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.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 10 - No Easy Way Out

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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Jesus did what he did for us because there simply was no other way.

All of us can relate to finding ourselves in a mess of some kind and looking for the easy way out. We tend to buy into the hope of quick solutions with minor consequences. We hope that we can avoid personal responsibility, loss, and the cost of restoration. We can look at something that is hopelessly broken and fantasize that it’s not. Or we can hope that the person who has been deeply hurt by us will let it pass this time. Or we keep banking on the hope that the physical pain we’ve been experiencing will just fade away. We spend too much, hoping that debt won’t catch up with us, or that when it does, we’ll find a novel way out. We park illegally, hoping that miraculously, we’ll be the person the parking police decide to show grace. We waste time, hoping we’ll get it back somehow. We procrastinate, trusting that we’ll be able to complete the task in a much shorter time than what originally seemed necessary. In some way, the quest of every fallen human being is to find the easy way out.

This is one of the reasons it is helpful to mark out a period of time each year [Lent] to meditate on the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross is a powerful interruption to our “easy way out” thinking. It catches us up short. It confronts our vain wishes. The horrible suffering and death of the perfect Messiah, Jesus, on a criminal’s cross, outside of the city on a hill of death, tells us in no uncertain terms that when it comes to humanity’s deepest and inescapable problem, there is no easy way out. None. The cross calls us to quit hoping in, to stop searching for, and to give up on our belief in our ability to manufacture or stumble upon a cure. Sin brought death into the world. Sin separated us from our Creator. Sin turned us all into rebels and fools. Sin’s pathway is destruction, and its endpoint is death. There are no escape routes. We can’t buy our way out. We can’t earn a better destiny. There is nothing we can do. We are being propelled blindly down a roadway of death. We may smile and celebrate and accumulate, but left to ourselves, we have no hope. Apart from some miraculous intervention, we are doomed. There is not and never has been any easy way out of this terminal disease, the one that infects us all: sin. The cross screams to us, “Stop looking elsewhere. This is the only way!” The world offers endless promises of self-atonement, but each is a lie. The world offers endless excuses for sin, personal and corporate, but each is built on falsehood. The world offers philosophies built on proving that there is no God, so there is no moral responsibility, and therefore, no such thing as death. The world offers scientific denials of divine origins and the afterlife. Most of us work to make ourselves think we’re better off than we are, as though we don’t desperately need what the cross tells us is essential.

The gravity of the cruelty meted out against Jesus forces this question upon us: “Did God really have to go to this extent to fix the problem of sin?” Did God really have to control all the situations, locations, personalities, machinations, institutions, and governments of earth so that history would march toward the right time and place: the birth of Jesus? Did Jesus really have to subject himself to the full range of the darkness and temptation of this fallen world? Was it really necessary for him to live a life that was spotlessly perfect in thought, desire, motive, choice, word, action, reaction, and response? Was it necessary for him to lay down concrete and empirical evidence during his life that he was not just a wise man, but in fact, the one and only Son of God? Was it really necessary for him to be mocked, spat upon, and executed in a torturous and public way? Was it necessary, at the point of his death, for graves to open and the veil separating the Holy of Holies to be spontaneously torn in two? Did he have to be put in a carefully sealed, well-guarded borrowed grave? Was it essential for him to be there for three days, certifying that he was really dead? Was it vital for him to walk out of that tomb, alive and well? Was it essential to the plan that he appear to some five hundred people after his resurrection? Was it necessary that he would ascend back to the right hand of his Father?

The answer to every one of these questions is a resounding YES! Every detail of the history of redemption was necessary. Every moment in the life of Christ was necessary. Every aspect of his suffering, death, and resurrection was necessary. It was all essential because there was no other way to reverse the damage that sin had done or to rescue those who were held in its death grip. No novel solutions to be found, no quick fixes, and no exceptions to the rule. There was no easy way out.

Here’s what Jesus said about his identity and his mission:

Luke 9:18–24 - Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” And they answered, “John the Baptist. But others say, Elijah, and others, that one of the prophets of old has risen.” Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered, “The Christ of God.” And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Take time during this season to focus on the doom that was your destiny apart from the cross. Meditate on what God was willing to do in order to purchase your forgiveness, reconciliation, and new life. Think about the terminal disease that you were born with and your need for the Great Physician, the sacrificial Lamb, the suffering servant Jesus, and be thankful. And may this season of remembrance free you from ever again minimizing your sin and buying into the vain hope that there may be an easy way out.

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. In what ways do you look for the easy way out, spiritually speaking? Where are you making shortcuts in your walk with the Lord, and what effect do you think that is having on your life?

2. Write out the gospel in simple terms, the way you would if you were talking with an unbelieving friend. Better yet - share it with an unbelieving friend. What fresh insight do you gain from looking at the gospel with fresh eyes, as if for the first time?

3. How would you answer the question, Why was all this sacrifice really necessary?

Read Romans 5:1–21, and rejoice in Christ’s finished work on your behalf.

Romans 5:1–21  NLT
1 Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace[a] with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. 2 Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
Adam and Christ Contrasted

12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. 13 Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break. 14 Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come. 15 But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. 16 And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. 17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.

