Day Seven... The Lenten Journey Continues...

"Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun."
~Psalm 37:3-6 (NIV1984)

We have traveled a week, seven days along our Lenten Journey. How is your journey going? Did you promise to give something up for Lent... or add something to your daily routine? Have you kept up with your Lenten promise (whatever it was), or have you been side tracked? Are you beginning to wonder about your promise... whether it really makes any difference whether or not you keep it?

If you are beginning to wonder about your promise, about whether it really makes a difference if you keep it, let me encourage you to examine your heart and your motives. Ask yourself why you made the promise to begin with. Did you make your promise so that you might look good in the eyes of other people, so that they might think you to be especially holy or religious or righteous? Did you make a Lenten promise out of pure habit, because you felt you were "supposed to" or that you "had to"? Or did you make your promise to bring glory to the LORD and to deepen your faith and relationship with the LORD?

The last reason is by far the best one for your having made a Lenten promise... But no matter which of the them was your reason, keeping your Lenten promise makes a difference to the LORD.

As our scripture encourages you to do, and as you think of your promise, "trust in the LORD"... "Delight yourself in the LORD" (in other words, do what pleases the LORD, not you)... and finally, "commit your way to the LORD"...

Your Lenten promise is not about you showing off to others how holy or religious you are, but about you showing your heart to the LORD... and about preparing your heart for the LORD... and about allowing the LORD of LORD's to change your heart so that it reflects his love to all others...

Your promise is important... look into your heart and reflect on what you find... begin again if you need to... ask the LORD to help you with this... that is of course what Lent is all about... journeying with the LORD...

Day 2... The Lenten Journey Continues...

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

     ~Matthew 16:21-24 (NIV1984)


No, Lord, never!!  You, the Son of the Living God, the Messiah, suffer??  Be killed??  No... that is not the way it should be... We should die for you... in glorious battle!!


And we disciples, who like Peter, might so willingly follow you into battle against an enemy, find instead that we must follow you on a much harder journey...  for instead of calling us to arms, you call us to suffering... to self-denial... you call us to the cross... and to death... 


But you also mention something about being raised to life?


Is it just possibly true that following your path... journeying with you through self-denial and suffering, following you to the cross and death... that all of this leads to... new life?


Yesterday's ashes are gone... but the journey continues...

Ash Wednesday...

“Even now,” declares the LORD, 
   “return to me with all your heart, 
   with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

Rend your heart
   and not your garments.
Return to the LORD your God,
   for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
   and he relents from sending calamity.

         ~Joel 2:12-13 (NIV1984)

Today is Ash Wednesday.  It marks the beginning of Lent, a 40 day period of time set aside for introspection and reflection as we journey with the Lord to the cross.  It is a time to remember why the Lord had to die for us... to remember our sins and to repent.  Ashes are a symbol of our mortality as well as a symbol of repentance.  As the prophet Joel encourages, rend or tear open your hearts... pray and deeply mourn and grieve over the things that you have done that have grieved the heart of God... and repent.  For our God is indeed "gracious and compassionate... abounding in love..."  God will have mercy and forgive.