2026 Lenten Season - Day 16 - Unnatural Confession

We continue the tradition of 40 days of Lent-related devotionals (46 counting the Sundays).
Sharing "Journey to the Cross" by Paul David Tripp.
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No sacrifice is more pleasing to your Lord than the sacrifice of words in the form of humble, honest, heartfelt confession.

Something inside us naturally resists confessing. It is easy for us to rise to our own defense. It is easy for us to blame someone else. It is easy to argue within ourselves that what we did was not that bad after all. It is easy to compare ourselves to others and conclude that we’re not doing as badly as them. It’s easy to be self-righteous and defensive when approached with a wrong. But confession is counterintuitive. Every parent knows that an honest, humble confession is unnatural. If you ask your child why he did what he did, he won’t talk about himself. He’ll point to his sibling, or he’ll point to the situation, but he won’t say, “It was me. I am a rebel and a sinner, and I alone am at fault.”

I have an embarrassing personal example of the difficulty of confession. I was on a speaking trip and staying at the home of one of the families in the church. It was a lovely, well-decorated house filled with fine furniture. In my room was a large and beautiful leather lounge chair. When I speak, I like my clothes to be wrinkle-free, so, before the days when I would stay in hotels where irons are provided, I always traveled with a small iron. I looked around for a place to iron my clothes, and the big leather chair seemed like the best option. I put a towel on it, heated up the iron, and began to press my clothes. I had pressed my pants, set the iron upright on the towel, and walked over to get my shirt. I turned around only to discover that the iron had fallen. It had landed facedown on the seat of that chair and burned the leather. I couldn’t believe it. I then spent way too much time thinking about how I would break the bad news of how my hosts’ beautiful chair now had a large burn mark, but I spent even more time trying to convince myself that this wasn’t actually my fault.

I was the only one in the room. I was the one ironing. I was the one who made the decision to iron on that beautiful chair. I had walked away and left a hot iron in a precarious position. It was my fault. I had to go downstairs and tell my host what I had done. The fact that it was so hard was a humbling spiritual lesson for me. This is why confession is such a pleasing sacrifice to your Lord. It requires you to silence all the self-aggrandizing, self-righteous voices in your life. It forces you to admit that you’re way more spiritually needy than you would like to think you are. It asks you to admit that you’re a person in constant need of forgiveness. It causes you to admit that your biggest problem is not your history, your family, your friends, your culture, your economic situation, your church, your neighbors, your age, or your physical condition. Confession requires you to admit that your biggest problems live inside you, in your heart. It smashes any delusion of comfortable independence. It yanks you away from spiritual self-reliance. Confession drives you to the feet of God as your sovereign Lord and Savior, to honor him for who he is, and to cry for help because of who you are. Confession is pleasing to God because it puts you right in the middle of the position you were created to be in: humble, honest dependence on him.

No passage captures this better than Hosea 14:1–3:
Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, 

for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

Take with you words and return to the Lord; 

Say to him, “Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, 

and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. 

Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses;

and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands. 

In you, the orphan finds mercy.”

Hosea is a message of exhortation and warning to people who have wandered away from God. The word picture for this warning is marital adultery. God’s people have committed spiritual adultery.  Spiritual adultery is loving something more than God, causing us to desire and do what God has prohibited. Sin is spiritual adultery. In the face of this, Hosea calls God’s people to return, as an adulterous spouse would return to the one he promised his lifelong love to. But at the center of this call to return is this request: “Take with you words . . . ‘we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips.’” It is a bit hard in the English translation to understand what is being requested here. God is saying, "There is a sacrifice I want you to make; it’s the sacrifice of your lips, that is, confession.” God wanted them to do more than just bring the required animal sacrifices. He wanted them to bring a far more costly sacrifice: honest, humble confession, free of excuse or blame-shifting. 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. “Assyria shall not save us; / we will not ride on horses; / and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’/ to the work of our hands. / In you the orphan finds mercy” (Hosea 14:3). 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.

So this Lenten season, don’t just give up physical stuff. 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.

In this season of sacrifice, take words with you and return to your Lord.

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. Why do you think confession is so difficult for us?

2. What are the essential aspects of confession? Break it down into what actually needs to be admitted and what must not be said in order for it to be a true confession.