18 Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. 19 Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous.

20 God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. 21 So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 9 - Pointing Fingers

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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Where you point the finger of blame is where you will be convinced that the most help is needed.

I was irritated with my wife, Luella. I should have responded to her in a way that was patient and kind,  but in my irritation, I said things to her that I should have never said. I was negative, picky, and self-righteous, and then I was silent. She was surprised and hurt. She was driving. I didn’t look at her. The car was filled with a horribly uncomfortable silence. It was as if the oxygen had been sucked out of the air. I was silent, but my mind wasn’t. In my mind, a big finger of blame pointed right at her. “The whole thing is her fault,” I told myself. “If she hadn’t done that, then I wouldn’t have gotten angry,” I  reasoned. “I’ve talked to her about this before, but she never listens. Maybe she heard me this time. Maybe after this talk, things will be different. She needs to say something; she needs to say she’s sorry.”

You’ve been in similar situations. So let’s unpack it together. Because what I did was wrong, my conscience bothered me. When your conscience bothers you, there are only two ways to ease it. You can point the finger of blame at yourself, confess your sin, rest in the forgiving grace of Jesus, cry out for his empowering help, and then seek the forgiveness of the person you sinned against. Having done this, you walk away with both a conscience that is clear and a reconciled relationship. Or you can point the finger of blame at the other person, denying your own responsibility and convincing yourself that he not only wronged you but that he is the cause of any wrong that you did. As you do this, your sense of offense grows, and because it does, your anger grows, as does your belief that this person simply needs to change. You are not at ease, you are riled up, and your relationship with the other person remains unreconciled.

Where you point the finger of blame will always inform you where change needs to take place. Someone once said that you never see a person in a protest carrying a sign with an arrow pointing downward and with the words “I am the problem” painted on it. One of the most significant aspects of the deceitfulness of sin is our ability to swindle ourselves into thinking that we are seldom at fault. And because we are good at convincing ourselves that we are not at fault, we also become skilled at causing ourselves to feel good about thoughts, desires, words, and actions that God says are not good. One of the ways that we tend to trouble our own trouble is our ability to convince ourselves that our sin is not so sinful after all. When you convince yourself that your sin is not so sinful after all, you also convince yourself that you don’t need God's amazing, rescuing, forgiving, and transforming grace. Anyone who argues against his own need of grace is in grave spiritual danger.

Listen to what John says: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1  John 1:8–10). These are strong words, but we all need to hear and consider them. It is humbling to say what I am about to say, but I know it is true. No one has lied to me more often than I have. No one has twisted events for his advantage more than I have for myself. No one has worked harder to make me feel good about what is not good than I have. Sadly, I have often participated in my own deceit. When I do this, I feel righteous in situations where what I did was not righteous, and because I feel right, I don’t seek God’s forgiveness or his help. John is addressing a spiritual dynamic that operates at times in all of us.

When you do what is wrong, you either look for someone to blame or you admit blame and run in humility and grief to your Redeemer. We are tempted to believe that our greatest problems in life exist outside of us. It’s our husband or wife, it’s that nasty neighbor, it’s our children, it’s our boss or  coworkers, it’s the way women dress, it’s this materialistic culture, it’s our church, and, if you have nothing else to blame, it’s the dog! This not only keeps you from seeking the grace and getting the help you need, but it argues against what God says is true about you. It places you in a spiritually debilitating standoff with your Redeemer. Either he is a liar, or you are. Self-deception never goes anywhere good; it never produces good fruit in your life or in your relationship with God or others. A humble, honest, specific, heartfelt confession is the doorway to peace within yourself, peace with God, peace with your neighbor, and a life of ongoing growth and fruitfulness.

Where do you tend to point the finger of blame? The gospel forces you to admit that your biggest problems in life exist inside you and not outside you, and because this is true, you need more than situational, relational, or location change.

Lent is all about pointing the finger in the right direction. It is about humble self-examination, honest confession, and grief over sin that causes you to seek and celebrate the grace Jesus was willing to suffer and die for. Because this is a season of mournful personal confession, it can also be for you a season of spiritual renewal and rejoicing. Renewal happens because confession causes you to see things as they really are, and in doing so, to begin to confess and address things that have long needed to be confessed and addressed. The more you see your sin, the more you will respond tenderly to other sinners and want for them the same grace you have received. And as you taste new life, you will begin to celebrate, in fresh new ways, the grace that is yours in Christ Jesus.

GOING DEEPER
Reflection Questions

1. Think back to the last disagreement you had with someone close to you. Where did you point the finger of blame? When you were able to calm down and assess the situation rightly, were you able to identify any part you played in the conflict?

2. How have you seen the truth that “no one has lied to me more often than I have” play out in your life in the past week? What kinds of things have you justified, and what does that tell you about patterns of temptation and sin in your life?

3. In the coming days, how might you engage in personal confession in a way that brings about spiritual renewal? 

Read 1 John 1:5–2:6, and spend some time in honest self-assessment, confession, and repentance.

1 John 1:5-2:6 NLT

5 This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. 6 So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. 7 But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

8 If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.

Chapter 2:1 My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. 2 He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.

