What Am I Getting Myself Into?
Should you choose to join us, you will be embarking on a 40 day journey that will challenge you in every way. It will require confession, repentance, self-discipline, effort, dedication, and vulnerability. It’s imperative that you commit wholeheartedly to the whole journey - every aspect is intentional.

This is a group project. You and your brothers will be engaging in this together, including enduring the challenges of abstaining from sweets, snacking between meals, unnecessary use of technology, and of course the cold showers. So, share with one another. We are in this together.

We believe God will use this adventure to shape and mold each of us into the men He has designed us to be.

What is Lent?
Lent is often described as a time of preparation and an opportunity to go deeper with God. The preparation involves a great deal of personal discipline. This means that it’s a time for personal reflection that prepares people’s hearts and minds for Good Friday and Easter.

Lent is a season of 40 days, not including Sundays, that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter Sunday. If you are familiar with narratives in the Bible, the number 40 should sound familiar; echoing things such as the 40 days and nights of rain in Genesis, the 40 years the Israelites wandered in the desert, the Lord gave Nineveh 40 days to repent, and the 40 days Jesus was in the wilderness fasting and praying before beginning His ministry.

Our prayer is that the Lord will use this season of Lent to transform you and prepare you to be the man He made you to be, and the man we as your community need you to be.

First Steps
As you prepare for this journey, there are a couple of things to consider:

1. Count the cost. The invitation comes easy but the follow-through is harder. These 40 days will stretch you and challenge you in every way. We'd like you to go all in. So, read through the disciplines and pray for the strength and endurance for it. Schedule your days and weeks accordingly. Take it seriously - it is the only way to be rightly transformed.

2. Do it together. This journey is not for the faint of heart. You will need encouragement and reminders along the way. Get a group of 3-5 other men to journey with you. Create a text thread together. Consider different ages of men to join you. We call those groups "Foxholes". They are made up of men who have your back - who won't leave a man behind. Let your wife or friends know what you are up to so that they can encourage you.

Join our Lent Study group on GroupMe to share your experience and get advice and encouragement from other men: https://groupme.com/join_group/106167784/6gajaHE3

3. Don't miss the journey. We often embark on endeavors like this with our eye on the destination. That is a good place to start, but to keep your eyes there keeps you from missing the beauty of the journey. The destination is met through a series of small steps put together.

The Disciplines

PHYSICAL DISCIPLINES
Cold Showers only

30 minutes of physical exercise 3 times a week

No use of technology other than what is required for work, bills/finances, and this study (i.e. no social media, TikTok, YouTube, etc.)

You may watch shows as a couple/family, but no individual TV, movies, internet, etc.

Only entertainment that focuses our heart and mind on God

Only music that focuses our heart and mind on God

No video games

Abstain from alcohol

Abstain from tobacco

Abstain from sweets and desserts

Abstain from snacking between meals


SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES
Daily Scripture, Study, and Prayer
(See the 40 Day Devotional on this page)

Fasting (can be specific meals, days, etc.

Attend at least one formal church gathering once a week

Communion each Sunday

Check in with your Foxhole in person or virtually daily/once a week
(Encourage the use of Whatsapp, GroupMe, Zoom, etc.)

Practice sabbath rest one day a week

Find one act of service to do as a group between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday

Cold Showers??
So let’s get this out of the way…Why cold showers?

It is our belief and experience that if you start your day by forcing yourself to take a cold shower, you will be more disciplined to accomplish everything else throughout the day. So, commit now, to yourself and your brothers in the Foxhole, that you won’t cheat or cut corners. Don’t whine about it either, everyone can come up with an excuse for why they can’t do X, Y, or Z…man up and do it. There’s also some major health benefits to taking cold showers; don’t believe me? Look it up.

One last thought on the showers, the exercising, and the abstinence rules: In C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters he makes a profound observation specifically regarding prayer but applicable in other areas of life when Screwtape writes to Wormwood “for they (humans) constantly forget what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.”

Week One | March 5-11

Week 1 (Day 1-6)
Scripture Study: PSALM 1
This week, we are going to spend each day reading Psalm 1. Avoid the tendency of reading it as if you were reading the instruction manual on how to set the delay timer of your coffee maker. Really take in what the author is telling us, words inspired by Yahweh through the Holy Spirit written by human hands. Before you begin each day, be intentional about having a quiet place, slow down, and give time to your Maker, to be with Him. The goal of this week is to practice daily confession and repentance, intentional/specific prayer, scripture reading, and meditation.

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Day 1 (Wednesday, March 5)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. The Puritans thought so much of this practice that there are prayers asking for pardons of sins “both known and unknown”, “remembered or forgotten”.

Read Psalm 1, intentionally digesting each word and phrase and what the intent of the passage is. Meditate on the passage you just read and jot down anything you feel the Lord is saying to you in this time with Him.

Brother, how easy it is to find ourselves taking advice from wicked people, following the example of sinners, or sitting with people who have no use for God. Between our interactions with the people around us, the subtle effects the media we subject ourselves to, and the influence our social media feeds have on us, we are constantly inundated by the three types of people described in verse 1. If the man who steers clear of these pitfalls is blessed, what does that make of us who find ourselves walking, standing, or sitting with them? If just through day to day life we are going to interact with these, what are we supposed to do? In John 17, Jesus is praying to the Father for His disciples and says He does not wish for them to be taken out of the world, but that the Father would protect them from the evil one. Jesus knows we are in this world, He walked the same dirt we do, breathed the same air we do, and interacted with the same people we do.

Later in that chapter He actually prays that the Father would do this not just for His disciples but also for those who believe in Him because of the disciples message…that’s YOU and ME! So maybe today, day one of this journey, we need to examine our lives and honestly evaluate if there are any areas of our lives where we are taking advice from ungodly people, following the examples of sinners, or being influenced by people who have no use for God. Be sensitive to the convictions of the Holy Spirit, confess any sin you may need to, and make today the day you stop walking in ways that are against God.


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Day 2 (Thursday, March 6)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. The Puritans thought so much of this practice that there are prayers asking for pardons of sins “both known and unknown”, “remembered or forgotten”.

Read Psalm 1, intentionally digesting each word and phrase and what the intent of the passage is. Meditate on the passage you just read and jot down anything you feel the Lord is saying to you in this time with Him.

Brother, welcome to day two! Back to back days of sticking to new disciplines, challenging yourself, and intentionally spending time with the Lord. What does it mean to find joy or delight in the law of the Lord? For a lot of us, our minds immediately go to the Ten Commandments. Maybe, when we hear the “law of the Lord”, we think of lists of things we can do and things we can’t do; “just give me the boundaries or the rules” right? If you’re anything like me, it's very easy to get into a legalistic mindset or in a simpler analogy…if the law says the speed limit is 55 and I go over that then I’m going to get nailed. It can be easy to see God as a judge just waiting for you to mess up and then drop the hammer on you. What if we looked at it from a different angle though.

