It’s the Lenten season. It’s a time to take time to examine our hearts to see where we have become separated from God. A time to create space for grace to enter in and allow the Spirit to renew, restore and direct our lives. It takes perseverance and intentionality to gain perspective. As Christ followers, we are to have a different perspective and it takes perseverance to gain it and live it. Romans 5. 1-5 gives us some wisdom for the journey:
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Romans 5, 1-5
My prayer is that you will persevere and take some time from the busyness of life and be “all in” in the weeks ahead. Each day focusing on the meaning of the cross:
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel—and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
1 Corinthians 1 17-19
And when Easter Sunday comes, and we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that power will be claimed and trusted to change our lives and the world. Let’s look to Jesus to lead us in Hebrews 12, 1-2:
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has
Hebrews 12, 1-2
taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
Blessings of the Lenten Journey,
Pastor Lenore