2026 Lenten Season - Day 26 - Bad News First

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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Lent teaches us that sorrow is the only pathway to a life of true joy.

If someone called you on the phone and said, “I have very bad news for you,” you wouldn’t say, “Oh,  thank you, I love bad news!” No, your heart would sink as you waited to hear what you didn’t really want to hear. No one longs for bad news. We all dream of a life that is an endless stream of good news. But the storyline of Lent is counterintuitive: if you want to receive the best news ever, you have to accept the worst news ever. 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. Rick and Emma’s marriage was a big, chaotic, and often conflictual mess. They were in debt, and their house was in disrepair. Their communication went back and forth between dysfunctional and nonexistent. Their relationship with their children was adversarial. Their spiritual life was a series of cold, formal religious habits. When they had sex, it was a physical act lacking in intimacy. When I first sat with them, I was aware that there seemed to be little warmth between them. The only reason they had asked to see me was the debt. It had grown and grown until it had become nearly impossible to handle.

As I got to know them, what blew me away was that their marriage and family had been this bad for a long time. They had learned to live with the mess. They had become masters at working their way around the dysfunction and keeping it all together. In fact, as I listened to them talk about their life together in matter-of-fact tones, I was impressed that they looked at the mess and didn’t see a mess. What should have stood out as abnormal and dysfunctional looked to them to be normal and functional. They weren’t crying out for help; they just didn’t like having all those big bills to pay. They weren’t desperate for change. In the middle of the mess, with bad news all around them, this couple was satisfied. If I had a magic button that I could have pushed that would have made their debts vanish, they would have been satisfied for everything else to stay the same. This dear couple did not see the evidence of the bad news that was all around them, so they were not hungry for the message of good news that could have transformed it all.

I am convinced that, for most human beings, satisfaction is a much bigger problem than dissatisfaction. Let me explain. We sinners have a scary ability to be satisfied with what shouldn’t satisfy us. Or let me say it another way. We are all too easily satisfied. We are able to be satisfied with conditions that are way less than God’s original design for us, or what grace now makes possible for us. We are often okay with living with things that are not the way they were meant to be. We are like the family that has lived three years with a broken toilet or with a car that has leaked oil for months. We live with the messed-up ankle or the overly sensitive stomach. Instead of fixing things, we find ways to use them even though they’re broken.

We see bad attitudes in our young children, but we excuse them away, telling ourselves that our kids are tired, teething, or a little bit sick. Bad things happen in our marriages that get dismissed as a misunderstanding or the product of busyness. We cut moral corners or step over God’s boundaries, telling ourselves that what God says is not okay, will be okay after all. Like the couple who came to see me, we all have the ability to look at the mess and not see a mess. We all have places in our lives where we’re all too easily satisfied. And here is how this is spiritually dangerous: when you are satisfied, you don’t reach out for help.

The cross of Jesus Christ yanks us out of our satisfaction. If things were okay, God would not have planned all that he planned and controlled all that he controlled, so that at a certain time in history his Son would do for us what we all desperately need but could not do for ourselves. The cross of Jesus  Christ is the result of God’s dissatisfaction with the condition of the world that he made and of the people that he placed in it. God was unwilling to be okay with what was not okay. So he moved, but not with the agenda to condemn but rather to redeem. God sent his Son to fix what was broken, to restore what had been destroyed, and to make dead things live again.

The cross is bad news for each one of us. It confronts us with the fact that there is something fundamentally broken inside us that we have neither the desire nor the power to fix without divine intervention. The cross calls us to admit that the greatest danger in our lives is to be found inside us, not outside us. Jesus came to be the perfect Lamb of sacrifice, paying the penalty for our sin. Why? Because the worst news of all is the bad news that sin not only distorts everything in our lives and separates us from God, but it also leads to eternal death. Sin is the bad news we have to accept. Sin is the thing that we have to confess. It is the bad news about all of us, and no one is an exception. You cannot understand the cross of Jesus Christ and be satisfied with pockets of sin in your life.

But the cross is also good news. The dissatisfaction of God is the hope of humanity. The cross tells us that God is willing to do whatever is necessary to fix what sin has broken. It tells us that God is going to move in love and pour out his rescuing, forgiving, transforming, and delivering grace. The cross welcomes us to look inside and around us and be dissatisfied. It welcomes us not to the dissatisfaction that leaves us hopeless, but a dissatisfaction that leads us to the foot of the cross, where mercy and grace are found.

Lent reminds us that to be satisfied, to say you are okay, and without need of help, you have to close your eyes and shut your ears to the bad news of sin that somehow confronts you every day. Lent welcomes you to bring a dissatisfied heart to your Redeemer, one who has seen and accepted the bad news, and then to reach out for the help that he alone is able to give.

Only those who willingly receive the bad news will then seek and celebrate the good news. Are you too easily satisfied?