Let’s say you just bought a new car and the auto manufacturer, the maker of the car, provided you with a manual on how to keep the car running in top performance and provide it with the things it needs to operate optimally.
The manual gives you the type of gasoline to run in the car, the weight of the oil to put in the engine, and even what type of coolant to use. But, you read the manual and decide the maker doesn’t know what he’s talking about. So, you decide to pour milk in the gas tank because it's cheaper than gas, and instead of motor oil you put tomato juice in the engine. In a short amount of time you’re going to find out the maker knew what he was talking about. Our Maker has given us a sort of manual to teach us how to operate optimally. The free will He’s given us gives us the ability to do our own thing, potentially to the detriment of the life He’s provided us. When we find ourselves delighting in following the manufacturer’s manual, we’ll find ourselves blessed, performing optimally. In order to guard ourselves from the temptations we looked at yesterday, we need to keep that manual on our minds all the time, read it and know it as if our life depended on it, because it does. If we allow the gospel of Jesus to truly change us from the inside out, we’ll find ourselves loving the things He loves and hating the things He hates.

Spend some time today honestly evaluating how you see the “law of the Lord” and ask God to give you a fresh view of living by it.

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Day 3 (Friday, March 7)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. The Puritans thought so much of this practice that there are prayers asking for pardons of sins “both known and unknown”, “remembered or forgotten”.

Read Psalm 1, intentionally digesting each word and phrase and what the intent of the passage is. Meditate on the passage you just read and jot down anything you feel the Lord is saying to you in this time with Him.

Welcome back my friend. You sir, are on a streak…3 in a row. By now, you’ve probably started to feel some of the disciplines a little more. Some probably aren’t a big deal to you while others may be calling your name. I pray it helps to know that you and your brothers are in this together, maybe take a moment sometime today to share some of the things you’re struggling with with your group.Trees are a big deal in scripture. Verse 3 presents the blessed man as a tree firmly planted by streams of water. Perhaps this imagery takes you back to Eden, specifically what we read about in Genesis 2 where we read about beautiful trees producing good fruit and a stream flowing in the garden watering the plants. Later, in Ezekiel 34 we see prophecy concerning the restoration of God’s people and imagery of trees bearing fruit and fields producing crops. Jesus, in Matthew 7, uses imagery of trees and the type of fruits they bear to help us discern the type of people we are and how to avoid false teachers. There are many other uses of trees in scripture as well.

The question for us is, what kind of tree are we? Are we a tree planted firmly by streams of water? Do our leaves wither? Are we yielding fruit in our season? To bring it closer to home…What kind of fruit am I producing for the people around me? (my family, friends, co-workers, community) Can the vulnerable, tired, or weary find rest in the shade of the tree that I am? Trees can be a source of nourishment, shelter, and life to those around them. Am I? Am I planted firmly beside the only stream of water that provides me life, relying on the Lord to restore me and nourish me?

Take a moment today to evaluate yourself; what type of fruit you’re producing; and if your leaves are vibrant or are they withered and falling off. Ask the Lord to nourish you by His stream and to help you remove anything that may be poisoning your roots.

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Day 4 (Saturday, March 8)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. The Puritans thought so much of this practice that there are prayers asking for pardons of sins “both known and unknown”, “remembered or forgotten”.

Read Psalm 1, intentionally digesting each word and phrase and what the intent of the passage is. Meditate on the passage you just read and jot down anything you feel the Lord is saying to you in this time with Him.

Yesterday, our scripture compared the blessed man to a tree planted firmly by water, producing fruit and vibrant leaves. Today, verse 4 takes a sharp turn and looks at the wicked man, the ungodly, the one opposite of the blessed. The Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, ensures its reader grasps this idea because it says emphatically “Not so the ungodly; they are not so.” We read that the ungodly, the ones who walk in the council of the ungodly, stand with sinners, and sit with scoffers are like chaff which the wind drives away. Multiple times in scripture, we see the Godly and ungodly compared to wheat and chaff. Wheat is the useful, nutritious part of the grain produced by the crop. The chaff is the husk around the seed that must be removed for the seed to be useful. Once the chaff has been separated from the wheat, the farmer would want to get rid of the chaff, leaving only the wheat. The chaff was notoriously lighter than the wheat, so the farmer would toss both up in the air and the wind would drive away the chaff while the wheat fell back to the floor. While both the wheat and the chaff are allowed to grow together for a while, eventually they are separated, and the chaff is driven away by the wind. No matter how wealthy, famous, or powerful the ungodly are, they will be driven away by the wind. Their wealth, fame, power, etc. give them no weight in the eyes of God or His Kingdom of Heaven. The man who won’t be driven away by the wind? He’s the man who delights in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night, being a fruitful tree firmly planted by streams of water. There is no middle ground, no bench to sit on during the game, no third option. We are either godly or ungodly. We are either growing in the nourishment of God or withering from the poison of the world. We are either a firmly planted tree or chaff.

Take a moment today to ask the Lord to fix your heart and mind on Him. Ask Him to help you remove your gaze off of the things of this world that carry no weight.

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** Sunday March 9 **
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. The Puritans thought so much of this practice that there are prayers asking for pardons of sins “both known and unknown”, “remembered or forgotten”.

Sundays are not counted in the 40 days of Lent. Spend the day today remembering Jesus’ death and resurrection. Spend time worshiping with your local church body. Spend time with your family. Meditate on the things we’ve looked at so far in Psalm 1.

You may relax one of the disciplines that is NOT technology related or the cold shower.

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Day 5 (Monday, March 10)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. The Puritans thought so much of this practice that there are prayers asking for pardons of sins “both known and unknown”, “remembered or forgotten”.

Read Psalm 1, intentionally digesting each word and phrase and what the intent of the passage is. Meditate on the passage you just read and jot down anything you feel the Lord is saying to you in this time with Him.

