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February 15 - April 17, 2023
Mourning means you recognize the most important reality in the human existence, sin. Mourning means you have been hit by the weight of what it has done to you and to everyone you know. Mourning says you have considered the devastating fact that life right here, right now, is one big spiritual war. Mourning means that you have come to realize, as you get up in the morning, that once again you will be greeted with a catalog of temptations. Mourning means you know that there really are spiritual enemies out there meaning to do you harm. Mourning results when you confess that there are places
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Lent is about remembering the suffering and sacrifice of the Savior. Lent is about confessing our ongoing battle with sin. Lent is about fasting, and not just from food; we willingly and joyfully let go of things in this world that have too much of a hold on us. And Lent is about giving ourselves in a more focused way to prayer, crying out for the help that we desperately need from the only one who is able to give it.
I had no idea that the only thing in life more important than the knowledge of sin is the knowledge of the Savior’s grace. And I had been given both. I had no idea that I had to experience the terrifying knowledge of sin, or I would never seek the Savior’s forgiving grace.
The Lenten season is about the sin that was the reason for the suffering and sacrifice of the Savior. It is about taking time to reflect on why we all needed such a radical move of redemption, to confess the hold that sin still has on us, and to focus on opening our hands, in confession and submission, and letting go of sin once again. But as we do this, it is important to remember that the knowledge of sin is not a dark and nasty thing but a huge and wonderful blessing. If you are aware of your sin, you are aware of it only because you have been visited by amazing grace.
To see sin clearly is a sure sign of God’s grace. Be thankful.
Under the shadow of the cross, we remember who we are and what it is that we are dealing with. Under the shadow of the cross, we are required to admit that the greatest enemy we face is not difficulty or maltreatment from without, but the enemy of sin within. Under the shadow of the cross, we quit pointing fingers and begin crying out for help. Under the shadow of the cross, we are reminded that we are not in this battle alone; in fact, there we admit that we have no power whatsoever to battle on our own. Under the shadow of the cross we get our sanity back, admitting who we are and what it is
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The cross preaches that sin is our problem and that rescuing, forgiving, transforming, and delivering grace is the only medicine that will provide the cure we all need.
The cross teaches us that when we sin, God doesn’t greet us with a sentence of condemnation, but with a reminder once again of the completeness of his pardon. The cross allows unholy people to look in the face of a holy God and have hope.
The cross teaches us to be humbly ready and to start every day with cries for divine rescue and strength.
Part of the deceitfulness of sin is its ability to make what is destructive appear attractive.
God intends suffering to pry open our hands so we let go of the things of this earth and hold more tightly to Jesus.
Here’s the core of the struggle: as long as sin still resides in our hearts, we will have an inclination to ask the physical creation to do for us what the Creator alone is able to do.
good things become bad things when they become ruling things.1
So prayer is spiritual warfare. To pray we need rescuing grace that will free us from the dominion of our own selfish hearts. To get our hearts to that counterintuitive place of adoration and submission we need the help of the one to whom we pray. It’s hard to pray true “Your kingdom come, your will be done” prayers and even harder to pray these kinds of prayers on the fly. It’s counterintuitive to confess that what I need most is not all the things my heart tends to desire. It’s hard to confess that what I need most is redeeming grace. So prayer is a fight. Prayer takes work. Prayer calls us
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Confession follows adoration, because the more you gaze upon God, the more you will see yourself with accuracy and the more you will mourn what you see.
It takes a vision of God to have a true and reliable vision of ourselves. We are so often blinded by our own righteousness that it takes the unblemished righteousness of God to expose to us the true degree of our own unrighteousness.
Prayer is submitting the desires of your heart to a kingdom greater than your own. Prayer is submitting your requests to a plan that is greater than the one you have for yourself. Prayer is giving yourself to a set of rules you didn’t make up. Prayer is surrendering your gifts to the glory of someone else. Prayer is so much more than asking; at the center is submitting.
At the end of Lent is your death, as well. During this season, more than any other, we focus on and contemplate the shocking, cruel death of the only perfect person who ever lived. We meditate on his willingness to die, on the essentiality of that death, and on its benefit to all who put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Death is the motif of this season of remembrance. It is the motif not just because of the death of Jesus, but because, during this season, we hear again another call to die. Death is required of every follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. (Mark 8:35)
I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! (1 Cor. 15:31)
The gospel offers you something that nothing and no one else can offer: life. But in offering life, the gospel calls you to die. That death is both an event and a process. By God’s redeeming plan we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection. In that way your moment of belief is a death and a resurrection. But there is more. Now that you are united with Christ, you are called to a very specific surrender, that is, dying to self. You simply cannot understand the gospel without this call to follow Christ in his death. We are called to die to sin.
This death that I have just described is a process of daily scanning our lives to see where things still live in us that should not live, then praying for the strength to die once again.