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. In what ways have you found this statement to be true: “For most human beings, satisfaction is a much bigger problem than dissatisfaction”?

2. What messes have you grown so accustomed to that you no longer notice them? What are you satisfied with that God isn’t? What would change if you became dissatisfied with it?

3. How can God’s dissatisfaction with sin and the resulting brokenness of this world lead us to hope and motivate us to action?

Read 2 Corinthians 5:16–21. 

How would these verses change your life if you let them inform you of your mess and brokenness?

16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 25 - Here's the Struggle

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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Lent is not about what you will give of yourself to God, but about what he, in grace, has so bountifully given to you.

The husband had been caught in adultery. It was humiliating for him and devastating to his marriage. He didn’t confess until he was caught. Jerry and his wife came to me for help. They both seemed to want to save their marriage. He spoke words of brokenness to me and seemed to be repentant. Mary was willing to hang in there as long as Jerry was turning from the entanglements of sin and turning toward his Lord and her with new commitments of faith. But as I continued to meet with them, I began to be concerned. Truly repentant people are overwhelmed with the rebelliousness and destructiveness of what they have done, while at the same time, they are blown away by the magnitude and consistency of God’s mercy and grace. They tend to experience the love of God in deeper and fresher ways as they tend to embrace in new ways the truth that they could never do anything to earn that love.

But when I would meet with Jerry, the thing Jerry talked about the most was Jerry. He talked about all the things he was giving up for the Lord, the length and depth of his new devotional life, the Christian books he had purchased, and the new ways he was serving his wife. He kept telling me how he was “all in” for the Lord. The more he told me, and the more he patted himself on the back, the less I believed it. It wasn’t, “God, be merciful to me a sinner,” but rather, “God, look at what I am doing for you.” He had an attitude of the heart that the grief of real confession and the humility of true repentance would never produce. When I began to write this devotional, I thought of Jerry, and here’s why.

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 up something or to take up something 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 often 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.

The story of Lent is the world’s most important and most wonderful generosity story. Lent is about one who not only lavishly gives what is desperately needed, but who also offers himself as the ultimate gift.  But the story of Lent is not just about generosity; it is the one story where the giver and the gift are the same person. The hope and security of Lent is not to be found in the size and consistency of what you give to God; it is about the stunning gifts of grace he has given and will continue to give you. It is God’s generosity that is primary and transformative, not ours. We love because he first loved us. We give because he first gave to us. We lay down our lives because he first laid down his. We are willing to suffer for his sake because he first suffered for us. We obey because in his obedience we are given hope. We fight temptation because he fought it and defeated it on our behalf. We are willing to humble ourselves and serve because he left the splendor of eternity, humbled himself, and served up to - and through - the point of death. Everything we ever give of ourselves happens only because of the primacy of his gifts to us. He is the ultimate giver. No matter how great our sacrifices or how much we give, we will never give to him the magnitude of what he has given us. As we seek to give ourselves more fully during Lent, every gift we give is a celebration of the transformative storehouse of what he has given us. Lent is all about sacrifice: his, not ours.

Pride in the sacrifices you are making not only crushes the spirit of this wonderful season of spiritual reflection and growth, but it also quenches the work that the Holy Spirit would do in your heart as you open it up to him. Pride doesn’t mix well with the grief over sin that propels confession. Pride doesn’t sit well with the humility that fuels true repentance. A self-congratulatory attitude turns sacrifice into a reason to convince yourself that you’re pretty righteous after all, and righteous people don’t need the divine sacrifice that this season is all about. Pride flips the Lenten season on its head.

Now, here’s the struggle. Whenever you focus on yourself, even in examination and confession, pride lurks right around the corner. It is so tempting to take credit for desires, choices, and actions that you would never have taken if you had not been rescued and changed by God’s grace. If pride is self-congratulatory, then it is also self-reliant. But the whole message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that you and I were not created to be self-reliant, and in our struggle with sin, we have no ability on our own to defeat what needs to be defeated. This is why the sacrifice of Christ was essential. He came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves, even in our deepest moments of sacrifice and devotion.

So in this season of new and deeper sacrifice and devotion, resist the temptation of turning the tables.  That is, don’t make the lavish gifts of another become about what you give. You can’t stand at the foot of the cross and consider the magnitude of what was done there and hold onto the pride of personal sacrifice. Pray for grace to make every sacrifice, every gift given, a celebration of both the ultimate gift and the most generous giver.

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. Jerry’s story illustrates an important test for genuine repentance. Would you pass the test? Is your repentance more about what you have done or what God has done?

2. In what ways does Lent often lead to pride?

3. What are some practical ways to guard yourself against the tendency for the Lenten season—and spiritual disciplines any time of the year—to become a source of pride?