In verse 5, the author continues to press into the experience of the ungodly.
While yesterday, we looked at the analogy of chaff and how wealth, power, and fame have no weight in God’s kingdom, today we look ahead to the judgment, end of the age, and the assembly of believers. As Christians, we believe that sin and evil will be punished at the end of the age. Interestingly enough, Christianity isn’t the only religion that believes in a final ultimate judgment of evil and wickedness. Even many of those who would say they “aren’t religious” would admit to some kind of punishment for evil in the afterlife. For followers of Jesus, that punishment was paid for on a Roman execution device, a cross, outside of the city of Jerusalem around 2,000 years ago. For the wicked or ungodly here in Psalm 1, he or she will bear the full punishment of their sin and wickedness, thus the imagery of not standing in the judgment…picture utter despair and a head hanging low in shame; a person realizing fame, wealth, and power mean nothing when standing in front of the Creator. Just in case the reader thinks this is only momentary shame, the writer drives the point home by emphasizing that the ungodly will not gather in the assembly of the righteous, the family of God.

One day, God will complete the redemption of the plan of Eden. A world where humans, heavenly beings, and the eternal Yahweh will reign together over His creation. A time when His family will fulfill the command in the garden to govern the Earth. He will gather His people from every tribe, nation, and ethnic group to spend eternity with Him. The wicked and ungodly will not experience this. The Bible is clear that those who align themselves against Yahweh, those who do not follow Jesus, will be eternally punished in Hell and separated from Him.

Recall from yesterday the fact that there is no middle ground or third option, we are either godly or ungodly. We are either pursuing Him or we aren’t. Where do you find yourself today? Spend some time today examining yourself and your pursuits. Where do you find your delight? If you are following Jesus and His teaching, take some time today to thank Him for saving you and ask Him to give you a greater hunger and thirst for Him. Also, ask Him to show you people in your life that need this truth, people that are blinded by the things in this world that don’t matter.

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Day 6 (Tuesday, March 11)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. The Puritans thought so much of this practice that there are prayers asking for pardons of sins “both known and unknown”, “remembered or forgotten”.

Read Psalm 1, intentionally digesting each word and phrase and what the intent of the passage is. Meditate on the passage you just read and jot down anything you feel the Lord is saying to you in this time with Him.

Today, we close out our study of Psalm 1 in verse six where the author succinctly compares the righteous and the wicked one last time. The Good News Translation reads “The righteous are guided and protected by the Lord, but the evil are on the way to their doom.” Dr. Tim Mackie states that in verse 1 the Hebrew word ‘ešer which is translated ‘blessed’ in most of our translations could have an alternate translation of “the good life”. This would render it “The good life belongs to the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked…”. If we take that line of thought and bookend it with the beginning of verse 6 we could render it: Those that are guided and protected by Yahweh will experience the good life. This does not mean we will never experience pain, loss, or sorrow, even the mightiest tree needs to be pruned from time to time. It does mean however, that Yahweh “the One who is”, will guide us and protect us through it all. On the other hand, the evil or ungodly are on the way to their doom. The one who rejects the way of the Lord, the one who pursues things that lack eternal weight like wealth, power, and fame are destined to destruction. The books of Ecclesiastes and James both remind us that our lives are like vapor or a puff of smoke. We would do well to keep this in mind as we determine how we will spend our hours and days and the things we fill our minds with. Using the law of the Lord as a list of do’s and don’ts will only leave us frustrated and empty, but understanding the law of the Lord as a compass that leads us to Him and keeping it at the forefront of our day will…well, lead us to the good life, guided and protected by the One who is.

Take some time today to thank the Lord for guiding and protecting you. Thank Him for opening your eyes to the truth in His Word. Ask Him to help you know Him more and to help you keep Him at the forefront of your mind in everything you do.

Week Two | March 12-18
Day 7 (Wednesday, March 12)

Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you.

Genesis 1-2
Start your study today by reading Genesis chapters 1 and 2 and as you read them, try to avoid the tendency to rush through because you think you already know it. Notice the work of Yahweh, the creator God as He brings order out of chaos only by His spoken word. As God gives life to the living creatures, we see where He begins to pronounce blessing over them (v.22 & v.28). He culminates His work in Genesis 2:1-3 and blesses His entire creation. In His perfect creation, Yahweh gives man his work of being fruitful and multiplying, subduing the earth, cultivating and keeping the garden, and being co-rulers with Him. Later in chapter 2, Yahweh declares that He will make the man an ‘ēzer (v.18). The Hebrew word ‘ēzer has been translated into many different English words, the most common being helper. Like most Hebrew words, it is difficult to translate this word into one common English word. Dr. Carmen Imes suggests a better translation for ‘ēzer here is “necessary ally”, “committed partner”, or committed ally. The word ‘ēzer is used multiple times in the Old Testament and all of those times it either refers to an allied soldier who assists in battle or it refers to Yahweh as Israel’s helper. Clearly the word ‘ēzer here should not make us think of a secretary who takes phone calls for the boss.

Here, in Yahweh’s perfect creation, we see man and woman created as his earth dwelling image bearers with the ability to think, reason, cultivate, rule, and subdue. While we will never see the garden perfectly restored on this side of eternity, spend some time in thought and prayer today asking God what needs to change in your home, family, and marriage to make your home a micro-Eden in the midst of a dark and chaotic world. Move to make these changes as the Lord leads.

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Day 8 (Thursday, March 13)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Genesis 3.

Genesis 3

Chaos and curse has entered into the perfect, blessed creation of God. A nefarious being has entered the garden and is bent on dragging God’s creation back into chaos. One view of this scene points out that celestial/spiritual beings were created before Yahweh created His human image bearers and perhaps jealousy played a role in the drama being played out…the first born coveting the blessing given to the second born. You’ll see that theme play out again just a chapter later in Genesis 4.

The drama starts when the seditious snake convinces Eve that Yahweh is holding out on her. God gave a command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the snake conveniently twists and leaves out some words to place doubt in Eve’s mind. In verse 6 we see where Eve sees the tree is good, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and had a desire for the fruit, so she took and ate. As you read through scripture, keep an eye out for that pattern to play out in other situations, see, desire, take…it never ends well. Lets not forget that Adam is standing there watching the whole thing go down and doesn’t do a dang thing. He passively watches Eve get raked over by the serpent and then when he sees she doesn’t drop dead, he takes and eats as well.

Shortly after this, Adam and Eve are exposed in their sin and attempt to hide from God. Thousands of years later, and how much like them are we!? We see, desire, take, and eat and then run from the One who can offer forgiveness and healing. Then when we get exposed, we’re standing there in our pathetic fig leaf covering that we tried to create on our own.

God hands out punishment to the snake, the earth, the man, and the woman. We also get a glimpse of a prophecy regarding the future messiah in v.15. In addition, we see the first blood shed to cover man’s disobedience in v.21. It says God made clothes out of animal skins to cover Adam and Eve in their exposed nakedness. An innocent animal had to be sacrificed for those coverings to be available. Exiled from the garden and separated from continual communion with God, Adam and Eve start the long road of humanity faced with the choice of blessings or curses.