3 And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. 4 If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. 5 But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. 6 Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 8 - If I Just Had ___________

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’s good to be poor. It’s the only pathway to the riches of grace.

You don’t have to pay very close attention to see that our culture is obsessed with riches. We are very interested in the lives of wealthy people. We want to get behind the gated driveways, to get inside the closed doors, and to peek over the tall hedges to see what those castles look like and how the elite really live. We point out exotic cars to one another, talk about that once-in-a-lifetime expensive meal, or reminisce about the crazy stores on the designer strip we once walked. We deny it, but we secretly want to be one of those wealthy people, because deep down we believe that this just may be the good life. We don’t admit it to one another, but our discontent is just below the surface. We still tend to think, “If I just had ______, then I would be happy.”

As Christians, we tend to esteem the spiritually rich as well. These are people who we think have risen above the normal things that we all tend to struggle with, who seem somehow to be easily and independently righteous and just don’t seem to require God’s rescue much. We envy people who don’t seem to have any marriage struggles or who seem to parent with ease. We want to be that rich brand of Christian, you know, the kind who tends to think, desire, and do the right thing seemingly all the time.

This is where the season of Lent stops us, interrupts us, confronts us, and calls us to buy into a completely different narrative. That narrative is found in a few simple words of Jesus: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). What? How is poverty of any kind a blessing? How is it ever good to have nothing, and to have to admit you have nothing? How is it possible for the impoverished life to be the good life? These are the questions the season of Lent forces us to face and to answer because Lent isn’t for the rich; it is for those who are poor.

When Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he knows his words aren’t as radical as they sound.  Let me unpack the logic here. Jesus knows that no one is independently rich in spirit. No one independently has his act together. No one is righteous on his own. No one loves as he should in his own strength. No one naturally has all the right motives. No one’s mind is independently pure. Independent spiritual riches are a delusion. People who think they are righteous are doomed. People who have successfully convinced themselves that they are okay are in trouble. People who strut their spiritual knowledge and good deeds are the ones we should be concerned for. They have bought into the darkest of delusions, that it is possible for a human being, without external intervention, to please God. Apart from the miracle of intervening, rescuing, forgiving, and transforming grace, there simply are no spiritually rich people out there, none. But self-righteousness is a self-supporting deceit. Every moment of self-assessment just deepens the blindness.

So we all need bankruptcy. This is the first step of God’s work of grace in our lives. In an act of divine mercy, God opens the well-guarded vault of our righteousness to show us that, contrary to what we thought, it is absolutely empty. We then must face the shocking realization of our complete poverty, that rather than being righteous, we are, in fact, unrighteous in every way, and this drives us to cry out for forgiveness and help. In this way,the magnificent blessings of the kingdom of God are open and available only to the poor. It is admitting that you have nothing that causes you to reach out for the amazing “something” that is offered to you in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here is the whole gospel story in one verse: 2 Corinthians 8:9, “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich”. The infinitely rich one was willing to become sacrificially poor, so that we might be rescued from our bankruptcy and become rich. If there were such a thing as independently spiritually rich people, this gospel narrative wouldn’t make any sense. But everyone is born poor. The only difference between us is that some of us have been given eyes to see and confess our poverty, and the rest of us are under the sad delusion that we are rich.

It is sad to note that not only are the hallways and pathways of humanity filled with people who think they are rich, but there are churches filled with them as well. If you were financially bankrupt, you’d be in a panic. You’d spend sleepless nights wondering what in the world you were going to do; you’d be crying out for help. You would be grieved, but open and approachable. You’d eventually quit faking it and face the fact that without some kind of intervention, you are doomed. Poverty wouldn’t leave you relaxed,  disinterested, and rather self-assured. It would make you ashamed and afraid and ready to do something about it. Spiritual passivity and spiritual disinterest are never the result of confessing that you are spiritually poor. Only those who by grace have become willing to confess how poor they actually are will daily seek and celebrate the vast storehouse of riches that are theirs because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

In this season, stop and take time to assess where you’re still telling yourself that you’re rich (righteous) and admit the extent of your past and present poverty, so that you can truly celebrate the once-unattainable riches that are yours, not because of what you have done, but because of what has been done for you. The richest man who ever lived became poor so that we would, because of him, be rich beyond our wildest imagination. No, I do not mean in the temporary riches of physical things, but rich in the most important way: rich in spirit.

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. If you’re being totally honest with yourself, what is the thing that fills in the blank: “If I just had _____, then I would be happy”? What does this answer reveal about your spiritual condition?

2. On a daily basis, how aware are you of your spiritual bankruptcy apart from Christ? How might you grow in this awareness, particularly during the season of Lent?

3. Would your friends characterize you as spiritually self-sufficient or as one who knows the blessing of spiritual poverty - and are you satisfied with the answer to that question?

Read Ephesians 2:1–22. Click on the following link, then reflect on who you were before Christ and what is now yours in Christ. Ephesians 2:1-22 NLT

2026 Lenten Season - Day 7 - Mourning is Healthy

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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In this broken world we won’t get paradise now, but the empty tomb guarantees us that a new heaven and new earth are in our future.