3. Think of someone you have wronged today, or in the past week, and go to that person with a real, honest confession of your guilt.

Set a timer and spend fifteen minutes in honest confession, using Romans 3:10–18 as a guide.

Romans 3:10-18 New Living Translation

10 As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous—not even one.
11 No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God.
12 All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.”
13 “Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave. Their tongues are filled with lies.” “Snake venom drips from their lips.”
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “They rush to commit murder.
16 Destruction and misery always follow them.
17 They don’t know where to find peace.”
18 “They have no fear of God at all.”

2026 Lenten Season - Day 15 - Your Spiritual War

We continue the tradition of 40 days of Lent-related devotionals (46 counting the Sundays).
Sharing "Journey to the Cross" by Paul David Tripp.
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The core enemy in our struggle with sin is not wrong behavior, but the idolatry behind the behavior.

The God of grace has given us an interesting passage in the book of Ezekiel so that we would have a clearer understanding of the nature of our daily battle with sin. Because I’m convinced that on this side of eternity, life is one big spiritual war, I have gone back to this passage again and again. Spiritual war is what makes marriage and parenting difficult. Spiritual war is what messes up our friendships and causes us to get ourselves into hopeless debt. Spiritual war causes us to eat too much and to go to places on the internet we should not go. Spiritual war makes it easy for us to blow three hours binge-watching a series on Netflix, while the same amount of time spent studying God’s word seems so hard. Spiritual war causes us to be materialistic, entitled, and demanding, never quite satisfied and never truly happy. Spiritual war is at the root of endless human disappointment and heartache. We are all in a war, whether we know it or not.

If you want to understand your spiritual battles, you need to know and understand Ezekiel 14:1–5: [Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? Therefore, speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols."]

In order to understand this convicting and illuminating passage, we must understand two terms. The first is stumbling block. In the Bible, a stumbling block is anything or anyone that leads you to desire to do something that is wrong in the eyes of God (sin). The second term is idol. The biblical teaching on idolatry goes way beyond the sphere of formal religious idolatry. It’s possible that you can have no formal religious idols in your life and yet be serving idols every day. Here’s how the Bible defines idolatry: an idol is any person, place, or thing that exercises control over the thoughts and desires of your heart that only God should have.

At first look, this passage is about the right people doing the right thing. The elders of Israel, who are the nation’s spiritual leaders, are coming to God’s prophet to hear a word from the Lord. But the message that came back was not at all what they expected to hear. God essentially says, “These men have idols in their hearts that will put a wicked stumbling block before their faces, and because this is true, it is the only thing that I am interested in talking about.” 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. God knew that if he did not deal with the deeper issue of their idolatry, whatever he told them would be twisted by or used in the service of their idols. Notice that God is not talking about statues of false gods, but something that had taken residence in and control over the hearts of these men.

You can be theologically aware and biblically literate and still be serving idols in your daily life. You can be faithful in personal daily worship and still have actions, reactions, and responses at street level that are shaped by idols. You can be involved with ministry and have areas in your life that are under the active and functional control of something other than God. It could be the love or respect of another person, it could be the desire for control, it could be a position of power and influence, it could be the desire for a certain experience, it could be the need to be right, or the quest to be successful, or the love of theological knowledge, or the desire for material possessions. It could be hatred or bitterness against another person, it could be physical strength or beauty, it could be anything in creation that replaces the rightful rule of the Creator in your heart. Anything this side of God can become an idol.

This is where the spiritual war rages. It always rages at the level of the thoughts and desires of your heart. It is always deeper than behavior. It is fought at the point of the thing that controls your behavior, that is, the thoughts and motives of your heart. And this war rages on in the most mundane moments of our everyday lives. It also needs to be said that idolatry is not just the desire for what God says is evil. Desire for even a good thing becomes a bad thing when that desire becomes a ruling thing. Theological knowledge is a good thing, but if being knowledgeable becomes more important than loving the one that is the object of that knowledge, theological knowledge has become an idol and will cause you to make bad choices in thought, word, and deed.

I am afraid that because of my biblical literacy, my theological knowledge, and my ministry commitments, I have sometimes thought I was spiritually safe when I was not safe, because some desire in my heart was increasingly taking control of my thoughts and shaping my words and actions.

