Lent is the period of 40 days that leads up to easter sunday - the remembrance of the crucifixion of Jesus and the celebration of his resurrection. OUR GOD HAS DEFEATED DEATH; MAY WE FIND THAT OUR HOPE IN HIM IS JUST as INDESTRUCTIBLE AS HIS PROMISES. Join us in engaging the king of kings through daily scripture and prayer, as well as a new teaching weekly.
Week 4
PETITION
TEACHING
I’ll be the first to admit that it is difficult to know what I need and ask for it. I fear being let down and disappointed yet again by people I love and, more importantly, by a God who I desperately want to believe is for me. There is a scary tension here: Will God respond to my petitions? Does He actually care about what I’m asking for? Are my needs silly? But what a beautiful place to be for the Lord to reveal His character.
God is a promise keeper. He is a man of His word, so why wouldn’t we pray it back to Him? Why wouldn’t we make our appeal to Him through the words of scripture, while being humbled by the gap between what we truly need and what we think we need? In A Way To Pray, Matthew Henry says to “plead the promises of God as the supporting foundation for all of your petitions”, as we need Him first and foremost.
To petition is to make a specific request to someone who can do something about the thing you’re bringing to light. Who else would we ask than the One who is sovereign over all? And what do we need first and foremost? The grace of God Himself. Matthew Henry goes on to share that we should “pray earnestly for the many things you constantly need from God’s gracious hand”, recognizing both His authority and our relationship with Him.
So go before God, presenting your requests with a humble heart. Go before Him with your dreams, your desires, and your needs, and say them out loud. And as you do, ask that His will would be done, that you would be satisfied in Him primarily. Our relationship with our Heavenly Father isn’t transactional, but we must believe that He cares and that He’s already lavished His grace upon us through salvation. In Psalm 86, David says, “Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy”, what an honest cry of a limited, desperate man - a man after God’s own heart, nonetheless. May we go to Him acknowledging our limitations and His power, free of a preconceived solution in mind, rather longing for His will to be done over our own.
Check out our incredible Lent playlist!
Daily Scripture & Prayer
Week 3
Confession
TEACHING
St. Alphonsus Liguori writes, “For a good confession, three are necessary: an examination of conscience, sorrow, and a determination to avoid sin.”
Confession is foundational to the Christian faith. Jesus calls us to “repent and believe, for the time is now and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). We cannot repent if we do not confess. When I say confess, I do not mean a quick, meaningless sorry as we continue to sin. I mean confessing as St. Alphonsus Liquori wrote.
Confession starts with bringing your sin into the light, bringing it before other brothers and sisters. Not only do we read in James an exhortation to “confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (James 5:16), but it is when we bring it to people that it feels real, and we can see for ourselves the power that sin holds. None.
When we bring our sin to others, we then can see the three things that make a good confession:
An examination of conscience
This is an invitation for God to reveal the specific areas of our life that need His forgiveness and healing. We see this in Isaiah 6:
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.””
Isaiah recognized who God is and in relation to his sin and how unclean he was before the Holy God. When we invite God to search and know us, we are asking in surrendered vulnerability to have our sins be exposed. When our sin is exposed, we find ourselves led by the Spirit at the throne of grace where Jesus sits, interceding on our behalf.
2. Sorrow over our sin
Sorrow “is an abhorrence at having committed the sin, a deep regret at having offended the heart of the Father.” (Foster, Celebration of Discipline). Though we experience grace and forgiveness, as that is the gospel's good news, that should not lead us to a calloused or apathetic heart over sin. It should increase our sorrow over our sins. If we know the One True God, then we should understand the weight of sin, as it was that very sin that nailed Jesus to the cross. We mourn what we’ve done and the cost of grace.
3. Deteremination to avoid sin
The determination to avoid sin is willing and longing to emulate Jesus in His holiness and the wholehearted abandonment of unholy living. It is the turn from sorrow to incredulity of our sin. It is a “how dare I?!” moment, and it is the moment we turn away, running with faith that God is God and we can put our trust in His promise to sanctify us.