Paradise is the constant hope of all of us. It is hardwired within us. We tend to look for it everywhere. Our vain search heaps piles of disappointment on us. Our dream is shattered again and again, sometimes by the same thing over again. We find it hard to be satisfied, and we are tempted to become bitter. We know we should have learned our lesson, but then we get up and start searching again. Somehow, in some way, every human being is searching for paradise. We look for it in the children we parent. We look for it in the houses we buy. We look for it in our friendships. We look for it in our jobs. We hope we’ll get it in our marriages. We hope a vacation will give us just a little bit of it. We envy people who we think have found it (although no one has). We think if we just have a little more power, we will find it. We hope another academic degree will be a pathway to it. We moved to a new city, hoping more of it will be there than in the last. We hop from church to church, hoping we’ll find it there. We’re emotionally exhausted, but we keep searching.

Paradise is the world as it was meant to be, everything in order, nothing threatening anything or anyone else, perfect harmony between God and humanity. No sickness or suffering, creation and Creator in perfect cooperation, all needs met, all desires balanced, hearts and minds not only pure, but content. We were created for such a world, but like a beautifully designed piece of pottery that’s been knocked to the floor, paradise has been shattered to smithereens. Between the “already” and the “not yet,” we simply won’t get, in any situation, location, or relationship, anything remotely close to the stunningly perfect beauty of paradise.

So you have a choice. You can give yourself to a constant chorus of situational and relational complaints, making sure you let God and the people around you know that you are not happy at all with the way things are. You can be critical, judgmental, and demanding, making your relationships toxic and yourself unbearable to be around. Or you can stay committed to the delusion that somehow you will find or create paradise. You will try to control what you cannot control and require what will never be delivered. You can be on the constant move, regularly leaving situations, locations, and relationships because they did not measure up, and investing in the new place, with new people, in the hope that it will deliver. You’ll end up lonely, disappointed, and alienated, but you’ll probably keep looking.

Now, none of these options will produce spiritual, emotional, or relational health in you, and they surely won’t leave you with the restful joy of contentment. There is a third option, which the Lenten season can stimulate. How about mourning Paradise Lost? Jesus says something rather shocking in his Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4). We would tend to think just the opposite: “Blessed are those who have no reason whatsoever to mourn.” Jesus is speaking with a full and experiential knowledge of what sin has done to the world. He knows that the world he created is not operating as it was intended to operate. He knows that nothing right now will be like the paradise that once was. He knows the value of recognizing the damage and weeping. Imagine standing in front of your house that contained all your memories and all your possessions after it had been reduced to rubble by a tornado. Wouldn’t you stand there and weep?

Jesus is standing in front of the house that he built, a world filled with beautiful things that he made,  now broken to pieces by sin, and he is saying to us, “Look around. How can you not weep?” Mourning is healthy because it forces you to consider the full weight of the tragedy of sin. Mourning is healthy because it forces you to let go of the delusion that you can turn the rubble into paradise. Mourning is healthy because it makes you cry out for a restorer. Mourning is healthy because it causes you to hold tightly to God’s promise of paradise to come. Mourning is healthy because it teaches you how to be content between the “already” and the “not yet.” Mourning is healthy because when you mourn in this way, the God of all comfort hears your cry and comes near with comfort that is profoundly more healing than a new situation, relationship, or location could ever be.

So this Lent, put your mourning into practice and into words. Let your heart be crushed at what sin has done, so your heart can be comforted by your Savior. And remember to mourn with hope, because your Lord has promised that what now is will end, and what is to come is worthy to be called paradise.

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. What are your greatest disappointments in life, and what deeper desires do those things reveal?

2. How can you “mourn Paradise Lost"—what does that look like in real life?

3. How might mourning Paradise Lost enhance your relationship with Christ?

The best way to deal with the inevitable disappointment of life here on earth is to look with hope toward our eternal destination—the new heavens and the new earth. Read Revelation 21:1–7 and rejoice in your salvation.

Revelation 21:1-7 New Living Translation
The New Jerusalem

21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
3 I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
5 And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” 6 And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. 7 All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children."

2026 Lenten Season - Day 6 - Dying to Live

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 empty tomb stands as an eternal promise to you that God will always finish what he has begun in you and for you.

It is important to remember that at the end of Lent stands a tomb. From the moment he was born, Jesus was marching to his death. He had to be willing to suffer and die in order for redemption to be accomplished and applied. Death was his job description. Death was his destiny. But death was not his defeat, because death was not the end of the story of the Messiah Jesus. What looked like the ultimate victory of evil over good, what looked like a crushing defeat and a sad end to the redemptive story, was, in reality, the greatest victory of divine power and grace that the world had ever seen. The Messiah had come. In his perfectly righteous life, he had conquered sin, but that was not enough. The hope of humanity hung on the question of whether or not he had the power to defeat the ultimate enemy, death. The empty tomb was a glorious answer to that question. The empty tomb is a promise that God will never leave his redemptive work half done. He will complete everything that needs to be done for his chosen children to experience the full range of the blessings of his grace.