What about you? Do you tend to think that spiritual warfare doesn’t include you? Have you fallen into thinking that because of your involvement in the body of Christ and its ministries that there could be no idols in your life? Have you assumed a level of personal spiritual safety that may not be true? During this season of Lent, how about confessing to a wandering heart? How about asking your Lord to reveal to you where your heart may be under the control of something other than God? How about examining

what you really crave or what you really want for your life? How about looking for that person, place, or thing that has become too important to you? And how about crying out for the rescuing grace that Jesus died to give you?

May sorrow over the idolatry that still plagues you drive you into a deeper dependency on the rescuing and forgiving grace of your Savior and into a deeper celebration of the freedom that he promises you now and even more completely in the forever with him that is to come.

GOING DEEPER
Reflection Questions

1. What are the stumbling blocks in your life—those things that tempt you to sin?

2. What are the idols in your life—things that control your thoughts and desires or that you crave in an unhealthy way?

3. What are you doing to remove the stumbling blocks and idols from your heart?

Read Ephesians 6:10–18, and resolve to fight the spiritual battle for your heart with the weapons God has provided.

Ephesians 6:10-18  New Living Translation

The Whole Armor of God

10 A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. 12 For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

13 Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then, after the battle, you will still be standing firm. 14 Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. 15 For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. 16 In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. 17 Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18 Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 14 - Let Me See

We continue the tradition of 40 days of Lent-related devotionals (46 counting the Sundays).
Sharing "Journey to the Cross" by Paul David Tripp.
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One of the scariest, most destructive aspects of sin is its ability not only to blind us, but to blind us to our blindness.

I fell into the trap once again. I didn’t see it coming, and I didn’t know it was happening until after the fact. I am sure I am not alone in this. I am persuaded it happens to us more often than we realize. It makes us closed, self-protective, and defensive. It prevents us from learning and growing. It weakens our receptivity to preaching and the ministry of the body of Christ. It makes us rather hard to live with and unapproachable. I was tempted once again to believe something that is not true, to accept it unchallenged, and to act upon it. It didn’t go well in the moment, and it would have done me harm if God hadn’t met me by his grace and opened my eyes.

A dear friend asked to see me, and when we met, he confronted me about my attitude in an email conversation. I was defensive because I fell into the trap that so many of us fall into. We succumb to believing that no one knows us better than we know ourselves. There is no more dangerous aspect of sin’s deceitfulness than this one. It will close you off from the insight-giving ministry of God’s word, it will cause you to resist divine conviction, and it will shut you off from the essential sanctifying ministry of the body of Christ. There is no more destructive delusion than this one.

You see, if sin blinds—and it does—then I will not have an accurate view of myself as long as there is sin remaining in me. Hebrews 3:12-13 "Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, while it is still 'today,' so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God." The remaining deceitfulness creates pockets of personal spiritual blindness that lead to functional inaccuracies in how I see, examine, and assess myself. This leads me to think I am more righteous, mature, consistent, or godly than I actually am, because there is sin of thought, desire, attitude, word, or action that I do not see or assess properly.

Now, if I think that no one knows me better than I know myself, and you come to me, confronting me with something that I haven’t seen, I feel no guilt in rejecting what you have to say about me. In fact, I will feel hurt that you have misjudged me in this way. Rather than feeling loved by you and by God and helped by you and God to grow in insight and maturity, I will feel wrongly condemned. Your ministry to me, rather than being hope-giving, will be seen as an affront, and if this happens repeatedly, well, there won’t be much relationship left between us. I will walk away thinking that wrongful accusations ended our relationship, when really, you were attempting to do for me exactly what I and everyone else need.

All this happens because 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.

Today, there will be thousands and thousands of conversations that become awkward, uncomfortable, and derailed because of what I have just described. Many of us resist the loving, correcting, and protecting convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit, but we do not realize it. 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. So I want to encourage you to do some new things during this Lenten season.

1. Take some time to confess your blindness, and pray for grace to see.

2. Admit to God and others that there have been times when you have been less than open and approachable.

3. Forsake forever the belief that no one knows you better than yourself.

4. Pray for the willingness to benefit from the confronting love of others.

5. Go to the principal people in your life, and ask them to help you to see what you probably wouldn’t see without them.

6. Take time to celebrate that your Savior of grace won’t leave you to your blindness now, and that the day is coming when your blindness will forever end.


GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. Do you believe that you know yourself better than anyone else does? When have you seen that this might not be the case?

2. Think back on a time when you were hardened toward your sin or distant from God. At that time, were there sins you were not admitting to yourself?

3. Ask a close friend if there are areas of hardheartedness or sins that he or she has noticed you are becoming blind to. Be humbly, prayerfully ready to receive the answer with gratitude and grace.

Read Psalm 139, where we learn about God searching our hearts and knowing us even when we are misjudged by others. Ask God to search your heart, and confess any sin he reveals to you.

Psalm 139

For the choir director: A psalm of David.

1 O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. 2 You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. 3 You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. 4 You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. 5 You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!

7 I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! 8 If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there. 9 If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, 10 even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me. 11 I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night— 12 but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you, the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you.

13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. 16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! 18 I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!

19 O God, if only you would destroy the wicked! Get out of my life, you murderers! 20 They blaspheme you; your enemies misuse your name. 21 O Lord, shouldn’t I hate those who hate you?

Shouldn’t I despise those who oppose you? 22 Yes, I hate them with total hatred, for your enemies are my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 13 - Substitutionary

We continue the tradition of 40 days of Lent-related devotionals (46 counting the Sundays).
Sharing "Journey to the Cross" by Paul David Tripp.
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Every piece of Christ’s suffering was suffered for you, and every victory accomplished by that suffering was accomplished so that you can now live in victory, too.

Whatever inconvenience or temporary suffering we may endure during Lent, as we withhold things from ourselves in order to focus on the gravity of our sin and the glory of God’s redeeming plan, it is infinitesimal in comparison to what Jesus willingly endured as our substitute. Now, I know the term 'substitute' today sometimes implies inadequacy. But the substitutionary function of everything Christ did is one of the chief glories of his work on earth. We think of substitutes as being inadequate when

compared to the one they are standing in for, but the opposite is true in the case of the second Adam, Jesus. In this case, the substitute is marvelously greater. Let me explain.

1. Jesus was the substitute for Adam and Eve. 

Because the first Adam failed, there was a crying need for a second Adam who would obey God in every way in every situation, location, and relationship, each and every time. The Messiah Jesus would be Adam’s substitute, doing, with complete perfection, what Adam failed to do. But he came to be not only Adam’s substitute, but yours and mine as well. Because of sin, everyone would fall short of God’s standard, so no one would be able to earn God’s acceptance based on his or her keeping of the law.  God’s righteous requirement was fully satisfied in the perfectly righteous life of Jesus. Because of the complete righteousness of the second Adam (Jesus), who endured every kind of temptation, sinners like you and me can stand before a holy God and be received as righteous in his eyes. 

Consider how the essential grace of the perfect substitute, Jesus, is captured in Romans 5:12-14, 17-21:

"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. . . .

"For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience, the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

2. Jesus was the substitute for the animals of sacrifice. 

The reason animal after animal had to be sacrificed day after day, in an endlessly bloody scene, was because they were not an adequate payment for the penalty of sin. The animal sacrifices were God’s gracious provision until the coming of the ultimate, final sacrifice of the unblemished Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Here also Jesus stood as a substitute, doing what no animal sacrifice was ever able to do: atone for sin. Jesus, the Lamb, had to be willing to be the perfect sacrifice to end all ineffective animal sacrifices. He had to be willing to suffer and die, and because he was willing, we will never have to fear God’s anger. 

Hebrews 10:1–10 brilliantly explains this: "For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, 'Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.'

"Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. When he said above, 'You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings' (these are offered according to the law), then he added, 'Behold, I have come to do your will.' He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. '"

3. Jesus was the substitute for the Old Testament priests. 

For all their dedicated and disciplined sacrificial and intercessory work, the priests were part of a system that was earthbound, temporary, and ultimately ineffective. Jesus came as the better priest. He was heaven-sent, his priestly work was effective and once-for-all. He was not only the perfect substitute for 

all those Old Testament priests, he was the sacrifice, as well. As the perfect priest, he offered to God the perfect, acceptable sacrifice, himself, forever ending, by his self-sacrifice, any further need for a sacrifice for sin. 