Read James 4:6–10, and let it lead you to genuine sorrow over your sin.

6 And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
7 So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. 9 Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 24 - Why Would We Fast?

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 purpose of fasting is not to earn God’s love, but to more deeply surrender to it.

Why would anyone ever fast? What is to be gained from giving things up? What is the purpose of not eating for a period? Why withhold from yourself what you know you’re going to return to in a matter of time? Is fasting an essential spiritual discipline? Does fasting bring you closer to God? Is fasting a way to defeat sin? How do I know when to fast and what to fast from? Is there a biblical theology of fasting? How do you fast in a way that is more than a temporary denial of physical desire, but is also spiritually helpful? Does God require us to fast?

Fasting is a topic that motivates and encourages a few but confuses many. Since Lent is a season of fasting, it is worth giving it a practical, biblical examination. My first encounter with regular and intense fasting had nothing to do with spirituality. One of my closest friends in high school was a wrestler.  Because Sam was winning like crazy, there was a bit of a small town media buzz around him. He was a little guy, but he had become big man on campus, and he loved it. The problem was that he was growing fast, and his growth spurts made it hard for him to stay within the boundaries of his weight class. So  Sam was always fasting. His big, luxurious meal would be Jell-O.

Although there was nothing spiritual about Sam’s fast, it did have “spiritual” benefits. Because he fasted, he was more focused. Because he fasted, he became more and more committed. Because he got used to this sacrifice, other sacrifices didn’t seem so hard. The pain of sacrifice brought a whole catalog of benefits to Sam and his wrestling career. I knew there was a theme of fasting in the Bible, but hanging around Sam got me thinking about the benefits of fasting as a teenager.

So why would anyone ever fast? Primarily, fasting is about focus. We all live busy lives, with so many plans and so much on our schedules. We live with constant distractions all around, and now with cell phones in our hands, there is a huge temptation to fill even the smallest quiet moment with anything. We feel compelled to keep checking Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We feel the need to make sure we are in moment-by-moment contact with the news. And we want to make sure the weather hasn’t changed in the last five minutes. Along with this, we are all still in possession of wandering hearts. Things in our lives rise to levels of importance way beyond their true importance. Temptations seduce and seize us. Our desires wander off God’s pathway. Envy sows seeds of doubt and bitterness in our hearts. Spiritual amnesia grips us; in the busyness of life, we forget who we are and what we have been given. Our devotional lives are kidnapped by the tyranny of the urgent. What we want collides with what God wants for us. And the gap enlarges between what we say we believe and how we actually live.

Fasting can be spiritually arresting, a divine interruption that is one of God’s tools to call us back to remember, to confess, to rest, to commit, and to celebrate. Fasting is one of the ways God reaches down into our frenetic lives and pulls us out to be closer to him. Fasting is much more of a welcome than it is a regulation. It is a gift from a God who knows us; he knows how we operate, what we face, and what we need. Fasting is God’s invitation to all of his children to refocus, recharge, reengage, and repent.

So what is fasting? Fasting is giving up food (or something else) in order to focus on God and your walk with him (see Psalm 35:13; Ezra 8:23; Nehemiah 1:3– 4; Matthew 4:1–11; Luke 2:37). We need to remember two important points. First, there is no magic in fasting. Giving up food won’t instantly make you more godly. Fasting allows you to give yourself to other spiritual disciplines that will bear a harvest of good fruit in your life. Second, you don’t fast in order to gain God’s favor, but to help bring your life into even greater surrender to him and a greater appreciation of his favor. Fasting is spiritual warfare. It is one way that God has provided for you to fight for your own heart.

So how do you fast?

1. Give yourself to prayer. 

One of the primary purposes of fasting is to be able to give yourself more fully to prayer. The normal routines of food selection, preparation, and eating are replaced by new routines of prayer. It is this more focused communion with God that produces some of fasting’s best fruit. 

2. Don’t make a show of it. 

Fast in private. Don’t announce it. Don’t broadcast it after. Pride in fasting robs fasting of its spiritual benefit. Seek God; don’t seek the approval of others for seeking God in this way.

3. Bathe yourself in God’s word. 

Fasting can give you time to meditate on God’s word. In our busy lives, most of us spend very little time in actual Scriptural meditation. 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. 

4. Make sure you’re ready. 

There are no spiritual benefits to damaging your body or putting your health at risk. Make sure you are physically, financially, and situationally prepared for whatever fast, for whatever period, you are about to undertake. 

5. Be quiet before the Lord. 

Since fasting is about ceasing participation in a particular thing, your fast shouldn’t be filled with activity. Fasting is a time to wait on the Lord. And as you wait, remember that for the Christian, waiting is not about what you get at the end of the wait, but more importantly, about what you become as you wait.