Let us confess because when we do, we see how insignificant our sin is compared to the power of our Saviour, Jesus.
Check out our incredible Lent playlist!
Daily Scripture & Prayer
Week 2
Praise
TEACHING
Oftentime, we treat praise as an exclaimed thank you for God giving something that we ask. However, praise is much more and much deeper than that.
Praise is the recognition that God is who He is. If this is true, we must recognize that there is always a reason to praise God.
My husband and I have created a prayer calendar and have specific prayers for each day of the week. Tuesday is “Thankful Tuesday”. In that, we have learned how easy it is to ask God, but how unnatural we are at giving God thanks for all He is and all that He has done. The book of Lamentations is a book about songs and cries of anguish to God. In the middle of that book, we read in 3:19-24:
“I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
I will remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”
It is the knowledge of God and the practice of praise, thankfulness, and adoration that leads the author in the middle of anguish and heartache to praise God in a season of suffering. My husband and I, who do not exude such qualities or disciplines of praise, are being challenged to do so on Tuesdays. We sit there and thank God for who He is. Even when reality does not push us to shout a hallelujah, this week, we are reading scripture and prayers that build the spiritual muscles of praising God because He is worthy. Not worthy becuase of what He has given us but simply that He is God.
Don’t half-heartedly praise God. Let this season’s Lent scriptures and prayers from hundreds of years ago be a guide to help you shape your own praise and knowledge of God; leading you to a deeper worship and a discipline of adoring God for being God.
Check out our incredible Lent playlist!
Daily Scripture & Prayer
Week 1
Intro to Lent
TEACHING
Lent may seem to the Christian person a works-based model passed down from generation to generation in the Catholic Church. I grew up in a pretty secular home; church and religion were not spoken of often, if ever. Easter was about jello molds, ham, and Easter baskets from a peculiar bunny that came in the night. I remember my neighbors were Catholic, though, and they celebrated Lent. They had a little girl I played with often and spent much time in their home, and from my keen little girl mind, I deduced that Lent was simply a holiday made for never eating candy except on Fridays.
Now, as an adult, I recognize how unkeen my mind was at the ripe age of seven or eight. However, as I heard the gospel and learned more about Lent, I realized that it is not just a works-based effort or a way to trick kids into eating less candy.
The 40 days of Lent and the fasting liturgy that comes with it have an intentional purpose. It wasn’t made up arbitrarily but taken from the very life of Jesus Himself, as we see in Matthew 4:1-11:
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Fasting is giving up something good for something better. Fasting is used to pray for something hard or big, or it is a time of remembrance of who God is. In his book Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster writes about fasting:
“Fasting reminds us that we are sustained ‘by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’ (Matthew 4:4). Food does not sustain us; God sustains us. In Christ, ‘All things hold together’ (Colossians 6:12). Our human cravings and desires are like rivers that tend to overflow their banks; fasting helps keep them in their proper channels.”
This world loves to lead us down roads of dead hope. Hope that is not eternal, not steadfast, constantly changing. In His fasting time, Jesus remembers the Hope the Father has already promised and He is about to bring into the world. When we look at the story of Jesus fasting, we see three ways Jesus’s hope sustains Him:
He remembers who the sustainer is
“Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word of God” (Matt 4:4).
Jesus knows who the bread of life is and who the one who provides it is. The Father knows that bread (actual or metaphorical) is fleeting, and we hunger again. But Jesus promises that we will never hunger or thirst again. When we eat the bread of life, we are full eternally. When we remember He is the one who sustains us, it is peace in our stomachs. It is the fullness of joy. We take the next 40 days to remember that fullness, even if we are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
He remembers who is the authority.
“It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matt 4:7)
We fast to the authority that can do something. We fast for our friends, families, and the lost world around us. We go before the Father, the very God who holds the world in His hands, to change some things. When we fast, we communicate to God that this thing we pray for is worth more than food. Jesus knows that, and when He is tempted while fasting, He doesn’t forget who actually holds authority—and it is most definitely not the devil.