Read how this is celebrated in Hebrews 7:23–28:

"The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make

intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent,  unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever."

If Jesus willingly endured what he endured and suffered all that he suffered to be the perfect substitute, doing for you what you could have never done for yourself, would you not be willing to make sacrifices for him? “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1). May God give you the grace to do just that. Do you find comfort attractive and sacrifice hard? Perhaps your first sacrifice this Lenten season should be a sacrifice of confession, admitting your struggle to let go of the world in order to hold more tightly to your Lord.

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. Have you given something up for Lent? How is it going? What sacrifices are hardest for you to make, and why do you think those particular things are so hard for you to give up?

2. How does the fact that Jesus was the perfect second Adam impact your salvation and your daily life?

3. How does it impact your life that Jesus is your substitute sacrifice and your substitute high priest? How can you more intentionally celebrate these wonderful truths?

Read Isaiah 53:1–12, and meditate on the list of sacrifices Jesus bore for you.

Isaiah 53 New Living Translation

1 Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? 2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. 3 He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.

4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! 5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.

7 He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. 8 Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. 9 He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave.

10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands. 11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous,

for he will bear all their sins. 12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 12 - Issues of the Heart

We continue the tradition of 40 days of Lent-related devotionals (46 counting the Sundays).
Sharing "Journey to the Cross" by Paul David Tripp.
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Your emotional life is a window into what is truly important to you and what you are really living for. 

It bothered me more than I was willing to admit. It made me angry. It made me fearful. It discouraged me again and again. As much as I tried to ignore it, it would hook me again. I could argue that it didn’t make any difference at all, but it was important to me and I could not escape my struggle. It would  sneak up on me and grab me unexpectedly, and it would distract and divert me. It hurt, and the hurt would not go away. One man’s approval had become my god.

I was a young pastor who was learning his way. Of course, there were moments when my leadership was awkward. I’m sure at times I thought I knew more and was capable of more than I actually was. I’m sure at that time I was not a very good preacher. If this particular person was intent on criticizing me, I gave him plenty of material to work with. But change began to take place when I began to understand that he was not my problem; I was. It was a bit mortifying to confess that I had put this man in a position in my life that only God should be in. I had allowed him to do for me what only God could do. This man had the power to wreck not just a day for me but an entire week as I hashed over and over in my mind another situation of his dismissal. My heart had wandered away from trusting in God and the rest of the heart that is found in hooking your identity and security to him.

What alerted me to the fact that the problem was me? The answer is not mysterious or complicated: it was my emotions. I had every reason to be joyful. I had been chosen and gifted to be a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I had a wonderful wife and the beginnings of a beautiful family. Our little church was becoming a close-knit gospel community that felt more like a family than an institution. The Lord was meeting our physical needs. In many ways, these were some of the best years of our lives, but I was discouraged, fearful, anxious, doubtful, and ill at ease. I had lost the confidence that I once had in the gifts God had given me and his calling to this particular place of ministry. In my discouragement, I spent way too much time contemplating what it would be like to not be a pastor anymore. The thought of continuing made my stomach churn, while the thought of leaving gave me hope. I was a mess.

Our emotions are a window into what our hearts really love. The rise and fall of your feelings function as a barometer to what you truly value and want out of life. Your joy, sadness, fear, anger, happiness, despondency, contentment, discouragement, rejoicing, and inner grumbling can point you to what is ruling your heart at street level. When the Bible commands you to rejoice, it is calling you to surrender the control of your heart to the one who always gives you reason to rejoice, no matter what is going on in your life. Circumstantial, relational, and experiential joy is always temporary because the “good” moments those things give us are temporary. Lack of peace may indicate that where you have looked for peace will never deliver the peace you crave. Fleeting happiness may indicate that you’ve hooked your happiness to something that wasn’t created to give you lasting happiness. Fear may indicate you have trusted something that is fallen and broken and will never faithfully deliver what you are looking for. Discouragement may point you to the fact that you keep hoping in something in your world, and that thing keeps failing you because it was not meant to supply you with unbroken hope.