6. Confess what has been revealed. 

As you seek God in prayer, as you meditate on his word, and as you are quiet before him, the Lord will reveal your heart. Fasting is a way to fight the spiritual blindness that affects us all. So be ready to confess new areas of sin, weakness, and failure that God has revealed as you have fasted.

7. Make new commitments. 

If confession is turning from the old way, then commitment is turning your heart and life to God’s new and better way. At the end of your fast, think about where God is calling you to new commitments of faith and discipleship where you live and work every day.

8. Be thankful. 

Thank God for how fasting is an indication of his welcoming, patient, perseverant love, continually drawing you into even closer, more heart-satisfying communion with him.

So, fast this Lenten season. Receive God’s welcome to fight for your heart and to learn to rest in the grace of your Savior more fully and more deeply. You will be glad you did.

GOING DEEPER

Reflective Questions

1. Do you usually think of fasting as “more of a welcome than it is a regulation”? What has colored your perceptions of fasting?

2. Do you fast? Why do you or don’t you engage in this spiritual practice?

3. What benefits does or would fasting offer for you? In what areas do you long for more focus or spiritual effectiveness?

Read Matthew 6:16–18, and ask the Lord if he is calling you to fast.

16 “And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. 17 But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. 18 Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private. And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

Two-fisted Faith Fight

Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; Save me, and I shall be saved, For You are my praise.
Jeremiah 17:14 NKJV

Ten years and two months plus a few days ago, I had a full hip replacement surgery. It did not go well. I got an infection with weeks and weeks of antibiotics, one of which almost killed me. When I was finally able to walk again, I was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). The pain associated with CRPS is most often at the top of the McGill Pain Scale. When the water from the shower hurts you, clothes - anything - touching your skin, sheets, blankets must be the softest possible to be even close to bearable. Sometimes, the very breeze from a fan could send me over the edge. 

By the grace of God, I have a high tolerance when it comes to pain, but I cannot tell you the number of times I cried myself to sleep, begging God to just let me die rather than go through one more day of it! Nevertheless, Thy will be done...  And faithful friends and family prayer warriors, without whose prayers I would have been undone.

For the first couple of years, I questioned my purpose for being alive. I wallowed in the pain and self-pity. Then, as I stopped navel-gazing and asking why, I finally recognized the truth that nothing comes into my life without going through God. I surrendered it to Him instead of trying to fight it by myself. There were days when I considered it a victory to just get out of bed. I remember one night in particular, crying out to God that there was no way I could do this the rest of my life, and I felt in my heart that He asked, "Can you do it just for today? Today is all I ask of you." So, that's what we did. One day at a time. I didn't know if I would ever catch my healing on this side of Heaven, but I learned that every day I woke up, I had purpose. If only to encourage one person. If only to offer a Promise for Today. If I could be a listening ear. Hold a hand. And God's grace poured out. Grace enough for today. To embrace His Word, such as our text for today. And 2 Corinthians 12:9, that His grace is sufficient, and numerous other verses to stand on the foundation of His Word. 

THEN, I woke up one morning recently and there was NO nerve pain. I thought perhaps I had died, but when I opened my eyes, I was still here. For 3 days, it was like being in shock. I'd forgotten what it felt like to be without violent nerve pain. It's indescribable. And I am beyond grateful to God!

This is the shortened version, but know that I have received the miracle of healing from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. Ten years and two months plus a few days later. Don't give up, Dear Ones. As long as you are drawing breath, you have purpose. God is faithful.

Prayer:

Father,

          Thank You that everything is a teaching moment with You, to strengthen our faith and trust in You, to bring us closer to You, to open our eyes to see beyond our circumstances, and learn who You are in Your fullness. Thank You that Your power is made perfect in our weaknesses. It is Your breath in our lungs and we praise You with every one. Help us to always keep our focus on You and our hearts receptive to Your leading. And help us to see those around us who have needs. We want to be Your hands and feet and love extended. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen

2026 Lenten Season - Day 23 - Sacrifice

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 that you and I will ever make is as great as the sacrifice that was made for us and for our redemption.

Everyone makes sacrifices—

for physical beauty,

for body health,

for athletic victory,

for career advancement,

for relational unity,

for sound investment,

for a physical dwelling,

for the hope of fame,

for parental love,

for spiritual growth,

for environmental health,

for political power,

for a noble cause,

for a dark addiction,

for the cause of peace,

for liberation from bondage,

for making a point,

for exposing an evil,

for meeting a need,

for offering mercy,

for settling a score,

for extending a hand.

Every day sacrifices are made.

Everyone does it.

No one can avoid it.

Life requires it.

Good calls you to it.

Evil demands it.

Sometimes we’re willing.

Sometimes we’re resistant.

Sometimes we regret it.

