Tomorrow is Valentines Day. But it is also Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent. Lent is a special season in the Christian year leading up to Holy Week and ultimately the cross. Over the next six weeks we will prepare ourselves spiritually for Christ’s suffering, sacrifice and glorious resurrection. Lent is often a penitent season, a time when people choose to “give something up” as a way of joining ourselves with the sacrifice of Christ.
I don’t know about you, but I find that sometimes I get a little bit comfortable in my faith. My devotional time can become routine. My prayer life starts to feel perfunctory. Before I know it, I have been lulled into a spiritual funk. Or sometimes it is not that I have become too comfortable in my faith. Sometimes I can get so caught up in the craziness of life that my devotional life begins to feel lost in the shuffle.
These are the times when I need to refocus and recommit to an intimate relationship with Christ. Lent provides a perfect opportunity to take our spiritual life to a deeper place. It can be a time of spiritual growth and strengthening. I want to encourage us to take that opportunity. Beginning tomorrow, let’s take the next 40 days of Lent to pour into our faith journey in a new way. Tomorrow we will offer a ministry wide Ash Wednesday service at 6:00 at our Plaistow campus. This service is a wonderful way to spend time with God to commit the weeks ahead as a season of preparation and growth. I hope you will all join us.
I also want to let you know that we are starting a new teaching series this Sunday that will take us through the 6 Sundays of Lent. The title of the series will be “The search for Truth.” Through the series we will do an in depth study of Christianity as compared with other world religions. We live in an increasingly pluralistic world. As Christ followers, we need to be prepared to address questions related to the intersection of Christianity and other belief systems. This series will equip you to address some of the challenging questions that are being asked in culture. And it will help us to build a theological foundation to better understand our own faith and why we believe what we do.
This is going to be an inspiring and fascinating series. You won’t want to miss a single week.
Have a blessed day and I hope to see you tomorrow (Wed. Feb 14) at 6:00 pm in Plaistow for our ministry wide Ash Wednesday service.
I love you all,
Pastor Steve