Tag: Lent

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Lenten Devotional, Day 31: Rejoicing with One Another

“But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. (Ps. 5:11)

Every time heaven breaks through our daily life, it is a reason to rejoice. It breaks through with tremendous regularity in big events, like the birth of a child, the provision of our financial needs, recovering through severe pain, or whatever it may be, we see heaven given to us regularly.

But heaven also breaks through in many little things, like the response of a child to the wisdom of God, the beauty of a sunny day, the note or word of encouragement. Are we responding to that joy when heaven breaks through?

It is common for people to talk to one another to report the sad details of other people’s lives; it is not so common to rejoice in the details of other people’s lives. We need more of that. We need to be genuinely joyful over the joy of others. As Augustine observed: “The good that we desire for ourselves we desire for our neighbor also.” Instead of lamenting the joy of others, let us rejoice in their well-being. Our lack of joy may stem from our lack of joy for other people’s joy.

Prayer: O, Lord, be gracious to us and show us the joy of rejoicing with others. Take away our anger and jealousy and make us happy to see the godly prosperity of our neighbor through Christ our Lord, Amen.

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Lenten Devotional, Day 27: Invitation to Bethlehem

The Book of Ruth is saturated with symbols. Bethlehem is a picture of the Church and Moab is a picture of the world. When Elimelech leaves Bethlehem–the house of bread–and goes to Moab, he is leaving the Lord God and the covenant promises.

“So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.”

Bethlehem is the land where God’s name dwells. No matter how difficult it may be, there is no refuge apart from God’s presence. In the Old Covenant, God chose to dwell in particular places. To leave such places, no matter how dire the problems, is to leave God himself.

God is never divorced from the people he redeems and the house he saves. In fact, he invites us to stay in Bethlehem (the house of bread) where goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life.

Prayer: O great God, we too often seek the houses of sin instead of the house of bread. We threaten to leave your presence at the first sign of discomfort. Do not let us run to false houses in times of trial, but to sit at your right hand forevermore, through Christ our Lord, Amen.

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Lenten Devotional, Day 11: Lent as Training Camp

As parents, training our children is a challenging exercise in perseverance. We may succeed here or there, but consistency is a constant struggle. The Book of Proverbs lays out the principle of long-term faithfulness:

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Lent is a great training camp. In this season we learn that we ourselves need to be trained by our Father in heaven even as we train our children in truth. What parents wish to learn and pass on are patterns that children will carry throughout life. Much like worship, parenting is the art of instilling life-long rituals. Training is more than memorizing concepts or learning new ideas, training is catechizing our children in the way of truth.

Lent gives us the perfect training theme: the cross of Jesus. The cross instructs us and our children that there is no glory before crown; no victory before the war and no feast before fast. The cross teaches that in serving the least of these, beginning with our children, we are truly free.

Our children need habits more than facts. They need to see the cross of Jesus as the center of their formation. They need the crucified Lord as their Savior. Once the cross becomes the great marker in their journey they will not depart from it. They will live their lives feasting in the empty tomb. Lent is ultimately a season where our Father in heaven trains us in the way we should go.

Prayer: O great Father, who carried us in the wilderness, do not cease to train us to serve you, to form us to love you and to prepare us to endure this journey well. We long to learn from your ways and we ask that you would give us hearts of wisdom that we might not depart from your ways through Christ our Lord, amen.

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Lenten Devotional, Day: Jesus, the Greater Jonah

The story of Jonah is very familiar to our ears. Those famous words have inspired thousands of poems and novels:

“And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.”

Our famous prophet is brought through this journey of death in the belly of the beast and through repentance is spat out of the fish after three days. This is meant to parallel Jesus’ three days in death after the crucifixion.

Unlike Jonah, our Lord was perfect so that he did not need to repent. Still, it is fairly certain to say that Jesus went to Sheol during those three days of bodily death and proclaimed victory from death; or, we could say, he proclaimed victory from Sheol.

The parallels are really remarkable. Jonah is swallowed up by Sheol; Jesus is swallowed up by Sheol. Jonah repents and finds life; Jesus prays right before death that his enemies would be forgiven and find life; Jonah spends three days in Sheol; Jesus spends three days in Sheol. Jonah proclaims that salvation is of the Lord in Sheol; Jesus proclaims that salvation is of the Lord in Sheol; Jonah is spat out of Sheol after three days; Jesus is spat out of Sheol (grave) after three days.