Sometimes we sacrifice with great joy,

sometimes with deep sorrow,

sometimes in the bright light,

sometimes in the darkness of night,

sometimes private,

sometimes public,

the young and the old,

men and women,

girls and boys,

of every language,

of every ethnicity,

from every place on the globe,

from every period of history.

But in all of those places,

with all of these people,

in all of those epochs of time,

with innumerable sacrifices,

there is only one man

who had sacrifice as his solitary purpose.

There was only one man

whose sacrifice would meet everyone’s need.

There was only one man

who paid for what he did not do

so others would get what they did not earn.

There was only one man

who was qualified.

There was only one man

who was the God-man,

Son of God,

Son of Man.

There was only one man.

who would live a righteous life.

There was only one man

who would die an acceptable death.

There was only one man

who would satisfy God’s requirement.

There was only one man

who would not only make that sacrifice

but who would be that sacrifice.

There was only one man

who would be the Lamb of God.

There was only one man

whose sacrifice would change everything.

Sin defeated.

Life given.

Hope restored.

Destiny secure.

God and man reconciled,

once for all.

“It is finished.”

Billions of sacrifices made;

only one sacrifice

for life now

and for all eternity.

Going Deeper

Reflection Questions

1. Think about the goals you’re working toward right now. What are you sacrificing to reach them?

2. Does your level of sacrifice to develop your relationship with God match the level of sacrifice you make to do other things? Why or why not?

3. What sacrifice did Christ make for you? List out all that he endured, and thank him specifically for those things.

Read the account of the crucifixion in Matthew 26:20–27:53 [included below in its entirety].

20When it was evening, Jesus sat down at the table[a] with the Twelve. 21 While they were eating, he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.”

22 Greatly distressed, each one asked in turn, “Am I the one, Lord?”

23 He replied, “One of you who has just eaten from this bowl with me will betray me. 24 For the Son of Man must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago. But how terrible it will be for the one who betrays him. It would be far better for that man if he had never been born!”

25 Judas, the one who would betray him, also asked, “Rabbi, am I the one?”

And Jesus told him, “You have said it.”

26 As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take this and eat it, for this is my body.”

27 And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, 28 for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant[b] between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. 29 Mark my words—I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom.”

30 Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.

31 On the way, Jesus told them, “Tonight all of you will desert me. For the Scriptures say,
‘God will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’

32 But after I have been raised from the dead, I will go ahead of you to Galilee and meet you there.”

33 Peter declared, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.”

34 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.”

35 “No!” Peter insisted. “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!” And all the other disciples vowed the same.

36 Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.” 37 He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. 38 He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

39 He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

40 Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? 41 Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!”

42 Then Jesus left them a second time and prayed, “My Father! If this cup cannot be taken away[d] unless I drink it, your will be done.” 43 When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open.

44 So he went to pray a third time, saying the same things again. 45 Then he came to the disciples and said, “Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But look—the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!”

47 And even as Jesus said this, Judas, one of the twelve disciples, arrived with a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs. They had been sent by the leading priests and elders of the people. 48 The traitor, Judas, had given them a prearranged signal: “You will know which one to arrest when I greet him with a kiss.” 49 So Judas came straight to Jesus. “Greetings, Rabbi!” he exclaimed and gave him the kiss.

50 Jesus said, “My friend, go ahead and do what you have come for.”

Then the others grabbed Jesus and arrested him. 51 But one of the men with Jesus pulled out his sword and struck the high priest’s slave, slashing off his ear.

52 “Put away your sword,” Jesus told him. “Those who use the sword will die by the sword. 53 Don’t you realize that I could ask my Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly? 54 But if I did, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?”

55 Then Jesus said to the crowd, “Am I some dangerous revolutionary, that you come with swords and clubs to arrest me? Why didn’t you arrest me in the Temple? I was there teaching every day. 56 But this is all happening to fulfill the words of the prophets as recorded in the Scriptures.” At that point, all the disciples deserted him and fled.

57 Then the people who had arrested Jesus led him to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest, where the teachers of religious law and the elders had gathered. 58 Meanwhile, Peter followed him at a distance and came to the high priest’s courtyard. He went in and sat with the guards and waited to see how it would all end.

59 Inside, the leading priests and the entire high council were trying to find witnesses who would lie about Jesus, so they could put him to death. 60 But even though they found many who agreed to give false witness, they could not use anyone’s testimony. Finally, two men came forward 61 who declared, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the Temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’”

62 Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Well, aren’t you going to answer these charges? What do you have to say for yourself?” 63 But Jesus remained silent. Then the high priest said to him, “I demand in the name of the living God—tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”

64 Jesus replied, “You have said it. And in the future you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

65 Then the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, “Blasphemy! Why do we need other witnesses? You have all heard his blasphemy. 66 What is your verdict?”

“Guilty!” they shouted. “He deserves to die!”