What I am going to say next may surprise you; it may even discourage you. But I will explain the importance of this surprising statement. At the end of Lent is your death, as well. During this season,  more than any other, we focus on and contemplate the shocking, cruel death of the only perfect person who ever lived. We meditate on his willingness to die, on the essentiality of that death, and on its benefit to all who put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Death is the motif of this season of remembrance. It is the motif not just because of the death of Jesus, but because, during this season, we hear again another call to die. Death is required of every follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing the full range of the benefits of the new life that the resurrection of Jesus promises us requires that we, too, die. In the gospel, we come to understand that death is the inescapable pathway to life. Consider these passages:

Luke 9:23

And [Jesus] said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Mark 8:35

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 

John 12:24

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 

Matthew 10:38

And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 

Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I  now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 

Romans 6:1– 4

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that,  just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

1 Peter 2:24

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 

1 Corinthians 15:31

I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! 

Romans 12:1

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,  holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 

The gospel offers you something that nothing and no one else can offer: life. But in offering life, the gospel calls you to die. That death is both an event and a process. By God’s redeeming plan, we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection. In that way, your moment of belief is a death and a resurrection. But there is more. Now that you are united with Christ, you are called to a very specific surrender, that is, dying to self. You simply cannot understand the gospel without this call to follow Christ in his death. We are called to die to sin.

We are called to die to that life where we did what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it, and how we wanted to do it. We are called to die to setting our own rules and living however we please. We are called to die to our rulership of our own lives. We are called to let go of our self-appointed sovereignty,

living as if we’re the only master that we need, and to surrender ourselves and all we have to another master. We are called to die to our desires for our own comfort, pleasure, and glory and give ourselves to seek the glory of the King and the success of his kingdom. We are called to die to our own righteousness and find our hope, help, and comfort in the righteousness of Jesus given over to our account. This death that I have just described is a process of daily scanning our lives to see where things still live in us that should not live, then praying for the strength to die once again. Like the death of Jesus, this death is not a defeat, but a huge and glorious victory. 

For everywhere you die, you will be resurrected to new life in that area. It is the continuing resurrection  /transformation/liberation work of sanctifying grace. So this season, how about scanning your heart and life? How about looking for those places where you still need to die to self? How about crying out for the willingness to take up your cross and follow Jesus in his death? How about celebrating the Truth that dying to self is never a defeat, but another step in the ongoing victories of grace that can be yours because you have been united with Jesus in his death and resurrection?

Lent calls you to die, and that is a very good thing!

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. How do you react to the assertion that “at the end of Lent is your death”? Does that sentence make you feel burdened or relieved—and why?

2. Where have you seen victory come out of death in your own life?

3. What areas of your life need to die to make room for greater, more abundant life in Christ?

Read Romans 12:1–2, and consider what sacrifices God is calling you to make as an act of worship.

Romans 12:1–2 KJV

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 5

We continue the tradition of 40 days of Lent-related devotionals (46 counting the Sundays).
We will share "Journey to the Cross" by Paul David Tripp.
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Prayer is abandoning my righteousness, admitting my need for forgiveness, and resting in the grace of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Prayer is one of God’s sweetest gifts to us. The command to pray is itself a sweet and loving gift from a gracious and caring heavenly Father. Prayer is where God welcomes his children to talk with him, commune with him, abide with him. It’s that holy place where the deepest of worship, the deepest of needs, and the most honest of confessions all intersect with the grandeur and glory of divine love. Prayer only works when worshipers are invited into the presence of one worthy of their worship. It only works when the one being prayed to is amazingly patient, boundless in love, constantly forgiving, and sovereign in power. For prayer to be prayer, God has to be God; without this, prayer is an act of religious futility.

But God is God, and he has invited us to bring our true selves to him. It’s not an invitation to bring him a catalog of our self-oriented desires, as if he were little more than a cosmic delivery system for whatever cravings consume us at the moment. No, the heart of prayer is worshipful submission to him, which produces gratitude, humility, vision, and willingness in us. Without adoration and submission, prayer is reduced to a set of demands that make it look as if we are gods, and God’s job is to submit his almighty power to our lordship. It is shocking to consider that what appears to be our most conscious Godward act can actually be evidence of our ongoing idolatry.

So prayer is spiritual warfare. To pray, we need rescuing grace that will free us from the dominion of our own selfish hearts. To get our hearts to that counterintuitive place of adoration and submission, we need the help of the one to whom we pray. It’s hard to pray true “Your kingdom come, your will be done” prayers and even harder to pray these kinds of prayers on the fly. It’s counterintuitive to confess that what I need most is not all the things my heart tends to desire. It’s hard to confess that what I need most is redeeming grace. So prayer is a fight. Prayer takes work. Prayer calls us to go to places we don’t often go and give our hearts to do what we do too infrequently.

Of course, you should take ample time to pray every day. Prayer is a powerful weapon in the spiritual war for your heart that wages every day of your life on this side of forever. But it is also good to give yourself to seasons of prayer. Lent could be one of those seasons where you take time to meditate, examine, and consider. Here are four categories that can organize this season of worship for you.