Here’s the bottom line. Your emotions can be a helpful indicator of where you have replaced God with something else or where you have asked him to deliver to you something he’s never promised. Often, we make the mistake of thinking we have a heart for the Lord, when, in reality, we’re just thankful for him because at that moment he seems to be delivering to us what we have truly set our hearts on. Often, we reduce God to just the deliverer of good gifts, rather than recognizing him as the ultimate heart-satisfying gift.

In this fallen world, we all face a catalog of potential God replacements. The list is endless because anything in creation can capture our hearts and live there as only God should. As a young pastor, the respect of one man was that God-replacement for me. I was a pastor; I was studying the Bible or teaching, preaching, or counseling the Bible all the time. I spent much of my life thinking about God and his word. I talked all the time about the liberating joy of following him and the dangers of sin. I thought I was, on the inside, a God-fearer and a willing servant. But there was evidence that something was amiss. I had none of the peace and rest of heart that communion with the Lord should produce. I had just the opposite, because although I thought of myself as serving God, I was in active service of a false god, and my emotional life was the evidence that began to help me see what was going on beneath the surface of my seemingly Godward life.

In this season of reflection, confession, and willing sacrifice, how about scanning the evidence in your own life? How about taking stock of what your emotions tell you about what you’re truly serving? How about being willing to confess to having a fickle and wandering heart? How about not assuming that the habits of religion mean that your heart is ruled by the Lord at street level? How about offering to  God the one sacrifice he will never reject - the sacrifice of humble, honest, heartfelt confession?  Remember David’s words of assurance to all who would come to God and confess a wandering heart: Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise”. You are never in a safer, more blessed place than when your heart is broken in this way.

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. What is your current emotional state? Is there a negative emotion that is present in your life more often than it should be?

2. If “our emotions are a window into what our hearts really love,” what do your emotions say about what you love?

3. Think about the spiritual habits you engage in, perhaps even your devotional times—are you covering up sins or idols with religious practice?

Read Colossians 3:1–10. Ask yourself if your focus is on things above, or if the negative actions and attitudes listed are present in your life, revealing a focus on the things of earth.

Colossians 3:1-10 New Living Translation

Living the New Life

3 Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.

5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. 6 Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. 7 You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. 8 But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. 9 Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. 10 Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.

Friends' Favorite - I Never Thought of That

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. 

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!

Psalm 139:16-18 NLT

On the days when I wonder what in the world is going on, I am comforted by this passage. It reminds me there IS a Master plan. I may not know what it is, but I know WHO made it and I choose to trust Him no matter what. 

And one of almost everyone's favorites, Jeremiah 29:11 NLT - "For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."  I know I've used that Scripture reference LOTS of times. He's telling His people, "Yes, you are being held captive and you will be for 70 years!"  

It's not our first, second, or even third choice, but there is great comfort in remembering the Lord said, "I know the plans I have for you..."  

There is even greater comfort in realizing that at NO TIME has God ever said, "I never thought of that." Let that sink in...then give Him praise.

Prayer:

Father,

          Thank You that You are ever mindful of us and what is best for our lives as we follow You. Even though we don't always understand Your ways, we are so glad You have thought of everything. Thank You for Your faithfulness to us. Help us to continue to walk in Your peace through every storm, knowing that You have thought of everything. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

2026 Lenten Season - Day 11 - Moral Insight

We continue the tradition of 40 days of Lent-related devotionals (46 counting the Sundays).
Sharing "Journey to the Cross" by Paul David Tripp.
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The cross of Jesus Christ purchased more than forgiveness for you.

We should forever celebrate the cross of Jesus Christ as the only possible means of forgiveness. That celebration should mark our lives now and for the rest of eternity. But we cannot restrict our understanding and celebration of the cross to its value as God’s gracious means of forgiveness, because the cross offers us so much more. There is an aspect of what the cross provides for us that is essential to our lives as God’s children that I don’t think we study enough, meditate on enough, or celebrate enough.

Pretend that I had done something extremely hurtful to you, something that was a terrible betrayal of the love and trust between us, something that was a self-oriented denial of the way any healthy relationship was meant to operate. And pretend that you had confronted me, and after defending myself, I confessed that what I had done was a terrible personal affront. Pretend with me that after my confession, grief flooded into my heart, and I came to you with tears of sorrow and asked for your forgiveness. Pretend that you were kind and gracious and were willing to forgive me, and not only that, you were willing to reconcile with me so that we could be in friendship with one another again. And pretend that your forgiveness and our reconciliation had removed my guilt and brought peace not only between us, but in my heart. With all of the grace of forgiveness and reconciliation, there is still something I desperately need that you are not able to give me. Do you know what it is?