67 Then they began to spit in Jesus’ face and beat him with their fists. And some slapped him, 68 jeering, “Prophesy to us, you Messiah! Who hit you that time?”

69 Meanwhile, Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. A servant girl came over and said to him, “You were one of those with Jesus the Galilean.”

70 But Peter denied it in front of everyone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

71 Later, out by the gate, another servant girl noticed him and said to those standing around, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

72 Again Peter denied it, this time with an oath. “I don’t even know the man,” he said.

73 A little later some of the other bystanders came over to Peter and said, “You must be one of them; we can tell by your Galilean accent.”

74 Peter swore, “A curse on me if I’m lying—I don’t know the man!” And immediately the rooster crowed.

75 Suddenly, Jesus’ words flashed through Peter’s mind: “Before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.” And he went away, weeping bitterly.

27 Very early in the morning the leading priests and the elders of the people met again to lay plans for putting Jesus to death. 2 Then they bound him, led him away, and took him to Pilate, the Roman governor.

3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and the elders. 4 “I have sinned,” he declared, “for I have betrayed an innocent man.”
“What do we care?” they retorted. “That’s your problem.”

5 Then Judas threw the silver coins down in the Temple and went out and hanged himself.

6 The leading priests picked up the coins. “It wouldn’t be right to put this money in the Temple treasury,” they said, “since it was payment for murder.” 7 After some discussion, they finally decided to buy the potter’s field, and they made it into a cemetery for foreigners. 8 That is why the field is still called the Field of Blood. 9 This fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah that says,
“They took the thirty pieces of silver— the price at which he was valued by the people of Israel, 10 and purchased the potter’s field, as the Lord directed.”

11 Now Jesus was standing before Pilate, the Roman governor. “Are you the king of the Jews?” the governor asked him.

Jesus replied, “You have said it.”

12 But when the leading priests and the elders made their accusations against him, Jesus remained silent. 13 “Don’t you hear all these charges they are bringing against you?” Pilate demanded. 14 But Jesus made no response to any of the charges, much to the governor’s surprise.

15 Now it was the governor’s custom each year during the Passover celebration to release one prisoner to the crowd—anyone they wanted. 16 This year, there was a notorious prisoner, a man named Barabbas. 17 As the crowds gathered before Pilate’s house that morning, he asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you—Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” 18 (He knew very well that the religious leaders had arrested Jesus out of envy.)

19 Just then, as Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him this message: “Leave that innocent man alone. I suffered through a terrible nightmare about him last night.”

20 Meanwhile, the leading priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be put to death. 21 So the governor asked again, “Which of these two do you want me to release to you?”
The crowd shouted back, “Barabbas!”

22 Pilate responded, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?”
They shouted back, “Crucify him!”

23 “Why?” Pilate demanded. “What crime has he committed?”
But the mob roared even louder, “Crucify him!”

24 Pilate saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere and that a riot was developing. So he sent for a bowl of water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. The responsibility is yours!”

25 And all the people yelled back, “We will take responsibility for his death—we and our children!”

26 So Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.

27 Some of the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into their headquarters and called out the entire regiment. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. 29 They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!” 30 And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it. 31 When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified.

32 Along the way, they came across a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. 33 And they went out to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”). 34 The soldiers gave Jesus wine mixed with bitter gall, but when he had tasted it, he refused to drink it.

35 After they had nailed him to the cross, the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. 36 Then they sat around and kept guard as he hung there. 37 A sign was fastened above Jesus’ head, announcing the charge against him. It read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” 38 Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.

39 The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. 40 “Look at you now!” they yelled at him. “You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Well then, if you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross!”

41 The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus. 42 “He saved others,” they scoffed, “but he can’t save himself! So he is the King of Israel, is he? Let him come down from the cross right now, and we will believe in him! 43 He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him! For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 Even the revolutionaries who were crucified with him ridiculed him in the same way.

45 At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. 46 At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

47 Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah. 48 One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink. 49 But the rest said, “Wait! Let’s see whether Elijah comes to save him.”

50 Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit. 51 At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart, 52 and tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead. 53 They left the cemetery after Jesus’ resurrection, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 22 - The Love and Grace of Warnings

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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On this side of eternity, it is easy to love the gift more than the giver.

Parents instinctively know that issuing warnings is an important part of true love. Parents who love their children spend a lot of time over the years warning them. From the early warnings about things that are hot, sharp, dirty, or poisonous, to the later warnings about the temptations of a fallen world, one of the ways that parents regularly express love for their children is by warning them of the dangers ahead. I have two granddaughters, and when I am with them, I find myself doing this all the time. Sometimes those warnings are attached to the rules that children have been taught and asked to obey. These warnings carry with them the threat of consequences or judgment. But 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.

Scripture warns us about a subtle kind of idolatry that masquerades as the worship of God but is really driven by the love of things. The war between worship of God and worship of things is not always as apparent to us as we think.