1. Adoration.
Give yourself to meditate on all the reasons the Lord is worthy of your worship. Make time to take in the full grandeur of his majesty, the amazing extent of his love, the unending zeal of his grace, his incalculable power, the completeness of his sovereignty, the extent of his patience, his ever-operating mercy, the depth of his wisdom, and the pristine perfection of his holiness. As a preparation for adoring prayer, study his word again and let your heart be taken up once again with his splendor. Here you let him loom large in your eyes and place the shadow of his glory over your heart. Here you pray his glory back to him in words of praise that you know fall short of capturing his glory even as you pray them. Adoration stimulates the kind of worship that is not just a sacrifice of words, but the offer of your life to this glorious Lord.

2. Confession.
Confession follows adoration, because the more you gaze upon God, the more you will see yourself with accuracy and the more you will mourn what you see. When Isaiah, in his vision, stood before the holiness of the Lord, his first words weren’t, “Wow, this is amazing!” No, his first words were, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5). It takes a vision of God to have a true and reliable vision of ourselves. We are so often blinded by our own righteousness that it takes the unblemished righteousness of God to expose to us the true degree of our own unrighteousness. Prayer doesn’t just include studying our Lord so that we would be overwhelmed by his glory; we also examine ourselves and the many reasons we have to confess our weaknesses, failures, and sin. And confession only works when the one receiving the confession is forgiving and has the power and willingness to rescue and restore. So come in confession, because the cross assures us of our Lord’s willingness to forgive.

3. Submission.
“Not my will, but yours, be done” is the heart of true prayer. Prayer is submitting the desires of your heart to a kingdom greater than your own. Prayer is submitting your requests to a plan that is greater than the one you have for yourself. Prayer is giving yourself to a set of rules you didn’t make up. Prayer is surrendering your gifts to the glory of someone else. Prayer is so much more than asking; at the center is submitting. So we ask for the grace to submit because, as we have already confessed, we do not have the desire, willingness, or power to do so on our own.

4. Supplication.
Finally, prayer is where limited, weak, and failing worshipers bring their needs before the one who is with them, in them, and for them, and who is delighted to meet those needs. Having already submitted ourselves to the mission of his kingship, we now bring before our Lord prayers that are consistent with that heart of submission. And because we have submitted ourselves to plans and purposes that are bigger than us, we don’t pray just for ourselves but also for others. Our supplications are not individual and narrow, but are as wide and as huge as his kingdom is.

How about giving yourself to forty days of this kind of prayer, with all the study and meditation it requires? And know that as you do, God is tender, gracious, and understanding. He receives our messy prayers. He hears those brief prayers on the fly. He doesn’t reject prayers that reflect inaccurate theology or those prayed in moments when we really don’t know how to pray. Weak, faltering prayers are received by him and warmly answered. But he invites us into something deeper and better. He invites us into something that we could never earn or deserve on our own. He invites us into willing, adoring, restful communion with him.

Why wouldn’t you accept that invitation?

GOING DEEPER
Reflection Questions

1. Does your typical pattern of prayer reflect the reality that “the heart of prayer is worshipful submission” to God? How might your prayers change if you really embraced this definition of prayer?

2. How well do your prayers balance the four categories of prayer: adoration, confession, submission, and supplication? Which area do you tend to shortchange, and what are some practical things you can do to grow in that area?

3. True spiritual warfare-type prayers require study and meditation. What can you do in this Lenten season to give yourself more fully to these tasks?

Pray slowly through the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9–13, focusing on adoration, confession, submission, and supplication.

Matthew 6:9–13 New King James Version

9 In this manner, therefore, pray:

Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. 13 And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 4

We continue the tradition of 40 days of Lent-related devotionals (46 counting the Sundays).
We will share "Journey to the Cross" by Paul David Tripp.

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God intends suffering to pry open our hands so we let go of the things of this earth and hold more tightly to Jesus. 

What has you in its hold? Don’t rush to answer. Stop and give this question some consideration. What do you feel you can’t live without? What has the ability to make or break your day? What has the power to make you very sad? What can produce almost instant happiness? The loss of what would leave you a bit depressed? What do you tend to attach your identity to? What tends to control your wishes? What do others have that causes you to envy? If you could get just one thing, what would it be? The absence of what tempts you to question God’s goodness? What does your use of money tell you about what’s important to you? What fills your fantasies and your dreams? What would the videos of your last six weeks reveal about what has you in its hold? What physical idols tempt you most? What relational idols attract you the most? Is there a place where you’re asking the creation to do what only the Creator can?

Lent is an important tool in the inescapable battle that rages in all our hearts between worship and service of the Creator and worship and service of the creation. Lent calls us to remember once again that sin reduces us all to idolaters somehow, someway. It gives us a season to take time and reflect on things that have taken too strong a hold on us, things that we have come to crave too strongly and love too dearly. It reminds us that often things that we are holding tightly have actually taken an even tighter hold on us.

Here’s the core of the struggle: as long as sin still resides in our hearts, we will have an inclination to ask the physical creation to do for us what the Creator alone is able to do. Everyone is in search of true and lasting joy. Everyone wants peace of heart. Everyone wants to be content. Everyone is searching for life. Everyone wants to be deeply, fully, and perfectly loved. Everyone wants a heart that is satisfied. So everyone is on a quest to find these things even when they don’t know they are. Everyone looks for identity. Everyone searches for something that will give them meaning and purpose. Everyone searches for something to hook their hope to. In this way, everyone is born searching for God. They just don’t know it.

