we are often patient with those outside our family but it’s at home where our impatience and irritability are most expressed. Do you find this to be true? (Read Ephesians 4:1-2, Colossians 3:12)

9. Do other people’s behavior cause you to be impatient? See the first paragraph on page 117.

10. How does Bridges define irritability?

11. What ways do you express your irritability? (1 Peter 2:23, 4:8)

12. How should we respond to people who are chronically irritable toward us?