A seminary professor of mine told of a moment in his church when his brothers and sisters were enjoying a time of public praise. One woman stood up and shared how she had been facing bills that she could not pay, that she had prayed, and that God had supplied the money necessary to pay them all. Then she said, “I am just so thankful to God for his faithfulness.” It seems that everything was right in this moment of praise, except my professor kept thinking, “What if he hadn’t?" What if God, for his eternal glory and her spiritual good, had allowed her to face the stress of the even greater financial consequences of those bills being unpaid? Would she have still stood up and thanked God for his faithfulness?

Now, it may seem like a judgmental way of hearing this woman’s gratitude, but the professor’s observation points us to how subtle and deceptive the war for our hearts can be. Could it be that we are most excited about God’s presence in our lives when he has met a physical need or delivered to us something that we want? 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 the thing.

The world around us is filled with sight, sound, touch, and taste attractions. We also find delights that are not physical, like affection, success, position, respect, power, and control. All of these created things, both material and immaterial, appear to give us life. They seem to have the power to produce joy and satisfaction or, when absent, sadness and discontent. So it is quite tempting to reach for them,  hoping they will do for us what they were never intended to do. It is tempting for all of us to look around and say, “If only I had _____ then my life would be ______.” 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. Consider these heart-revealing questions.

When does God excite me most?
When do I shout the loudest, “God loves me!”?
When am I most thankful that I am one of God’s children and the object of his fathering care?
When does my relationship with God provide me the most joy?
What does God need to do for me in order for me to be content?
When do I tend to question God’s love?
When do I struggle the most to believe that God is faithful?
When am I tempted to envy others or to think God has favorites?
When does my praise of the Lord feel empty?
What causes me to feel that my prayers go unheard?
What would God have to do to produce real joy in me?

I don’t know about you, but I find these questions to be uncomfortable and revealing. I don’t think of myself as one who loves the gift more than the giver, but perhaps there are ways in which I do. Do I really believe that God is good, does what is good, and gives what is good to all his children all the time? Is it really true of me that because of the joy and satisfaction of knowing him and being loved by him, I am able to live with plenty or live with want? Does the withholding of what seems good cause me to question if he is good? Can I stand next to someone who has what I think I need and still love my Lord and rest in his love for me? Are there things that I have set my heart on, the absence of which will cause my faith to waver and my praise to be silenced? Where does my heart still live under the rulership of the gift rather than the righteous and loving rule of the giver?

During this season when you are letting go of the things of the world, confessing areas of sin and weakness, and running to your Savior for rescue and help, perhaps you should also confess one of the subtlest forms of idolatry. Perhaps it would be good to confess that what appears as worship may not be worship at all. It may be worship of the thing that reduces God to the delivery system for what your heart really craves. And remember, God sent his Son not only to forgive our sins, but also to liberate our hearts from the bondage to anything but him. He is not shocked or disgusted by your struggle. He will turn not away from you, but toward you with love and grace.

So today, hear this loving warning. Could it be that the confession of ongoing struggles of idolatry, no matter how subtle, is the first step toward a heart that is consumed by the worship of God alone?

GOING DEEPER
Reflection Questions

1. When have you found yourself closest to God? When have you been tempted to love him for the gifts he has given rather than for himself?

2. How can you grow in satisfaction in God himself while still being thankful for the gifts he gives?

3. What do you need to confess as an area where “what appears as worship may not be worship at all”?

Read Psalm 50:8–15, and hear God’s heart of love that longs for relationship, not empty sacrifice.

Psalm 50:8–15

I have no complaint about your sacrifices or the burnt offerings you constantly offer. But I do not need the bulls from your barns or the goats from your pens. For all the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird on the mountains, and all the animals of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for all the world is mine and everything in it. Do I eat the meat of bulls? Do I drink the blood of goats? 

Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High. Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 21 - 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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It is impossible to excuse, deny, or minimize your sin without telling yourself that you do not need the grace of Christ Jesus.

Bill and Jenny had hit the wall again. A misunderstanding had devolved into a nasty, name-calling, trust-shattering fight. The air in their house was thick with tension, and the awkward silence between them was suffocating. It had been three days since the horrible fight, but there had been no rapprochement between them. Bill spent much of those three days telling himself that Jenny was the problem, and that all he was doing was defending himself against her attack. Jenny told herself that she was the victim of an emotionally abusive husband. They could not reconcile because they were unwilling to see their own sin, let alone to confess it to God or one another. Each denied their attitudes and actions, each excused his or her sin by pointing the finger of blame at one another, and both told themselves that what they did wasn’t so bad, given the circumstances.