So this season, how about scanning your heart and life? How about looking for those places where you still need to die to self? How about crying out for the willingness to take up your cross and follow Jesus in his death? How about celebrating the fact that dying to self is never a defeat, but another step in the ongoing victories of grace that can be yours because you have been united with Jesus in his death and resurrection?
Lent calls you to die, and that is a very good thing!
What areas of your life need to die to make room for greater, more abundant life in Christ?
Between the “already” and the “not yet” we simply won’t get, in any situation, location, or relationship, anything remotely close to the stunningly perfect beauty of paradise.
Mourning is healthy because it teaches you how to be content between the “already” and the “not yet.” Mourning is healthy because when you mourn in this way, the God of all comfort hears your cry and comes near with comfort that is profoundly more healing than a new situation, relationship, or location could ever be.
So this Lent, put your mourning into practice and into words. Let your heart be crushed at what sin has done so your heart can be comforted by your Savior. And remember to mourn with hope, because your Lord has promised that what now is will end, and what is to come is worthy to be called paradise.
The best way to deal with the inevitable disappointment of life here on earth is to look with hope toward our eternal destination—the new heavens and the new earth. Read Revelation 21:1–7 and rejoice in your salvation.
Apart from the miracle of intervening, rescuing, forgiving, and transforming grace, there simply are no spiritually rich people out there, none.
One of the most significant aspects of the deceitfulness of sin is our ability to swindle ourselves into thinking that we are seldom at fault.
When you do what is wrong, you either look for someone to blame or you admit blame and run in humility and grief to your Redeemer. We are tempted to believe that our greatest problems in life exist outside of us. It’s our husband or wife, it’s that nasty neighbor, it’s our children, it’s our boss or coworkers, it’s the way women dress, it’s this materialistic culture, it’s our church, and, if you have nothing else to blame, it’s the dog! This not only keeps you from seeking the grace and getting the help you need, but it argues against what God says is true about you. It places you in a
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The gospel forces you to admit that your biggest problems in life exist inside you and not outside you, and because this is true, you need more than situational, relational, or location change.
Lent is all about pointing the finger in the right direction. It is about humble self-examination, honest confession, and grief over sin that causes you to seek and celebrate th...
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The cross of Jesus Christ not only does the first two things for us (forgiveness and reconciliation), but it also does the third thing for us (change). Let’s look at how the writer of Hebrews talks about this often neglected aspect of the transforming grace of the cross of Jesus Christ.
(Heb. 9:11–14)
Every time you see sin ahead and avoid it, and every time you look back on what you have done with moral grief, you are experiencing the grace of the cleansing of your conscience. This is a vital and precious aspect of what Jesus did on the cross for you and for me that we often neglect when we are meditating on and celebrating the death of Jesus.
sin not only blinds us, but it also blinds us to our blindness. We think we see clearly, when we don’t. We think we know ourselves, when in fact, we don’t know ourselves as well as we think we do. We think that we’re open to God and to the ministry of others, when we can be way more defensive than we realize. We think we are approachable, but we get quickly argumentative when we are accused of something that is outside the field of our own self-knowledge. We fall easily into this attractive trap of delusion, assuming that we know ourselves better than anyone else does or ever will.
Many of us say we love the church, but we are functionally not open, not approachable, and not humbly ready to listen when we are confronted by what we have not seen or do not know about ourselves.
an idol is any person, place, or thing that exercises control over the thoughts and desires of your heart that only God should have.
God is saying that whatever rules your heart will exercise inescapable control over your behavior. Whatever captures your thoughts and desires will then direct the things that you do and say.
Spiritual adultery is loving something more than God, causing us to desire and do what God has prohibited. Sin is spiritual adultery.
Confession is hard, but it is simple. Confession only takes three words: “I have sinned.” Confession is naming and owning the sin with no contingencies added.
But there is another part of the sacrifice of your lips. It is acknowledging that your only hope is the forgiving and transforming grace of the Lord.
Sin is a mess we cannot independently get ourselves out of. Sin cries out for grace because grace is the sinner’s only hope in life and in death.
How about coming to God with the pleasing sacrifice of confession? Come to him this season and place your pride on his altar, confessing your wandering heart and acknowledging once again that you are a person in need of mercy, and the mercy you need is found only in him.
The only thing that is worth sacrificing everything for is the kingdom of heaven. That kingdom is not a place or an earthly political reality. No, it is the rule of the King of kings. He comes not only to rule our hearts, but to rule over everything for our good and his glory. In his rule is the grace of forgiveness, the patient love of personal transformation, and the sovereign guarantee of life to come that is free of all the sin and suffering that so mars the here and now. His rule is the place where I am freed from my bondage to the created thing and swept up into the transcendent and
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A transgression is a willful stepping over of God’s boundaries.
Transgression is a spirit of rebellion. It’s putting yourself in God’s place and writing your own rules.
Iniquity is moral uncleanness.
