We're down to the final 6 days of preparation!
Growing up, I didn't observe Lent. My Catholic friends did. One friend, Laurel, gave up cookies and lost 20 pounds.... It was traditionally (for my Catholic friends) a time of 'giving up' something special sacrificially. I don't know how connected they were or weren't to the spiritual significance of relating their sacrifice to Jesus' sacrifice.... But I do know it was tradition!
This is the third consecutive year that I have written a Lenten blog. In fact, that was what precipitated my beginning a blog in 2010. I had started reading a blog by a very good writer named Rosemarie, and she was my inspiration for beginning. It is a discipline to commit to write every day of a specified period of time. Lent is, of course, Monday through Saturday for the time extending from Ash Wednesday through the Saturday prior to Easter, so it isn't truly every day....Sundays are 'days off' from the Lenten discipline.
The point is: following through with the commitment requires perseverance. It is a fairly brief time commitment that represents our walk of faith. Being an intentional Christian requires perseverance. It is a world view that defines everything else in our lives. Jesus is the fulcrum point of Biblical worldview. And in His Upper Room discourse He conveys some of what that will mean in His followers lives. In my last writing I left off at John 15:17.
In the latter half of John 15 and the beginning of John 16, Jesus warns his disciples - and by extension, us - that those who follow Him will be hated by the world. Chapter 16 could be a sermon series! They will be persecuted, but their sorrow will turn to joy! And, the Holy Spirit will be sent to help them! And whatever they ask in Jesus' name they will receive that their joy may be full!
And, the final words of chapter 16: "I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble. But, take heart; I have overcome the world."
In the middle of the raging tempest, He is our peace. We walk by faith, not by sight - - and certainly not by feelings. In the times we feel like we are being tried like Job was, God, through the Holy Spirit is with us. Christ in us, the hope of glory!
These seem like 'final' final words in this dissertation. They are final words before His death on the cross, but they are not truly final! He will lead them into further Truth in the 40 days that He walks on earth following His resurrection; and He presently leads us through His written Word, and through the nudging of the Holy Spirit, that still, small voice, who says,"This is the way." We hear that voice through prayer....
I need my prayer time....
As Jesus' own brother wrote after he became a believer, "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." (James 4:8)
And - one of my favorite verses that gives insight into God's heart for yearning for a relationship with us, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:20) That verse was written to the Church of Laodicea. They were neither hot nor cold. They were lukewarm. They saw themselves as rich and self-sufficient, but God saw them as pitiable and poor in the things that truly mattered. He clearly tells them to be zealous and repent, and then tells them in this oft-quoted verse, which is generally taken out of context, that He is knocking, wanting a relationship with them....
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