As you reflect on today’s reading, ask God to bring to mind areas where you’ve seen, desired, taken, and eaten and ask Him for the forgiveness we all so desperately need. Also, take an honest assessment of where you’ve allowed passivity to creep into your day to day life and ask God to help you root it out and kill it in order to be the man he created you to be. A good friend once said ‘If Jesus shows up to your house and knocks on the door to see how things are going inside, He isn’t asking to see your kids or your wife, He’s asking to see you.’ How are you doing as you work to keep the nefarious snake out of your garden? It isn’t a passive thing God has called us to do. Pray and ask God to help you step up and be the man He’s called you to be.

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Day 9 (Friday, March 14)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Genesis 11:27-12:9.

Abram/Abraham

In Genesis 12 we see Yahweh choose a man named Abram to begin the process of claiming God’s own portion of a people group. God tells Abram that He will make him a great nation and bless him and He also tells Abram that through him, Yahweh is going to bless all of the nations that were dispersed at Babel. The blessing promised to Abram and his descendants would ultimately come in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Abram, who will later be named Abraham, is asked by Yahweh to leave everything that is safe, secure, and prosperous for him (in essence, his life) and to trust Yahweh completely. We read in 11:30 that Abram’s wife was barren so how in the world is the Lord going to make Abram into a great nation, much less one that all other nations on earth will be blessed by? In v.4 we see that Abram obeyed “as the Lord told him to do.” Blessed are those who find joy in obeying the law of the Lord, right?

Charles Stanley has a few things to say about this passage that are pertinent for this study. 1. Obedience is a major characteristic of a person who is mighty in spirit. 2. We grow in obedience by having faith that God is trustworthy and can do whatever He wants. 3. We grow in obedience by promptly responding in obedience. 4. To walk in the Spirit is to obey the initial promptings of the Spirit.

Take some time today to be still and quiet before the Lord and allow yourself to sense any areas in your life where you need to be obedient to a prompting from the Lord. Move in obedience with faith and prayer and see what the Lord does.

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Day 10 (Saturday, March 15)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Exodus 32:1-24.

I threw it in the fire, and out came this calf

Exodus 32 finds the Israelites at Mt. Sinai, they have escaped Egypt and Pharaoh, they’ve seen Yahweh provide manna and quail, they’ve even seen Him provide water from a rock. Yahweh has verbally given Moses the Ten Commandments, He’s provided him with the plans for the tabernacle, and given him many communal laws to govern them as they learn to live together as their own nation. The Israelites have even seen Yahweh envelope Mt. Sinai in a great cloud with thunder and commune with Moses. At the end of Exodus 31, Yahweh finishes speaking with Moses and gives him the two tablets of stone written by His very finger.

Moses has been on the mountain with God for quite a while now and the Israelites are getting restless and convince Aaron, Moses’ brother, to make them a god who will “go before them”. This very statement is a slap in the face to Yahweh because earlier we saw Yahweh in a cloud and pillar of fire, and the Angel of the Lord led them out of Egypt and through the wilderness. Aaron instructs them to take the gold earrings out of their ears and bring all the gold to him. The fact that the Israelites even had this gold was a gift from God which He gave them after the 10th plague as we see in Exodus 12:35-36. Aaron melts down the gold rings and makes a molten calf, as a symbol representing one of Egypt’s deities that would’ve been created hoping the deity would inhabit the symbol. To make matters worse, Aaron tells them these former blessings that have been turned into an idol are the very god that brought them out of Egypt (v.4). The level of debauchery that occurs in v.6 is lost in our English translations of the text.

Yahweh is aware of what is going on and informs Moses of the abominable catastrophe. Yahweh is ready to destroy them and start over with Moses and make him a great nation, but Moses acts as a mediator on behalf of the Israelites and Yahweh relents. Moses makes his way down to the camp and walks into the debauchery. He shatters the tablets on the ground, takes the idol calf, grounds it into a powder, pours it into water, and makes the sons of Israel drink it.

How many times in our lives does God pour out blessings on us, and in our pride, arrogance, and sinfulness do we make those blessings into idols and things we worship? Who among us finds our identity in our job? Our family? Our house? Our vehicle? Who among us has taken good food, good drink, or talents and abused them for our own appetite? How quickly we can be consumed by things given to us by a generous God who is then willing to give us over to those idols and makes us drink every bit of it (Romans 1:24-25).

Take some time today to do some honest inventory on yourself regarding blessings that you’ve turned into idols, areas in your life where you worship the created thing instead of the Creator. If you need some help determining what those things might be, start by examining how much time you spend doing your favorite hobby, or watching your favorite sports team and compare it to how much time you’ve spent communing with God. Be honest before the Lord, confess and repent of things you’ve made your god, and then do what is necessary to destroy those idols in your life before they destroy you.

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Sunday, March 16
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you.

Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you.

Sundays are not counted in the 40 days of Lent. Spend the day today remembering Jesus’ death and resurrection. Spend time worshiping with your local church body. Spend time with your family. Meditate on the generous offer of blessing and life. Remind yourself of blessings in your life, both big and small.

You may relax one of the disciplines that is NOT technology related or the cold shower.

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Day 11 (Monday, March 17)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Deuteronomy 30.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today…

Deuteronomy is the fifth scroll of the five scrolls of the Torah, the first five books of our Bible. In essence the scroll of Deuteronomy is a retelling of the journey of the Israelites. Moses has the second generation of the wilderness roaming Israelites and is reminding them of all Yahweh has done for them. He’s reminding them how far the Lord has brought them. He’s giving a retelling of the law that was given at Sinai. He’s reminding them of the two roads set before them, the choice of blessing or curse.

In chapter 30, Yahweh is reminding Israel that obedience brings blessing and wickedness will bring curse. The beauty of the first part of this chapter is that God is telling His people that even in the midst of their rebellion, restoration is possible. If you’re familiar with the Bible, you know that everything mentioned here is going to occur to Israel in the future. Israel will fall away from obeying Yahweh and will serve other gods which will result in them being exiled into captivity. One of the best known verses in the Old Testament is Jeremiah 29:11, ‘for I know the plans I have for you…’ but what a lot of fans of this verse don’t realize is that Jeremiah is telling God’s people who have walked away from Him, ‘buckle up and get comfortable, you’re going to be in captivity for many years, but God is eventually going to bring you out.’