Because creation is so obvious (you can see it, you can taste it, you can feel it, and you can smell it), it’s tempting to look to it to deliver all the things for which we are all searching. But satisfaction of our hearts is not the purpose of the physical creation; it actually has a much higher purpose. Creation was made to point us to the one who alone has the power to satisfy our longing hearts. He is the bread that will satisfy our hunger. He is the living water that makes us thirst no longer. With every vista, on every day, with every new experience and each new look, creation has been designed to point us to God.

But there’s even more to think about here. Looking to creation to do what it was not meant to do will not only disappoint us; it will enslave us. Idols never just disappoint us; they addict us as well. Because the buzz of joy that creation gives us is so short, we have to go back again and again, and soon we’re convinced we cannot live without the next hit. What we tightly hold onto takes hold of us, now commanding of us what only God should ever command: our hearts. And what holds our hearts will dictate our words and behavior.

It is possible to think that you are a God-worshiper because he is the object of your formal religious worship, but when it comes to the day-by-day affections of your heart, something or someone else could be in control. And it’s not always that we are under the control of evil things. Often good things have control over us that they should not have. As I have written elsewhere, good things become bad things when they become ruling things.

So how about letting yourself suffer loss for a season? Let go of things you tend to prize. Let this season of sacrifice loosen your hands and free your heart. Let go of some of your comforts, things that have perhaps comforted you too much, so that your heart is free to seek a better Comforter. Pray that a season of going without will refocus your eyes and reposition your heart. God is good at using seasons of suffering to cause us to let go of our dependency on created things and reach out in dependency to our Creator, Savior, and Lord. 

May this season’s discomforts lead us to find lasting comfort in him.

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. Spend some time meditating on and perhaps journaling about the diagnostic questions from the devotional. Based on that exercise, what are some idols you are tempted to bow down to?

2. What things do you ask the physical creation to do that only God can do? If you’re stumped, take a look at where you seek pleasure and what causes conflict in your closest relationships.

3. Now you are ready to answer the real question: What do you need to give up, for a season or more permanently, to root the idols out of your heart?

Read Luke 9:23–25 and Romans 6:1–14, and prayerfully consider what you might give up during this season of Lent as a way to find your comfort in Christ. 

Luke 9:23–25

Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. 24 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. 25 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed?

Romans 6:1–14

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.
5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. 6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. 8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 10 When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. 11 So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.
12 Do not let sin control the way you live;[a] do not give in to sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. 14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.

2026 Lenten Season - Day 3 To Groan or Not to Groan

We continue the tradition of 40 days of Lent-related devotionals (46 counting the Sundays).
We will share "Journey to the Cross" by Paul David Tripp.
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Keep reminding yourself that you live in a world that is groaning, waiting for redemption, but remind yourself also that the cross guarantees that the groaning will someday end.

Permit yourself to groan; you have valid reasons to do so. Give yourself to seasons of groaning; it is spiritually healthy to do so. And as you groan, remember that your Lord hears your groaning and responds with tender loving care. However, it is important to note that most of our groaning is not only spiritually unhealthy; it is spiritually debilitating. We most often groan because we have not gotten our own way or because something or someone has gotten in our way. Often our groaning is little more than verbal pouting. It is a symptom of our continuing desire to be sovereign so as to guarantee that we will get the pleasures, treasures, and comforts that we have set our hearts on. Sadly, so much of our groaning is self-oriented frustration that ends up making us despondent, discouraged, and a bit bitter.

But we have reason to groan because we live in a world that is breaking under the harsh burden of the destructiveness of sin. Every day we are greeted by corporate sin, cultural sin, institutional sin, and individual sin. Sin never has a good harvest. Sin always deceives, divides, and destroys. It always promises what it can’t deliver and delivers things that were not part of the bargain. Sin masquerades as something it is not and can never be. It is the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing. It has left both humanity and the surrounding creation broken and crippled.

Think about when we typically groan. We groan when we’re disappointed. We groan when we’re grieving. We groan when we’re in pain. We groan when we’re frustrated. We groan when we feel weak. We groan when we’re exhausted. We groan when things are not the way they are supposed to be. It’s right to groan for the right reason. It’s right to be sad at what sin has done to you and everything around you. It’s good to be frustrated when you’ve allowed yourself once again to be hoodwinked by sin. It’s good to groan at how sin makes marriage difficult and parenting a travail. It’s good to mourn the effect of sin on the church and the workplace, on education and government. It’s good to groan when the spiritual battle has left you tired and wounded. It’s right to groan when you see loved ones trapped in sin’s deceit.

Here’s what is important to understand: your groaning is either anger that you’ve not gotten your way or a cry that God would get his holy, loving, wise, and righteous way. Groaning is either, “Will my kingdom ever come?” or it is, “Your kingdom come.” It is good to stop and examine your groaning and to give yourself to a season of the right kind of groaning. After all, you do live in a groaning place. Paul says it this way in Romans 8:22: “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in pains of childbirth until now.”

