Journey to the Cross: A 40-Day Lenten Devotional

by Paul David Tripp

confession of sin is a confession of a specific instance of weakness and failure. The word sin connotes falling short of God’s wise and righteous standard.

Confession of sin carries with it a commitment to be ever more dependent on the Redeemer for the help that he alone can give. Confession of sin is an admission that this instance of weakness and failure stands as a testament of your ongoing need for God’s grace.

During this season when you are thinking about the hold that the world still has on you, when you’re confessing your struggle with sin, and when you’re focusing on the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus that secured your hope in this life and the one to come, take time to count the many right-here, right-now blessings that the work of Jesus has delivered to you. You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but I will: it is more natural for sinners to complain than to give thanks. If you listen to yourself, you’ll find that this is true. Our tendency to complain is one of the results of the selfishness of sin. Complaint reminds us that we keep sticking ourselves in the center of our worlds and making life all about us. Gratitude is a powerful weapon against complaint. It is impossible to give thanks and complain at the same time.

No matter what difficulties you are facing, they are outweighed by the storehouse of blessings that are yours in Christ Jesus.

Gratitude silences complaint.

warnings are not the same as judgment. If all I wanted to do was judge you, I wouldn’t warn you. I warn you because I love you, and I don’t want you to have to experience the consequences of your disobedience. When you are warned, you are being loved. To be warned is to receive grace.

Could it be that there are ways in which God has been reduced from the one that we love to the deliverer of the thing that we love? Could it be that love of the world masquerades in our hearts as the worship of God? After we get what we want and we thank God for it, we think we are worshiping him; but perhaps, in reality, what has captured our hearts is not God but a thing.

Whatever sits on the other side of your “if only” is the thing you are living for at that moment and the thing that you think will give you the peace of life that you think is missing.

Biblical meditation is not like Eastern meditation. In Eastern meditation you empty your mind. In Christian meditation you fill your mind with God’s word, chewing it over and over again until you are digesting spiritual morsels you have never digested before.

The season of Lent is about offering yourself to God in new or deeper ways. It’s about new submission and deeper devotion. Lent is about mourning the ways your heart has wandered. It is about confessing the hold the world still has on you or the places where you have succumbed to temptation’s draw. It is about identifying places in the heart where you need to give yourself more fully to God. There is a necessary self-focus to Lent because you are examining your heart, your life, your relationships, and your daily decisions to see where God is calling you to give something up or to take something up in devotion to him. Lent is about willing self-sacrifice as you pursue the one who made the ultimate sacrifice for you. Lent isn’t a formal season of temporary sacrificial devotion, but rather an opportunity to address things in your life that need to be addressed but that get lost in the busyness and distraction of everything else you’re doing. But here’s what is so important to understand about Lent: it is not about what you are doing or are committing yourself to do for God, but about what he has done and is now doing for you.

Lent is all about sacrifice: his, not ours.

If pride is self-congratulatory, then it is also self-reliant.

Lent teaches us that sadness is the only road to deep abiding joy. It confronts us with the reality that hopelessness is the only doorway to sturdy, unshakable hope.

God sent his Son to fix what was broken, to restore what had been destroyed, and to make dead things live again.

The King of kings, the Creator of all things, the sovereign Lord of glory sympathizes with you. He doesn’t look on you with irritation or impatience. He isn’t mad at you. He never looks on you with disgust. He is tenderhearted toward you.

Why do I so often view God as if He is exactly this way? I must remind myself of the truth of who God is and how He sees me!

You and I are a collection of weaknesses, held together and protected by grace. We all have weaknesses of mind, heart, soul, and body. None of us is independently strong. None of us is self-sufficient. The writer of Hebrews is telling us that our Savior sympathizes with our humanity. Why? The answer is clear: because in his incarnation he took on humanity. Jesus took on weakness so that weak people could run to him and know that they would be understood and tenderly cared for.

Between the “already” and the “not yet” you’d better be ready to have your heart exposed again and again, by words you wish you hadn’t said and actions you wish you hadn’t taken.