In Deut. chapter 30 verse 3 Yahweh tells the Israelites that He will restore them and have compassion on them. Verse 6 tells them the Lord will cut out the hardness of their heart so they can love the Lord with all their heart and soul. Verse 9 tells the Israelites the Lord will prosper them in all the work of their hand…if they obey the Lord and keep His laws. This should bring to mind a tree planted firmly by streams of water that yields its fruit in season and whose leaves never wither, and are prosperous from Psalm 1. Remember Psalm 1 as you read 30:15-20. Yahweh has set before them life and prosperity, and death and adversity (v.15). Later in v. 19 we see the choice of blessing and curse and the appeal to choose life by loving the Lord, obeying His voice, and holding fast to Him.

My friend, maybe at some point you were enticed by the nefarious and began to walk in the path of the wicked, or stand with the sinners, or hang around with the ones who have no need for God. Know that as long as you have breath in your lungs, restoration is possible. Confess your sins, call on Jesus, commit to obey Him with all your heart and soul and He will cut out the calloused heart you’ve built up. Restoration is possible, you need only to turn to Him. Maybe you’re like me, and this is part of your story.

Take a moment today to thank God for restoration and for not giving up on you.

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Day 12 (Tuesday, March 18)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Joshua 24.

As for me and my house

In the last chapter of the book of Joshua, Joshua is reviewing Israel’s history beginning with Abram’s father and concluding with their current standing in the promised land. Through the words of Joshua, Yahweh reminds Israel of His dismantling of the Egyptian gods, how He rescued them when they were caught between the sea and a massive army, how he enabled them to destroy the wicked pagan inhabitants of the land. He concludes this section with a beautiful reminder…everything the Israelites see before them is a gift from him, the land on which they did not labor, the cities they did not build, and the fruit of the land they did not plant.

Joshua then shifts to speaking directly to the Israelites about their current standing and he calls them to a decision, blessing or curse, life or death, to fear Yahweh and serve Him in sincerity, or to be seduced by other gods and serve them. In one of the more famous verses in the book, Joshua declares that he and his family will unashamedly serve Yahweh. Don’t miss the fact that there is no middle ground and there is no sideline; we either serve the God that created the universe, or we will serve other gods in one way or another.

Later in verse 19, Joshua reminds the Israelites that Yahweh is holy, meaning He is set apart, like no other. I can’t help but think Joshua made this statement because he wanted to make sure the people knew they can’t “serve” God however they want to, they can’t come to Him on their terms, they have to serve God on His terms. Over a thousand years later, Jesus would emphatically drive home this point when He stated He is the way, the truth, and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6).

Under Joshua’s godly leadership, the Israelites entered the promised land, conquered the wicked pagan groups inhabiting the land, and saw God bless them immensely. Spend time today reflecting on how you’re leading your family, your place of business, your classroom, and your church. In v. 15 Joshua reiterates what the Bible is clear on, men must lead their homes. So, how are you doing? What type of example are you setting for your wife? Your children? Your siblings? Maybe you’re a young man still living at home, how are you honoring your parents? If there is room for improvement in any of these areas, make the necessary steps and ask God to impact positive change in your life. Obey His leading in any areas He convicts you of.

Week Three | March 19-25
Before you begin each day, be intentional about having a quiet place, slow down, and give time to your Maker, to be with Him. The goal of this week is to practice daily confession and repentance, intentional/specific prayer, scripture reading, and meditation.

The rest of the Old Testament is an honest assessment, warts and all, of individuals and Israel as a whole and how their walk with Yahweh progressed at times and fell away at others. We even see at times how in the midst of the worst depravity, an individual who was willing to stand for the Lord could impact his world for God and His purposes. Even the best of these individuals still had their faults and failures though. The restoration of God’s kingdom and the invasion of that kingdom into the darkness and evil in humanity wouldn’t come until the arrival of the promised messiah, Jesus. Not only would Jesus bring the Kingdom of God with Him, but He would reverse the curse we read about in Genesis 3.

Day 13 (Wednesday, March 19)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Luke 2:1-7 and Galatians 4:4-5.

But when the right time finally came

In his gospel, Luke makes it a point to give details to his readers about what time in recorded history these things occurred. Interestingly enough, in his letter to the church at Galatia, Paul uses the phrase “But when the right time finally came” when he was referring to Jesus being born to Mary and Joseph (Gal. 4:4 GNT). Scholars believe the last prophet to speak in the Old Testament was Malachi, and afterward God was silent for approximately 400 years. So what happened in those 400 years?

Alexander the Great was born in 356 BC and made it his goal to “hellenize the world”. As he conquered the Persian empire (which included Jerusalem and the surrounding area), his goal was to spread Greek language and culture. This is why the Old Testament is mostly written in Hebrew and the New Testament is mostly written in Greek with some Aramaic. The written Greek language introduced the use of known vowels. After Alexander’s conquests, different people groups over vast swaths of land began to use a common language. Later, as Rome began to conquer the world, they introduced a system of roads, hard surfaced highways that stretched across the empire all the way to north Africa, including through Jerusalem and the surrounding area. A few decades before the birth of Jesus, the Roman empire began using what we would call a postal service.

As empires rose and fell, the world began to move out of ancient times and the transmission of information became easier and faster, even among people groups of different beliefs and ethnicities. The trustworthy, guiding hand of the Lord was behind all of it (Proverbs 21:1) so when the time was right, the gospel message could be spread across the known world easier, faster, and more accurately than ever before possible.

So why the history lesson today? God’s hand is evident throughout the course of history and as we begin to look at Jesus we need to see that these things actually happened. People say they “believe in Jesus” but sometimes it's with about as much conviction as whether they believe in Santa Claus. Jesus really lived and walked through towns, deserts, and mountains that you and I can go visit today. Today, reflect on the things that it took to get you here, in Ola, Georgia, at Sharon Church in 2025 and see the Lord’s hand in it. Thank the Lord today that you were made for this moment.

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Day 14 (Thursday, March 20)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-35.

Born of a virgin

Matthew and Luke both make it a point to emphasize Mary’s virginity and the supernatural conception of Jesus by the third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit. If you’ve grown up in church, you’ve likely heard this hundreds of times and even outside the church’s teaching, people are familiar with this idea. Make no mistake, the birth of Jesus to a virgin is a core belief of Christianity, so it is important to know why this detail matters. There is way more to it than God just showing off and displaying his power of creation by a virgin being able to give birth to a son.

Paul tells us in Romans 5:12 that sin spread to the entire human race through Adam’s breaking of God’s law in the garden of Eden. This is where we get the Christian doctrine of original sin, that all people are born sinful and guilty before God and without God providing a way for sins to be forgiven, we are separated from Him. Despite what the band Earth, Wind, & Fire may claim, we are not born with a heart of gold that the world then turns cold; we are born with a heart bent away from God, in all its selfishness and vindictiveness. Now granted, the world may work with our internal sin nature, much like gasoline will intensify the flames of a fire, but as David points out in Psalm 51, we have been evil from the day we were born.

