Day 2: The Life

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through Me. “

John 14:6

life [lahyf]

noun:

1. a corresponding state, existence, or principle of existence conceived of as belonging to the soul:

2. the course of existence or sum of experiences and actions that constitute a person’s existence:

3. anything or anyone considered to be as precious as life:

~

In today’s verse, Jesus makes a bold statement. He tells us that He is the way, the truth, the life. The Greek word for life in this verse is zoe, which is, according to the Key Word Study Bible, “the very life-force itself, the vital principle which animates living beings.” The meaning for zoe life, however, goes much deeper than physical life; we are not just living, breathing creatures. We have souls, and this definition of life permanently melds together the physical and the spiritual — imputing to us holiness and righteousness.

But that holiness and righteousness does not come from ourselves. So, where does it come from? It comes from Jesus, who according to Acts 3:15 (NIV), is the author of life to all who trust in Him to forgive their sins. I love this thought of Jesus being the author of life, not just life in general, but your life. When you ask Jesus to forgive your sins and accept His work of grace that He started on the cross and finished at The Resurrection, then you give Him permission to be the author of your life. No matter what age you are, He opens the cover and begins to write the most exciting life story that could ever be written, full of characters and plots beyond your own imagination and expectation. The author of life sacrificed His life so that you can have new, eternal life.

Point to Ponder:

Who is writing the story of your life?

Prayer:

Dear Father,

Life is so much more than a physical existence. It’s easy to forget that truth in today’s world. Help us to grasp hold of the reality of eternal life through Jesus, where we can be holy and righteous before God. May we make the choice to have the author of life write a life story for us that will never end. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

 Previous Posts in This Series

Day 1: Breath of Life

Day 1: Breath of Life

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7

Days 1-12: Devotional Journey to Easter

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die …. ‘” John 11:25-26

Lent is a time of self-examination and self-denial to prepare for Easter.

It’s natural to want to minimize these difficult days leading up to Resurrection Sunday, but then we would miss the whole purpose of Lent. We need to pause and sit with all the things that happened during Jesus’ last 40 days on earth. And we need to pause and sit with ourselves too. We need to see what should be adopted, eradicated, improved upon, and otherwise changed to make us ready for Easter.

Prayer of Examen

For the remainder of this week of Lent, we will focus on repentance and an ancient practice introduced by St. Ignatius called Examen. Examen is exactly what it sounds like. It is an in-depth prayer that helps us to examine ourselves. In the process we may be able to better discern God’s will, find God in all things, and enhance our understanding of God’s creation. This discipline should be done at the end of the day so that you can analyze how your day went. Don’t let the words discipline and analyze scare you. The process can be completed in as little as 10 minutes if you don’t have much time. Try to do it at least two evenings this week, more often if you are able.

Here is a link that will take you to the short Prayer of Examen tutorial. It’s a simple, yet effective process. If you want to, you can journal your answers to the questions, or you can complete them without pen and paper. Feel free to share any of your thoughts in the comment section below.

Pray on!

“Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” Ephesians 4:26 (NIV)

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.” Ephesians 4:31 (ESV)

“But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.” 1Timothy 1:16

He is risen! Happy Easter!

Today we are looking at the final stanza of True Lenten Discipline:

FAST from anger; FEAST on patience.

(Here is the full poem of True Lenten Discipline. Here are the devotions for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,  Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Here is the link to the True Lenten Discipline Podcast.)

God’s word calls us to let all anger be put away from us. From this word let we can infer that we choose what, where, when, how long and if we will be angry. Just as love is a decision, anger is a decision. I have even caught myself thinking, “If he does that one more time, I’m going to become really angry!”

The word let used in this verse is airo which means “to raise, to lift up, to raise upward, to elevate.” This definition then is a reminder to us that when we are overcome with anger, we can choose to lift up in prayer the situation, circumstance, or person that we are upset about. The problem with anger is that it demands vengeance. But God has declared in Romans 12:19 that, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” We need to let our anger go. The longer we nourish it, the more tempted we will be to make others “pay” for how they have hurt us.

By definition the Greek word for anger means, “natural disposition, character, temperament, punishment, anger used as punishment.” In order to satisfy God’s righteous anger concerning our sin, He poured out His wrath upon Jesus through His death on the cross. Jesus took our punishment so God can now give us His grace and patience. Considering how we have been spared from just punishment, what right do we have to choose to continue to be angry with others? Ask God to remove your anger and help you to choose patience instead.