The stories of the prophets always remind us in these remaining thirty-one days that Jesus is the greater prophet–Jesus is the greater Jonah. Death cannot keep him in the grave.

Prayer: O merciful God, you give us life when we turn to you. Like Jonah, may we seek your temple in our despair and in our delight. Where can we go from your Spirit? Even in Sheol you are there to speak like to our weary hearts. Blessed are you, Jesus, the one whom even Sheol could not hold. Amen.

Hymn of the Day: Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me

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Lenten Devotional, Day 8: Boasting in the Cross

Ever since the days of Babel, human beings have sought to make a name for themselves (Gen. 11:4). Today, our towers can lead to the same doom if we do not trust in Yahweh. C.S. Lewis rightly referred to this as “the anti-God state of mind.” This form of pride that seeks to reach the heavens without the God of heaven suffers a great fall.

The Apostle Paul interpreted this as a wrongful boasting.

However, there is a form of biblical boasting God endorses:

“But far be it from me to boast [in anything or anyone], except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

Boasting assumes our excessive trust in our own achievements; it builds towers and disregards the Architect. Yet, the Apostle Paul urges us to boast, but he rightly turns the direction of our boasting. For Paul, our boasting is not in our own conquest, it’s the conquest of Another. We boast in a tree that was cut down to save us. We pride in a tree, shaped in the form of a sword where our Savior hung.

Jesus died to become the Savior of all who believe; the protector of all those born anew. In him, we are rescued, restored, and redeemed. We boast in a Savior who conquers by dying.

We do not build towers to the heavens to make a name. Jesus ascended to heaven for us for there is no greater name in heaven above and earth below. In these remaining thirty-three days, let’s boast! Let us proudly exalt the cross of Jesus. Let’s show Christian pride in a bloody cross bearing a beautiful Savior.

Prayer: O, Lord, who ascends to the heaven by way of a tree, make us to boast in serving a God who died for our transgressions and who gives us his name that we might be whole, Amen.

Hymn of the Day: Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken

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Lenten Devotional, Day 7, God is Pleased with You

One of the most famous biblical names in the Bible is Naomi. Her name means “pleasant.” Yet, when she returned to Israel, she asked to be called “Mara,” which means “bitter.”

“Don’t call me Naomi,” she responded. “Instead, call me Mara, for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me.”

It is an astounding thing that nowhere after this verse is she referred to as “Mara,” as she prefers. The author and the characters speak of her only as Naomi, the pleasant one.

While we work hard against evil during this Lenten Season, we need to remind ourselves that the one working in us will carry us to completion (Phil. 1:6). Our identity is bound up in him. The Naomi story teaches us that whether we feel bitter or even choose to identify ourselves with bitterness, God continues to view us as pleasant. We are called this Lent to live the next thirty-four days according to how God sees us, not how we wish to be seen or understood.

Happy Lent! God is pleased with you.

Prayer: Our Father in heaven, whose faithfulness reaches to the skies, we give you thanks for looking upon us on earth with your favor. Teach us to see ourselves as you see us, rather than to fight to see ourselves apart from you, through Christ our Lord, Amen.

Hymn of the Day: Fairest, Lord Jesus

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Lenten Devotional, Day 2: Walking to the New City

#LentenDevotional, Day Two

In the pathless mazes of the desert, Yahweh makes a way for his people. Through the readings, hymns, and themes, this season provides a clearer path to spiritual renewal. We all need a new orientation in our journey. The desert paths of Lent can be filled with frustrations, complaining, hunger and thirst. If we are going to face these next thirty-nine days, we need to know the paths of the Lord (Ps. 17:5).
In Psalm 107, God is moving his people from desert to city; from ruin to a new civilization. He is forming through his people a new polis–a new city that shines brighter than all other cities.