Jesus being born of a virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit, breaks that generational sin curse. Had Jesus been born by ordinary means, the sin nature would have already been present in Him at birth. But, since He was born outside of ordinary means, He was born innocent and right before God and then obeys God’s law as He grew from a baby into a man. This is why the virgin birth matters. The virgin birth also fulfilled a messianic prophecy from Isaiah 7:14. God was calling his shots hundreds of years before Jesus was born.

Take some time today to really think about the birth of Jesus. Thank the Lord for His willingness to step down from heaven and live among us. Sit in awe for a while at the power and all knowing intelligence of the Lord and His secret mission to provide a way for us to be made right with Him.

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Day 15 (Friday, March 21)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Luke 4:1-13.

Take the fight to the enemy

Jesus began His public ministry by being baptized by John the baptizer in the Jordan River. This is also the event in which God the Father publicly identifies Jesus as His son (Mark 1:11). The gospels tell us that the event that follows Jesus’s baptism is the 40 days He spends in the desert fasting and confronting a nefarious being identified as the devil (diabolos). We may see these three challenges as temptations, but the devil is actually slandering Jesus and challenging His identity in addition to trying to tempt Him. Notice twice the devil says “If you are the Son of God”. The devil knows well who he is talking to, and Jesus knows who He is confronting, in Matthew He calls him Satan.

In Jewish tradition, especially second temple Judaism, the wilderness, desert, and anywhere outside the territory of Israel was seen as the realm of false gods, the very gods that Yahweh is referring to in the first of the Ten Commandments. Jesus going into the desert is Him going to confront Satan on his home turf after He (Jesus) has made himself publicly known. He’s taking His fight to the enemy. As you read through scripture, avoid the modern day push to see Jesus as a passive pushover who wouldn’t be mean or say hurtful things to anyone or anything. See Him for who He is, the god-man, the Divine Warrior who has come to take back what is rightfully His.In his second challenge, Satan tells Jesus that if He’ll bow down and worship him, he’ll (Satan) give Jesus dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth. This clearly shows that Satan is not all knowing like God is and that he has no idea about the covert operation that is going on right before his eyes. Jesus is going to take dominion over all the kingdoms but not in the way Satan thinks He is.

In the third challenge, Satan even quotes scripture found in Psalm 91. The funny thing is, he rips it out of context and conveniently stops quoting it right when the Psalm talks about trampling cobras, lions, and tannîn (Hebrew for the chaos monster). The very scripture that Satan quotes, when read in context, talks about how the one who obeys the law of the Lord will crush the head of snakes! (Gen 3:15)

Spend some quiet time today thanking Jesus for coming and confronting Satan on our behalf. Ask Him to guard you when Satan tries to slander you and make you second guess who you are as a follower of Jesus. Also ask Him to guard you from wicked people and nefarious powers who use and twist scripture for their own gain.

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Day 16 (Saturday, March 22)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Luke 4:31-41 and 5:12-14.

He is willing

Shortly after Jesus takes the fight to Satan as we read about yesterday, He begins to restore the Eden promise in ways that people can see. We read about Jesus confronting demons who recognized Him, healing Peter’s mother-in-law, and healing a crowd of people as the sun is setting. Don’t miss the fact that the text says He healed “each one of them” or “every one of them” who were willing to come to Him (v.40). Then, in chapter 5 verse 12 we see a beautiful story of the healing of a man covered in leprosy.

Scholars believe the term leprosy in the Bible covers a large number of skin diseases and not just leprosy. Anyone who was discovered to have leprosy was basically an outcast from society. By law they had to stay away from social areas, live in their own encampments, and make sure that everyone who may come near them knew they had such a disease. These people lived lives of absolute solitude and were likely hopeless that life would ever be any different. But then this man, on this day, in this town meets Jesus.

I like to think this man was probably at the end of his rope, in utter despair, and ready to give up. The moment he sees Jesus, he falls on his face and begs Him, calling Jesus ‘Lord’ and having faith that if Jesus is willing, then he will be cleansed. Instead of moving away from him, the Divine Warrior moves toward him. According to Old Testament law, anything this man with leprosy touched would have been deemed unclean. But here, now, Jesus reverses the curse and the clean touches the unclean and we see that ‘immediately’ the leprosy left him.

Maybe you find yourself covered in grime, dung, and sores. Maybe years of unrepented sin has left you unrecognizable. Maybe no one wants to be around you or associated with you because of just how dirty you really are. Come to Jesus. Fall on your face before Him and ask Him to make you clean. Feel Him as He touches you and what was once dirty and unclean has now become clean and whole. He can do this. The One who confronts Satan in the desert, the one who casts out demons with the spoken word, will put his arm around you and tell you that you are now clean, you just only have to ask.

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Sunday, March 23
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you.

Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you.

Sundays are not counted in the 40 days of Lent. Spend the day today remembering Jesus’ death and resurrection. Spend time worshiping with your local church body. Spend time with your family. Meditate on the generous offer of blessing and life. Thank Jesus for not leaving you alone in slavery and chained to sin.

You may relax one of the disciplines that is NOT technology related or the cold shower.

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Day 17 (Monday, March 24)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Matthew 14:22-33 and Mark 6:45-52. (Job 9:13, Psalm 89:10, and Isaiah 51:9-10)

Treading on chaos

Jesus walking on water is a familiar story to people inside and even outside the church. Many sermons have been preached out of these verses you just read, even sermons on the faith of Peter and then being distracted by the waves. But what if there is more to this than breaking the laws of physics when a man walked on bonded molecules of hydrogen and oxygen? What if there is intentional imagery of the Divine Warrior treading on and crushing chaos under His feet?In Job chapter 9, Job is discussing how powerful Yahweh is and in verse 13 he refers to an ancient mythical sea monster that represented chaos named Rahab (this is not the Rahab from Joshua 2). Some translations translate Rahab into ‘monsters of the sea’ or ‘allies of the proud’, but the imagery is clear that the almighty God is so powerful, He treads on the ancient chaos monsters. Again in Psalm 89:10, the psalmist is praising the power and might of the Lord and refers to crushing the great sea monster.

In Isaiah 51:9-10, the power of the Lord over Rahab is mentioned again, this time referring to cutting the chaos to pieces and making a road in the sea for the redeemed to cross over, a reference to the Israelites leaving Egypt.