God in His infinite wisdom, has provided us with two different types of patience; one for difficult situations (hypomeno), one for difficult people (makrothymeo). As our verse above shows us, Jesus is our example of infinite patience. If He could have such patience with us, how can we have not extend that same patience to others?

Application: When traced back to its origin, the Greek root word for anger means mountain.Do you have a mountain of anger in your life, something that you can’t seem to let go? Mountains are seemingly huge impenetrable obstacles that are always before us. But God has given us a way to deal with the mountain of anger—by speaking His Word (Matthew 21:21). If an issue has you trapped in chains of anger, find a Scripture that applies to your situation and by faith pray that Scripture into your situation. Keep praying scripture into your situation and by an act of obedience show patience instead.

Because of Easter, because of Christ’s death on the cross, we too can choose to lay aside our anger and choose instead to be patient with others.

Prayer: God, we pray for the willingness to let go of our anger and extend instead the gift of patience. We thank you for your patience with us and your love as demonstrated through Jesus.

Easter morning. The wrath of God was satisfied!

“And do not grumble as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.” 1 Corinthians 10:10

We’ve almost made it to Easter! Today we are looking at the following stanza of the True Lenten Discipline poem.

FAST from discontent; FEAST on gratitude.

(Here is the full poem of True Lenten Discipline. Here are the devotions for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,  Thursday, and Friday.Here is the link to the True Lenten Discipline Podcast.)

Today we will start out by looking at how seriously God takes our attitudes and obedience to Him. Our verse in 1 Corinthians is referring back to Numbers 16 when the Israelites were on their journey out of Egypt. Three men, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, became insolent and were sinning by complaining against Moses and Aaron. They were of the Levite tribe and felt that they should be part of the priesthood too. Their attitudes were spreading to those around them. A dramatic standoff occurred and what happened is that these men and all that belonged to them were swallowed up by the earth.

The next day the entire Israelite Community grumbled against Moses and Aaron blaming them for the deaths, and God was so upset with the rebellious camp that he started a plague. Aaron made atonement for the people’s offense by offering incense, but not before 14,700 people were killed. This plague is what the the verse in 1 Corinthians 10:10 is referring to.

Phew. This is a sad, scary story, but it shows us the importance of our attitudes and obedience to God. God was serious about weeding out evil from the camp, because He knew how fast it spreads. Today, as Christ followers, we have Jesus standing between us and God, making atonement for our sins, but God still takes our attitudes seriously.

The word for grumble is goggyzo, and it means “to murmur, mutter, say anything against in a low tone, of those who confer secretly together, discontentedly complain.”

It’s all to easy to fall into complaining when life doesn’t go the way we want it to, isn’t it? Thoughts of “my life would be better if ….” echo through my mind. The stanza of the poem redirects our thinking to gratitude, to being thankful for what we have, where we are right now. Mary Kane often refers to the illustration of Daniel in Daniel 6:10 as a person who offered thanks even in the midst of dire circumstances.

At the advice of his satraps (who wanted to trap Daniel), King Darius had issued a decree that for the next 30 days, no one could pray to anyone or anything but King Darius, otherwise the person would be thrown in the lion’s den. Verse 10 says that when Daniel heard this, he went home and prayed, giving thanks to God, just as he had done before. Now if anyone had cause to grumble, it would have been Daniel, but instead he chose to count his blessings and thank God. God protected Daniel from harm when he was thrown in the lion’s den.

The word for gratitude is charis, and it means “joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, lovliness.” When we dwell on these things in our lives, it lifts our spirits and puts our focus on God. Let’s cultivate that habit and redirect our focus. When we start to complain about something, let’s stop and mentally list one thing we are thankful for in our life. And the first thing we can be thankful for this Easter is  Jesus’ atonement for our sins, which has given us abundant life.

Application: Today let’s leave behind the “My life would be better if … mentality, and put on the mantle of gratitude and thanksgiving by acutally making a list and counting our blessings. We’ll be able to clearly see God at work in our lives, even if we’re in the midst of a difficult situation.

Prayer: Lord, we do thank you that you loved us so much that you sent Jesus to atone for our sins. Thank you for the gift of eternal life in heaven and the life you have given us to be lived out on earth. Help us to focus on our blessings. Amen.