You can forgive me, but you are not able to change me. What you did for me was wonderful and kind, but because you are human and limited, it is not enough. You could not work changes inside me that would ensure that not only would I never do the same thing again, but I would treat you with a deeper love and respect and have a fresh commitment to give and to serve. 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.

Hebrews 9:11-14 NLT - "11 So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world. 12 With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.
13 Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity. 14 Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins."

What a power-packed statement of grace that is ours because of the cross of Jesus Christ! It would take many devotionals to explore all the glories of grace that these words lay before us. But I want to draw your attention to the final thought: “How much more will the blood of Christ purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God”. What is the writer of Hebrews talking about, and why is it so important? To answer the question, we have to understand the vital function of the conscience in the way God designed us and intended us to live.

The conscience is the inner alarm system that God designed to warn us and redirect us. It is a beautiful thing to have a tender and lively conscience. It is beautiful when your conscience alerts you to moral danger or plagues you when you have done what is wrong. The conscience is an irreplaceable tool that God has built within us so that we would live as he intended. But sin has damaged the function of this vital tool of the heart.

In order to understand that damage, you have to understand that your alarm (that is, your conscience) only sounds based on the standard that your heart has surrendered to. This means that a good and godly moral value system will allow your conscience to function properly, but a bad and self-centered moral value system will mean that your conscience will do you harm. Since sin causes us to exchange worship and service of the Creator for worship and service of the creation, and since the thing that is at the center of that idolatry is ourselves, without divine intervention, our consciences just don’t operate the way God intended.

But there is another way that sin interrupts and distorts the work that God intended the conscience to do. The conscience is able to do its work only if it can see clearly, anticipating the moral danger ahead or even focusing on a failure that has just happened. Moral sight is essential to the proper function of the essential tool of the heart. Here’s the problem with the need for the conscience to see clearly: sin blinds. Sin causes the conscience to be unable to see what it needs to see to sound the moral alarm. And sin not only blinds the conscience so it cannot function as God intended; sin also causes the conscience to be blind to its own blindness. So we think we are seeing clearly and that the alarm system is working well, but in our sin, we are trusting what is blind and what lives under an idolatrous value system to be morally trustworthy.

Hebrews tells us that the blood of Christ does this amazing thing: it cleanses the conscience. It cleanses it from its bondage to self and the surrounding creation. It cleanses it of its blindness, imparting to it a renewed ability to see. It cleanses it from a corrupt moral value system, giving room now for a life dedicated to and directed by a desire to live according to God’s law and for his glory. The cross doesn’t just purchase God’s forgiveness for us, but it also changes us. And at the heart of that change is a conscience that has been cleansed by the transforming grace of the blood of Jesus.

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 me that we often neglect when we are meditating on and celebrating the death of Jesus. This Lenten season, don’t just reflect on the necessity of your forgiveness; take time also to consider the amazing grace of a conscience that has been cleansed and is able now more than ever before to do in you - and for you - what God intended.

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. What aspects of the idea that the cross offers us more than forgiveness were new to you?

2. When was the last time your conscience kicked in and prevented you from doing something you knew you shouldn’t do? Would you characterize your conscience as tender or damaged?

3. What are some things you can do to help yourself be more sensitive to your conscience?

Read Romans 2:1–16, and ask the Lord to convict you of any sin you have been ignoring.

Romans 2:1-16 NLT   God’s Judgment of Sin

1 You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. 2 And we know that God, in his justice, will punish anyone who does such things. 3 Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God’s judgment when you do the same things? 4 Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

5 But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 He will judge everyone according to what they have done. 7 He will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers. 8 But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness. 9 There will be trouble and calamity for everyone who keeps on doing what is evil—for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. 10 But there will be glory and honor and peace from God for all who do good—for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.

12 When the Gentiles sin, they will be destroyed, even though they never had God’s written law. And the Jews, who do have God’s law, will be judged by that law when they fail to obey it. 13 For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight. 14 Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. 15 They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right. 16 And this is the message I proclaim—that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone’s secret life.