Many of us will have enjoyed pancakes as Pancake Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday happened leading into the Season of Lent. Some Christians observe Lent in the 40 days leading up to Easter. This is intended to be a time of renewed faith and preparation to recall again the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection. February 22nd is Ash Wednesday which begins the 40 days of Lent. For several believers, there will be something that they give up during Lent as a reminder of all that Jesus gave up when he gave Himself to save us from our sins. Something that we can all be challenged to give up in our desire to renew our faith in Jesus as our Saviour is selfish attitudes. We might be inclined to protest, “Oh I am not selfish! I am always thinking about others”! The truth is that all of us have to struggle with the tendency to put ourselves first. We are so aware of what we want and how we want things to turn out that surrendering to God and what God wants is a battle. Think about Jesus and His approach described in Ephesians 5:2, “Be imitators of God therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us…” In our prayers approaching Easter on April 7th, we can be asking Jesus to replace our selfish attitudes with a sincere desire for and active living of a life of love that models Jesus Who loved us and gave Himself up for us. This will be the inspiration for our WEDNESDAY PRAYER TOGETHER tomorrow February 22nd at 1 pm. Please plan to pause for this time of prayer and commitment.
Praying that God will help us to, like His Son Jesus, give ourselves up, Pastor Lola
Our God we come to You now as Your dearly loved children. Thank You that You love us unconditionally as You continue to invite us to BECOME more of who You call us to be. We are humbled by the life of Jesus Your Son Who did love us and gave Himself up for us. We receive the assurance of His love when we consider His willingness to go to the cross for us. This is a significant opportunity for us leading up to Easter to renew our faith in You. Where our view of You has been shadowed by the cares of life, we want to have our vision cleared to see You for Who You are, a God of compassion and mercy. When we have been so occupied with trying to arrange the details of our lives and have put ourselves first instead of You, we ask for forgiveness. We thank you God that neglect of nourishing our faith in You can change. You continue to welcome us to seek You and to find You. Your divine work of restoration and renovation is always available. We are praying that You will convict us regarding what we put off and that these next weeks before Easter will be a time of intentional renewed commitment to You. Please create in us clean hearts and renew right spirits within us. As we choose to give up and to surrender to You our selfish attitudes, we pray that we will become more and more like Jesus. Thank You God that as many times as we consider the story of Jesus and His love, it never grows old. Praise You for fresh awareness of what it means to experience You with us. Thank You for hearing our prayers and drawing us and those for whom we pray closer to You. God we pray that the sincere desire of our hearts will be to please You with all that we are and all that we have. Please guide us as we choose to keep following You and leaving behind anything that would try to present itself to us as more important than You. Thank You God for the ways that You inspire us to allow Jesus to BECOME greater and for us to become less. Release Your love through us to our world longing for love that is real! In Jesus’ Name. AMEN.