Welcome to Day 1 of our Lenten Devotional!

Mary and I are ready to start preparing our hearts for Easter. Thank you for joining us!

If you’d like, you can purchase a 3-ring binder to store the devotionals in if you decide to print them off. You could also add blank paper to record any thoughts and prayers as you progress through the devotional.

Please click on the following link to read the devotional.

May God richly bless you as you begin this journey.

Lent Day 1

“My soul waits silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him.” Psalm 62:5.

As we prepare for Easter, we thought we’d start another contest. The rules are simple:

In a few words, tell us what God is doing in your life right now. It’s always encouraging to hear what God is doing in each others’ lives. It may be small, it may be big. How is He at work? Anyone who answers this by commenting below will be entered into a drawing to receive a prize. We’ll post the winner on the home page at the end of the month. So, check back because if you’re the winner, we’ll need to get your address to send you your prize.

Happy Easter and pray on!

Join Jane VanOsdol and guest Ron Stohler, pastor of Growth and Groups at Grace Community Church in Noblesville, Indiana as they discuss the spiritual discipline of silence and solitude. You won’t want to miss this interesting and exciting podcast as you prepare for Easter!

Here’s a bit of what to expect:

Ron Stohler

• A discussion of what spiritual disciplines are and why we need them in our lives.
• Introducing the discipline of silence and solitude and why the other spiritual disciplines spring off of this.
• Discussion over whether anyone can really hear from God.
• Discovering some of the ways we might hear from God.

Resources

Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, 20th Anniversary EditionBy Richard Foster / HarperOne

Sacred Rhythms Participant’s Guide: Spiritual Practices that Nourish Your Soul and Transform Your LifeBy Ruth Haley Barton / Zondervan

Sacred Rhythms: Spiritual Practices that Nourish Your Soul and Transform Your LifeBy Ruth Haley Barton / Zondervan

The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday LifeBy Tony Jones / Youth Specialties

Depending upon which denomination you grew up in, Lent may or may not have been an important time in your spiritual life. The season of Lent originated in the 4th century A.D., and it spans 40 weekdays beginning on Ash Wednesday. The final week of Lent is called Holy Week and includes Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and concludes on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter. Colors in the church are coordinated with the church calendar. During Lent, the colors you typically see in a sanctuary are purple, red violet or dark violet. These particular colors are chosen because they symbolize both the pain and suffering leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion, as well as the suffering of sinful humanity. But, purple is also a royal color, and that very much represents our king Jesus. Black is often used on Good Friday and Holy Saturday to symbolize the darkness that sin brought to the world. Those of the Catholic faith are familiar with Lent because it’s still very much a part of the church today. Not so much for those in the Protestant faith.

Before Martin Luther nailed the Ninety-Five Theses on the church door at the University of Wittenburg (Germany) in 1517, there was only one Christian church and everyone observed holy days, church feasts and the daily office in the same way. With the start of the Reformation, much of these observances were thrown out–because they were associated with “high church.” High church uses liturgical, ceremonial, traditional and Catholic elements in worship.

Today, however, some Protestant churches are finding that maybe they have thrown out “the baby with the bath water,” and are recovering some of these aspects of historical Christian tradition as a way to enrich their spiritual lives–especially in a culture that is becoming increasingly secular.

With that in mind, some Protestant Christians are putting a greater emphasis on Lent by praying and preparing themselves for Easter. Today, we can use this time for introspection, self-examination and repentance. At Only By Prayer, we are going to begin a series on the spiritual disciplines to help equip you to prepare for Easter. If you feel led to do so, you can incorporate some of these practices into your days throughout this season of Lent. We are looking forward to this journey and pray God will bless your through it.

We’ll start tomorrow with the first spiritual discipline. Join us, won’t you?

Pray on!

Some of this information is taken from “The Season of Lent” by Dennis Bratcher.

Jane VanOsdol

As we begin this holy week of Easter, I’d like to focus on some of the activities that happened between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. I’m not necessarily addressing them in the order they happened; just reflecting on these events and why they seem important.

~

Have you ever thought about how fleeting popularity and public opinion can be? In one short week, Jesus went from the heights of adoration as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey with multitudes of people worshipping Him and then plummeted to the depths of despair when even His friends deserted Him–and it felt like His Father did too–as He was taken prisoner and crucified. Let’s look at some of the things that happened during this week.

So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out  those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then He taught, saying to them ” Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.'” Mark 11:15-17 (Chronological Study Bible NKJV)

Wow. This is a little different picture of Jesus than what we usually see. This is a picture of a man indignant about the way His father’s holy house is being treated; so indignant as a matter of fact, that he physically flips over tables and chairs and drives out the people who were running their businesses. What was it about this whole setup that made Jesus mad?

Well, first of all it helps to understand a bit about the temple. The temple where the Jews worshipped had four different courts. Each court was restricted to only certain people who could worship in it. The large outer court that everyone could attend was the Court of the Gentiles. This was the only court that the non-Jews could worship God in. The next court was the Court of Women. Both Jewish women and men were allowed here. The third court was the Court of Israel. Only Jewish men were allowed to worship in this court. Finally, the most restricted court was the Court of Priests. Only the Jewish priests could enter to offer sacrifices for the people.

The actual court that Jesus cleansed was the Court of the Gentiles. You see, all the people were headed to Jerusalem to celebrate the annual Passover celebration. (Remember, the day before many of them had worshipped Jesus as He road into Jerusalem on a donkey.) Each spring about 100,000 pilgrims made their way to Jerusalem for this. And, they all needed  to purchase an animal for slaughter. Being that many of these pilgrims were from out of town, moneychangers made a tidy profit because they needed to exchange all the foreign currency for the pilgrims purchasing from the animal dealers. With 100,000 people needing to purchase sacrifices, you can imagine what a ruckus it must have been in the Court of the Gentiles where the animal dealers and moneychangers had set up shop. Probably the cheating that was going on and the fact that the Gentiles now really had no place to worship were two things that Jesus could not ignore in His Father’s house, so He threw them out.

Jesus took a definitive stand on the atmosphere and the conduct which should be at the temple–and it wasn’t the conduct that He was seeing around him in the chaotic Court of the Gentiles.

Thinking about this story makes me think of how I should be preparing myself for Easter throughout this week. Just as the pilgrims were preparing for Passover, I should be preparing for Easter. I need to take an honest look at myself and in prayer ask God, What is there in my life that I should be throwing out because it doesn’t belong here? What is disrupting the holy atmosphere I need to be cultivating this week?

As often times Easter falls at a busy time of the year, often coinciding with vacation and spring break, it seems that I get caught up in the details of what I need to get done, and before I know it, Good Friday has arrived and I’ve done little to prepare myself for the week.

I think one of the things I want to do this week is to “throw out” any frivolous reading I do and use that time to read the Bible or other Christian works to help me set the right tone for Easter. I want to be sure I take the time to sit down and pray and focus my heart and mind on what is really important this week. I’m sure there are other things God wants me to throw out, too, so I’ll keep an open heart as I go through the week.

I know these are personal decisions to make, but if God speaks to you about something you need to change this week as you prepare for Easter and you feel like sharing it,feel free to leave a comment; you may even encourage someone else to do the same!

Look for another Easter week topic tomorrow and until then, pray on!