But it’s tempting to avoid groaning, to keep yourself too busy or too distracted to be able to think about your struggle with sin and the brokenness of the world around you. It’s tempting to try to convince yourself that you are okay and the things around you are not that bad. It’s tempting to numb your heart with the physical pleasures of this fallen world. It’s tempting to put on a happy face when you’re not really happy or happy with how you’re doing. It’s tempting to give non-answers or evasive answers when someone asks you how you’re doing. It’s tempting to try to convince yourself to feel good about things that are not good. It’s tempting to work at not groaning.

So, it takes grace to groan over sin internal and external. It’s counterintuitive to do so. At the point of sinning, sin doesn’t look horrible; it looks attractive. When you’re lusting, you don’t see danger; you see beauty. When you’re gossiping, you don’t think about its destructiveness, because you’re carried away by the buzz of carrying a tale. When you are overeating, you don’t see the sin in what you’re doing, because you are enjoying the pleasure of the sights and tastes of the food. When you’re cheating on your taxes, you don’t think about the danger of a heart that has become comfortable with thievery, because you’re caught up into thinking about how you will spend the money gained. Part of the deceitfulness of sin is its ability to make what is destructive appear attractive.

When you are groaning sin’s destruction, you are groaning because you’ve been blessed with eyes that see clearly, a mind that thinks wisely, and a heart that has been made tender by grace. The problem is not that we groan, but that we groan selfishly or we do not groan at all. Grace will make you groan and then will turn your groaning into rejoicing. In your groaning, you rejoice because you know that God meets you in your groaning.

The apostle Paul says that God hears and answers even when we are without words with which to groan (Romans 8:, And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.) You see, we are not just groaning into the air as some cathartic exercise. No, we groan to someone who has invited us to groan and has promised to hear and to answer. We groan to one who is in us, with us, and for us, who has blessed us with life-altering promises and who will not quit working on our behalf until we have no more reason to groan. We groan to one who has already won the victory over everything for which we groan and who will not rest until all his children are experiencing all the fruits of that victory. In this way our groaning is not selfish anger, but a cry for help to the only one who has the power, authority, wisdom, and grace to come to our aid and give us what we really need. And in our groaning, we confess that too often we groan for the wrong reason.

So, stop and groan. Let your heart feel the burden of the full weight of sin, both internal and external. Scan your life, scan your heart, scan your thoughts and desires, scan your words and behavior, scan the struggles of the people around you, scan the world you live in, and find reason to groan. Let sin’s sadness drive you once again to the cross where your Savior groaned aloud on your behalf as he bore the horrible weight of sin. Take time to let sadness sink in so it may lead you to redemption’s celebration, as you remember that the debt has been paid and the ultimate victory over what makes you groan has been guaranteed.

Yes, indeed, it is good to groan.

GOING DEEPER

Reflection Questions

1. Thinking of both the subject of your groaning and its effects, how can you tell whether your groaning is spiritually healthy or spiritually unhealthy?

2. In what ways do you find it challenging to engage with spiritual lament?

3. How could you more effectively groan over your sin, and what spiritual benefits might that offer?

Read Psalm 74, and then use it as a catalyst for writing your own song of lament. Include both private and corporate confession and need.

Psalm 74 NLT   A psalm of Asaph.

¹ O God, why have you rejected us so long? Why is your anger so intense against the sheep of your own pasture? ² Remember that we are the people you chose long ago, the tribe you redeemed as your own special possession! And remember Jerusalem, your home here on earth. ³ Walk through the awful ruins of the city; see how the enemy has destroyed your sanctuary. ⁴ There your enemies shouted their victorious battle cries; there they set up their battle standards. ⁵ They swung their axes like woodcutters in a forest. ⁶ With axes and picks, they smashed the carved paneling. ⁷ They burned your sanctuary to the ground. They defiled the place that bears your name. ⁸ Then they thought, “Let’s destroy everything!” So they burned down all the places where God was worshiped. ⁹ We no longer see your miraculous signs. All the prophets are gone, and no one can tell us when it will end. ¹⁰ How long, O God, will you allow our enemies to insult you? Will you let them dishonor your name forever? ¹¹ Why do you hold back your strong right hand? Unleash your powerful fist and destroy them. ¹² You, O God, are my king from ages past, bringing salvation to the earth. ¹³ You split the sea by your strength and smashed the heads of the sea monsters. ¹⁴ You crushed the heads of Leviathan and let the desert animals eat him. ¹⁵ You caused the springs and streams to gush forth, and you dried up rivers that never run dry. ¹⁶ Both day and night belong to you; you made the starlight and the sun. ¹⁷ You set the boundaries of the earth, and you made both summer and winter.¹⁸ See how these enemies insult you, Lord. A foolish nation has dishonored your name. ¹⁹ Don’t let these wild beasts destroy your turtledoves. Don’t forget your suffering people forever.  ²⁰ Remember your covenant promises, for the land is full of darkness and violence! ²¹ Don’t let the downtrodden be humiliated again. Instead, let the poor and needy praise your name. ²² Arise, O God, and defend your cause. Remember how these fools insult you all day long. ²³ Don’t overlook what your enemies have said or their growing uproar.