He remembers who is worthy of all worship.
“Jesus said to him, ‘Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” (Matt 4:10).
The world does not deserve worship. Our friends do not deserve worship. Indeed, the devil does not deserve worship. So why should our bellies? Why do we let the hunger of our flesh lead us to the dead idols they always lead us to? The Spirit produces self-control, and that self-control should lead us to worship the One True God and Him alone. When we fast and hunger, let it not be a hunger for bread alone, but a life filled with worship and leveraged to give Him more and more.
As you prepare for Lent this year, pick something to fast from that would challenge you. Challenge you to remember the one who sustains, who has authority, and who in all manner is worthy of all worship. Do not cling to hopes that crumble but to an indestructible hope in Christ.
TEACHING
Lent may seem to the Christian person a works-based model passed down from generation to generation in the Catholic Church. I grew up in a pretty secular home; church and religion were not spoken of often, if ever. Easter was about jello molds, ham, and Easter baskets from a peculiar bunny that came in the night. I remember my neighbors were Catholic, though, and they celebrated Lent. They had a little girl I played with often and spent much time in their home, and from my keen little girl mind, I deduced that Lent was simply a holiday made for never eating candy except on Fridays.
Now, as an adult, I recognize how unkeen my mind was at the ripe age of seven or eight. However, as I heard the gospel and learned more about Lent, I realized that it is not just a works-based effort or a way to trick kids into eating less candy.
The 40 days of Lent and the fasting liturgy that comes with it have an intentional purpose. It wasn’t made up arbitrarily but taken from the very life of Jesus Himself, as we see in Matthew 4:1-11:
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Fasting is giving up something good for something better. Fasting is used to pray for something hard or big, or it is a time of remembrance of who God is. In his book Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster writes about fasting:
“Fasting reminds us that we are sustained ‘by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’ (Matthew 4:4). Food does not sustain us; God sustains us. In Christ, ‘All things hold together’ (Colossians 6:12). Our human cravings and desires are like rivers that tend to overflow their banks; fasting helps keep them in their proper channels.”
This world loves to lead us down roads of dead hope. Hope that is not eternal, not steadfast, constantly changing. In His fasting time, Jesus remembers the Hope the Father has already promised and He is about to bring into the world. When we look at the story of Jesus fasting, we see three ways Jesus’s hope sustains Him:
He remembers who the sustainer is
“Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word of God” (Matt 4:4).
Jesus knows who the bread of life is and who the one who provides it is. The Father knows that bread (actual or metaphorical) is fleeting, and we hunger again. But Jesus promises that we will never hunger or thirst again. When we eat the bread of life, we are full eternally. When we remember He is the one who sustains us, it is peace in our stomachs. It is the fullness of joy. We take the next 40 days to remember that fullness, even if we are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
He remembers who is the authority.
“It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matt 4:7)
We fast to the authority that can do something. We fast for our friends, families, and the lost world around us. We go before the Father, the very God who holds the world in His hands, to change some things. When we fast, we communicate to God that this thing we pray for is worth more than food. Jesus knows that, and when He is tempted while fasting, He doesn’t forget who actually holds authority—and it is most definitely not the devil.
He remembers who is worthy of all worship.
“Jesus said to him, ‘Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” (Matt 4:10).
The world does not deserve worship. Our friends do not deserve worship. Indeed, the devil does not deserve worship. So why should our bellies? Why do we let the hunger of our flesh lead us to the dead idols they always lead us to? The Spirit produces self-control, and that self-control should lead us to worship the One True God and Him alone. When we fast and hunger, let it not be a hunger for bread alone, but a life filled with worship and leveraged to give Him more and more.
As you prepare for Lent this year, pick something to fast from that would challenge you. Challenge you to remember the one who sustains, who has authority, and who in all manner is worthy of all worship. Do not cling to hopes that crumble but to an indestructible hope in Christ.
Check out our incredible Lent playlist!
Daily Scripture & Prayer