Jesus, is the physical embodiment of God from these passages and here in these verses in Matthew and Mark, He is treading on the chaos of the deep. Did you notice in verse 48 when Mark wrote “and He intended to pass by them.”? Some scholars think this is intentional imagery to invoke the reader to see the Divine Warrior, laser focused and going to battle the enemy and crush the chaos under His feet. The sea and the desert represented chaotic, evil, and pagan areas in the Bible. We’ve now seen the Divine Warrior go into the desert to confront Satan and then crush the chaos monster under His feet in the Sea of Galilee.

No matter what is going on in your life, Jesus can step into the chaos and bring order. The same Divine Warrior that goes out into the desert to confront Satan and walks across the chaos of the deep can step into your life and speak calm and order into the chaos. If you have any areas in your life that feel chaotic and scary, invite Jesus into those and ask Him to bring order.

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Day 18 (Tuesday, March 25)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Matthew 16:13-20.

Jesus throws down the gauntlet

There is a lot going on in this short passage that can be missed by readers who aren’t willing or able to study the time period, context, and location of this scene. Before you protest that you aren’t able to devote the time or energy necessary, realize that we are at a time like no other in history where we have information right at our fingertips. Between books, educational videos, podcasts, and trusted pastors we’ve lost our excuses to not be educated on the things of God; and our watch history on our streaming platforms would argue against not having the time to devote to such things. That being said…

This scene takes place in a region called Caesarea Philippi, a place known in the Old Testament as the region of Bashan. This area was known for its wicked and evil worship of pagan gods and awful religious practices such as child sacrifice and sexual debauchery of the most grotesque kind. At the time Jesus and His disciples are here, there is a grotto devoted to the worship of the Greek pagan god Pan, and they are likely standing on a summit overlooking what was called the gates of hades. After three years of public ministry, this is where Jesus, the Divine Warrior, chose to question His disciples about who He really is.

Not only is Jesus asking His disciples who they say He really is, but He is standing on the doorstep of evil itself and challenging the principalities and powers of evil and wickedness. The covert operation of how Jesus was going to pay the penalty once and for all for mankind’s sinfulness was coming to fruition and Jesus went to pick a fight at the gates of hell. As one Bible scholar Dr. Heiser puts it, “Jesus goes to the Devil’s front door and challenges his claim. Jesus wanted to provoke Satan. Why? Because it was time for Jesus to die and propel God’s secret plan into motion.” So when Jesus said the gates of hell would not overpower the church, He was saying the invasion of the Kingdom of Heaven is here and nothing is going to stop its march forward to the end of the age.

How does it make you feel to know that Jesus was willing to go to Satan’s doorstep and pick a fight with him for no other reason than to reverse the curse and save your soul? Today, thank Jesus for His willingness to see the plan to completion and ask Him to help you see Him for who He is, the God-man who stood up to the most sinister evil we could imagine, stared him down, and a few days later wrenched the keys to death and the grave from his hands.

Week Four | March 26-April 1
Day 19 (Wednesday, March 26)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Matthew 16:24-27, Mark 8:34-38, and Luke 9:23-26.

Jesus or the world, but not both

Shortly after Jesus throws down the gauntlet at the gates of hades, He draws a line in the sand for His disciples. Peter has proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah, the anointed one, the Son of the living God, and Jesus confirms His proclamation. Since that is true, it means that Jesus is more than just a great teacher, or a prophet. As C.S. Lewis once said, Jesus is either Lord, a liar, or a lunatic and the pages of scripture make each of us decide. If we proclaim Him as Lord, it binds us to following His teaching, and if we follow His teaching, we need to examine the way we see our lives, in essence our paradigm.

Around 40 years ago, for many people, church became a hobby or social club. The foundation for this shift was actually laid during the industrial revolution. Before the industrial revolution, men and women worked side by side in their homes where men bore the responsibility of the success of the homestead, the spiritual wellbeing of the home, and the education of the children. When men were pushed from the home into factories, it created an avenue of dual lifestyles, the way a man acted at home/church versus the way he acted and carried himself at work. This dualism still continues today.

When Jesus asked His disciples ‘who do YOU say that I am’, it required a response from them and from us. If we believe Him to be Lord, then these verses we read today make it clear, we must burn our messed up paradigm to the ground and start over with the clear understanding that HE alone is Lord. The stakes are clear, Jesus or the world, but not both. We are either the tree planted firmly beside the stream of water, or we are the chaff blown away by the wind. This decision will result in the type of fruit we bear in all walks of life, at home and at work.

Where do you find yourself today? Is church just a social club or hobby for you, something you do if you don’t have anything better to do that day? Is following Jesus something you attempt to do until it cramps your lifestyle, the way you spend your money, time, and resources? Do some deep soul searching today and decide who YOU say Jesus is. If you profess Him as Lord, ask Him to give you the strength and ability to live your life accordingly, and never look back.

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Day 20 (Thursday, March 27)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Matthew 17:1-8.

The transfiguration

A week after Jesus threw down the gauntlet at the gates of hades, and implored His followers to burn their messed up paradigms to the ground, we read about what the Bible calls the transfiguration. Christian tradition has the transfiguration occurring on Mt. Tabor in the region of Galilee. However, some scholars believe the transfiguration occurred on Mt. Hermon, the location where they were six days before during the gates of hell proclamation. There are a few reasons these scholars believe this. First, scripture says they went up a high mountain in both Matthew and Mark. Tabor is approximately 2,000 feet, while Hermon is over 9,000 feet. Also, there is nothing in scripture between the mention of Caesarea Philippi in chapter 16 to the transfiguration that says they left the area. So, why does it matter?

IF, the transfiguration occurred at Mt. Hermon, then here is Jesus, the Divine Warrior, revealing Himself in His full divine glory right in the heart of what was believed to be the doorstep to the wicked and evil principalities and powers of darkness. As one scholar, Dr. Heiser puts it “He was putting Satan and the powers of darkness on notice: I’ve come to take back what is mine. The Kingdom of God is at hand. In effect: ‘I’m here, now do something about it.’” Heiser goes on to say “It’s no accident that immediately after the transfiguration, Jesus turned toward Jerusalem and began telling His disciples He was going to die there. They didn’t want to hear it. But Jesus had baited Satan and the rest of the evil powers into action. There would be a sense of urgency to get rid of Him. And that’s just what Jesus wanted. His death was the key to everything.”

Remember, Satan and his demons do not have the same equal powers of God. They do not know everything, they are not all powerful, and they cannot be everywhere at the same time (omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence). Satan and the evil powers and principalities of darkness are playing checkers, and Jesus is playing chess…and He’s about to checkmate them.