It was a familiar scene for them, repeated again and again. There was never much true confession, but somehow they would move on without the wrongs against one another being addressed and then march to the next debilitating battle. But even more tragic than the toll on their marriage was their denial of their need for the rescuing, forgiving, and empowering grace of Jesus. In refusing to confess their sin, they told themselves that they did not need the grace of Jesus, purchased for them on the cross of Calvary. Because they did not own their sin and cry out to their Savior for his forgiveness and help, they did not grow in grace and love toward one another. Their marriage was stuck in a cycle of sin and hurt. Cynicism had replaced hope, self-defensiveness had replaced trust, and a repeated cycle of hurt hardened hearts that were once tender and loving.

It makes sense that you and I simply do not reach out for help that we do not think we need. We don’t long for what seems unnecessary. How is it possible to hold the cross as the epicenter of our formal theology while functionally denying our need for this radical sacrifice of love and grace? When you sin as a believer, your conscience will bother you. What you experience is the convicting grace of the Holy Spirit, and there are only four ways to respond to this gracious warning that you have done something wrong. 

Let’s look at each response in light of what the cross requires us to see and admit about ourselves.

1. Excuse. 

It’s hard to admit that you have done wrong, that it’s your responsibility alone. It is so easy to alleviate your guilt by pointing to someone or something else as the reason you did what you did. Here’s why blame-shifting seems so plausible and is so tempting. You live in a fallen world with broken things all around you, so there are many excuses to be found. You live with and near people who are less than perfect. They don’t always say and do the right things. They don’t always have good attitudes. They don’t always keep their promises. They are not always committed to your best interest. They are just like you, people in need of God’s rescuing grace.

You live with all kinds of systemic brokenness in your neighborhood, on the highways, at work, in government and education, at the stores where you shop, and the list could go on and on. In case you hadn’t noticed, this is not paradise, and the world doesn’t function the way paradise will someday function. Yet in all of this, God meets you with his heart and life-changing, empowering grace. It really is possible to do what is right in a world that has gone wrong. This life of right begins with recognizing your need for God’s grace, and that begins with a commitment to not deny your need for God’s grace by searching for excuses for the wrong that you have done.

2. Deny. 

It is also tempting to rewrite the history of a certain situation to make yourself look way more righteous than you actually were. This may sound needlessly repetitive, but it is worth thinking about: the ultimate denial of sin is denial. Saying that it never happened makes you hopelessly unapproachable, resistant to the thought that you need to change, and self-congratulatory when you should feel guilty. It leaves you without any neediness for God’s forgiving, restoring, and enabling grace. Denial never goes anywhere good; it is never good for your heart, it never deepens your relationship to God, and it never produces good in your relationships.

3. Minimize. 

One of the most tempting ways of escaping responsibility for your sin is not to excuse it or deny it, but to minimize it. Wrong becomes more palatable to your heart when you are able to minimize its size, importance, or impact. When you are able to make your sin look something less than a conscious moral rebellion against God or a willingness to wrong your neighbor for your own good, it doesn’t then feel so wrong to you. If you can make your sin look to you something less than sin, then you don’t need the grace that God offers sinners. You simply cannot minimize your sin without, at the same time, devaluing God’s amazing grace.

4. Confess. 

In the face of having done what is wrong in the eyes of God, this is the only option that the cross of Jesus Christ leaves open. If sin is excusable, deniable, and not really a big deal, then the cross of Jesus Christ is not necessary. Confession always recognizes the inescapable sinfulness of sin. Sin cannot be excused, it cannot be denied, and it is not honest to diminish its significance, so it must be owned and confessed to one who has the power not only to forgive, but also to deliver us from its hold on our hearts.

What is confession? Confession is admitting personal responsibility for your words and actions, without excuse of any kind or shifting the blame to anyone else. Confession is a welcome into a deeper appreciation of the presence, promises, and grace of God. It is a welcome to more humble, honest, approachable, and loving relationships with others. It is a welcome to no longer being afraid of knowing yourself or being known, because you know that nothing will ever be known or revealed about you that hasn’t already been covered by the blood of Jesus. Confession is an invitation to a life of internal rest and external peace.

So this season, as you reflect on the sacrifice of Christ on your behalf, and as the Spirit begins to reveal your heart and conviction sets in, don’t defend yourself with excuses, denial, or minimizing, and in so doing run from the grace of your Savior. Run to him, owning what you have done as you rest in the grace he offers to all who come to him in this way. “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, / but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. You probably would give verbal assent to the idea that you need God. But do your actions, your attitudes, and your prayer life support that?

2. How do you usually respond when you are confronted with your sin—excuse, deny, minimize, or confess? What factors contribute to how you respond at different times?

3. What have you noticed are the effects of each of these responses: excuse, deny, minimize,  confession?

Read Psalm 62:5–8, humbling yourself in prayer before the Lord.

Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My victory and honor come from God alone. He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me. O my people, trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.