Time of Preparation
Begin by taking inventory of your surroundings. Are things in your vicinity conducive to a time of personal worship? Are there any changes or adjustments (turning off tech, making yourself comfortable) you need to make before you begin?
When you are ready, take some time to sit in silence and prepare your heart for worship. Ask God to clear away any distractions that might keep you from being truly present in this moment.
Assurance
In this third movement, we receive the good news of the gospel: we are forgiven.
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
—Ephesians 2:4-7 (NIV)
The 14th century mystic Julian of Norwich, in chapter 61 of Revelations of Divine Love, reflects on God’s mercy in these words:
“By the assay of this falling we shall have an high marvelous knowing of love in God, without end. For strong and marvellous is that love that may not and will not be broken for trespass.”
Most of us treat our sins and stumbles as the places where God's love runs thin. We expect that when we fall, God grows a little more distant, a little more disappointed. Julian sees it the other way round. The "assay," the testing we go through when we fall, is where we learn how deep God's love really is.
Julian is not saying that sin doesn't matter. She knew very well that it wounds us and others. What she saw is that God's love for us is not a fragile thing that we could break. It "may not and will not be broken for trespass." It cannot be broken, not even by our sin. God will not let it be broken. In fact, he reveals his love to us in that place of brokenness—it is there that we have such “marvelous knowing.”
Incomparable riches of grace, indeed.
SONG OF ASSURANCE: I Stand Amazed (lyrics here)