Lent is like a journey through the desert to a new city. That desert is the cruciform life–the life of repentance and self-giving. It’s a necessary track to the pastures of forgiveness. As we walk wounded or wavering, to that promised rest of Easter we “improve our baptisms.” Lent allows us to live out the mark of baptism in our lives. As John the Forerunner came from the wilderness announcing the kingdom of heaven, he baptized the people into a life of repentance. Baptism without repentance is as foolish as the Israelites finding life in a golden calf. The journey to Calvary is long but its rewards are everlasting as we walk in the ways of the Lord.

Let us not mistake, however, the walk to Calvary as a call to isolation. Rather, the cross restores us into unity with one another. In fact, the Lenten journey must bind us together. Sin isolates us. Sin calls us to take our own ways in the desert than following the cloud by day and pillar by night. Sin prefers to wander than to confess. Sin desires darkness rather than light; blindness rather than sight. But the Gospel message this season is to walk together side by side, prayer by prayer, confession by confession until we reach the great city where the resurrected Jesus awaits us.

Prayer: Great God, who rules the deserts and cities, sea and dry land, rule over my heart today. May I not wander from your ways, but may you give me light to shine my path to that great city where your blessing flows world without end, Amen.


Hymn of the Day: Were You There When They Crucified My Lord

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Lenten Devotional, Day 20

Death is painful, but you know what is more painful–going through death trusting a false god. Jonah’s theology comes through in this prayer of repentance inside the belly of the creature (Jonah 2). He knows that the Ninevites pay regard to vain idols. He knows that without Yahweh their death experience will be filled with misery. He knows that their death will have no resurrection to life. And by living in such a way, the Ninevites have abandoned any hope. But Jonah is hopeful, and Yahweh remembers Jonah in his affliction. And Jonah remembers God.

“Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.”

Lent ought to bind our lives to the steadfast love of God. Idols cannot bind us to true love. Any earthly possession can be lost, but the love of God is treasured in God himself who is love. Jonah sought out an unwavering love in his deep distress and love rescued him.

Prayer: O God of love, too often I do not seek you in my affliction. Too often I seek refuge in vain idols to cheer me up or to reward me. But I know I am never content apart from your steadfast love. Do not leave me, O God, but in my affliction, I will pray to you and seek your favor through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.

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The Stones will Cry Out

The Gospel narratives offer many different aspects of the Triumphal Entry. In Luke’s narrative, the disciples are singing the praises of Jesus at his coming, but the Pharisees are not pleased with their benediction.

In verse 39 of Luke 19, some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” In other words, “Stop them from pouring out adoration towards you.” As Matthew Henry writes, “Christ’s triumph and his disciples’ joyful praises of them, are the vexation of proud Pharisees, that are enemies to him and his kingdom.”[1] Luke is the only one to report this response of the Pharisees. Jesus is sharing honor with God, and the Pharisees despise it. Jesus responds in verse 40 with that powerful and memorable response: “If these people were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Some have viewed this statement to say that even if human beings do not praise God, the stones will do so. There is a sense in which this idea is true. When our Lord Jesus died, the gospels tell us that the earth shook, and the rocks were split, as if they uttered the praises of Christ.[2] In other words, the stones were witnesses of the sacrifice of Christ. But in this passage, it appears that Luke is drawing an allusion to Habakkuk 2. In Habakkuk, God tells Habakkuk that He will destroy Israel at the hands of the Babylonians. God will use a wicked nation to bring justice to His chosen people who have committed far greater idolatry. In Habakkuk 2 we read, “For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond.” The stones refer to the stones of the temple. The temple represented God’s presence. The witness of the temple itself is against them. Jesus in Luke alludes to this passage. The prayer of Habakkuk is beginning to be answered. If my peoples are silenced, then the very stones will bring witness against you. Their house will oppose them.”[3] The stones will cry out in judgment. And indeed, they do cry out in AD 70 when the Romans armies surround the Holy City and bring God’s judgment upon apostate Israel.

In our day, we can be sure that if this nation does not accept Jesus in our midst, the stones will cry out in judgment against it. Christ will be honored. He will be praised. He will be adored. Justice will be vindicated and proclaimed whether through human witnesses or the witness of stones. God’s whole creation will bless the Blessed one, Jesus Christ.

[1] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible. Luke 19:39 http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc5.Luke.xx.html

[2] Matthew 27:51. Matthew Henry found this idea plausible.

[3] Steve Wilkins. Sermon.

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