Spend some time in thought today and be in awe at the manifold wisdom of God (Eph. 3:10). Sit in the presence of the Divine Warrior who came for you and for me to do something we couldn’t do for ourselves. See Jesus in a new light, that of a warrior who came to take back what was rightfully His and picked a fight with the ultimate Goliath that we didn’t stand a chance against.

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Day 21 (Friday, March 28)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read John 2:13-22.

How long does it take to weave a whip from cords?

Most scholars say that Jesus cleansed the temple twice during His earthly ministry, once here in John early in His ministry, and again in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the week leading up to the crucifixion. Jesus’s actions in both accounts show how ‘religion’ was being used and manipulated by religious leaders of the day for selfish gain and oppression. The Jesus we see in these accounts was the epitome of aggression under control.

First, some historical background. Rome ruled the known world by this time and as we saw several days ago, that includes the area of Jerusalem. Since the governing authority was Rome, the currency used throughout the region was roman coins with the imprint of caesar on them. Jewish law required strict adherence as to which coins were used in the temple and what type of animals were fit for sacrifice. The offering which was required by Old Testament law was a half-shekel to be given in Jewish coinage which required money changers. These money changers would add on an exchange fee which they would pocket. This exchange fee not only violated Jewish law regarding interest, but also made it more difficult for the poorest people to abide by the law.In addition, Jewish law required that any animal brought to be sacrificed had to meet strict criteria including being unblemished. It would be difficult if not impossible for a devout Jew to make a multi day journey to Jerusalem with an animal that was suitable for sacrifice at the temple. Temple priests, seeing an opportunity, would set up approved animal vendors to sell sacrificial animals at a high price.

This is where we pick up the scene in John 2 as Jesus enters the outer court of the temple. Verse 15 specifically says he made a whip out of cords, He didn’t grab one, and He didn’t just make one appear…He stood there and wove a whip out of cords. He then proceeds to drive the animals out of the temple, flips over the tables of the money changers scattering their coins, and orders the pigeons to be taken out. Try to imagine the scene; what a gutsy thing to do. He didn’t fly off the handle in uncontrollable rage, there’s nothing to indicate he physically abused any persons or animals, and He did it in open daylight, not the dark of night or behind closed doors.

In Beautiful Outlaw, John Eldredge even points out how gentle Jesus was with the pigeons. Instead of flipping their tables over and possibly hurting the fragile birds, He orders them to be carried out. John McArthur writes of the scene “There must have been great tumult all around, but in the midst of it, Jesus appears unruffled; fierce in His anger, perhaps, but resolute, single-minded, stoic, and wholly composed. He is the very picture of self-control. This is truly righteous indignation, not a violent temper that has gotten out of hand.” Voddie Baucham says the definition of meek is power under control, and that is precisely what we see here.

The fact that Jesus flipped tables and chased animals out of the temple with a whip He made, doesn’t give us license to be a jerk. My pastor has pointed out that if what you’re known for is flipping tables then something is wrong and he’s right. However, maybe we should look into our own lives and see if there are some tables we need to allow Jesus to flip, or some animals that He needs to chase out. Let’s also make sure we aren’t being pharisaical and hindering people from coming to Jesus by holding them up in the outer courts due to our own selfishness or religiosity. Pray and ask Jesus what He wants to do in your life in light of today’s study.

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Day 22 (Saturday, March 29)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Matthew 11:20-30.

Meek and humble

Yesterday we looked at how Jesus handled the religious elite, the pious ones who created roadblocks for the poor, weak, and outcasts of society…precisely the sinners Jesus came to save. Before that, we looked at the Divine Warrior and how He went to pick a fight with Satan and the evil, wicked principalities and powers. But, how did Jesus describe Himself? How is Jesus, the Almighty incarnate, toward sinners?

Out of the four gospels of the New Testament, the scripture you just read is the only place where Jesus describes Himself. English translations use words like gentle, lowly, gentle at heart, lowly at heart, but the Greek words here are meek and humble. Recall from yesterday the definition Voddie Baucham uses for meek, power under control. The example Voddie uses is how he plays with his grandson when they are wrestling, he says “I could crush his head, but I wouldn’t.” This is the picture of Jesus, the Divine Warrior, who came to crush the head of the serpent but is gentle with the one who comes to him weary and heavily burdened. The King of kings, the Creator who the apostle John says spoke the universe into existence, tells the weary and burdened sinner that he is humble.

Just one verse before today’s scripture reading, Jesus is called a friend of sinners. John Macarthur says this “He earned (this) derisive moniker from His critics. When He encountered even the grossest of moral lepers, Jesus always ministered to them with remarkable benevolence; without delivering any scolding lectures or sharp rebukes.” For the remainder of today’s devotion, I’m going to quote directly from Dane Ortlund’s book Gentle and Lowly…

“Consider your own life. How do you think about Jesus’s attitude toward that dark pocket of your life that only you know? The overdependence upon alcohol. The lost temper, time and again. The shady business about your finances. The inveterate people-pleasing that looks to others like niceness but which you know to be fear of man. The entrenched resentment that bursts out in behind-the-back accusations. The habitual use of pornography.

He himself is not trapped in the hole of sin with us; he alone can pull us out. Not only can he alone pull us out of the hole of sin; he alone desires to climb in and bear our burdens.

Do not minimize your sin or excuse it away. Raise no defense. Simply take it to the one who is already at the right hand of the Father, advocating for you on the basis of his own wounds. Let your own unrighteousness, in all your darkness and despair, drive you to Jesus Christ, the righteous, in all his brightness and sufficiency.

The Christian life boils down to two steps:
1. Go to Jesus
2. See #1”

So, where do you find yourself today, on the 22nd day of Lent? Ask the Lord to expose any dark pockets of your life that need freedom and healing. Ask Jesus to do precisely what He’s waiting to do, to climb down into the hole, bear your burdens for you, and pull you out to freedom.

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Sunday, March 30
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you.

Sundays are not counted in the 40 days of Lent. Spend the day today remembering Jesus’ death and resurrection. Spend time worshiping with your local church body. Spend time with your family. Meditate on the generous offer of blessing and life. Thank Jesus for not leaving you alone in slavery and chained to sin.

You may relax one of the disciplines that is NOT technology related or the cold shower.

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Day 23 (Monday, March 31)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read John 11:1-44.

He hates all that plagues you

The resurrection of Lazarus is a familiar piece of scripture to anyone who has been in church for a decent amount of time. There are a multitude of sermons and lessons that can be pulled from the 44 verses you just read. For those Bible scholars among us who wanted to show off their memorization prowess, the easiest verse in the Bible to memorize can be found in these passages…v. 35 “Jesus wept”. For today, let’s focus on how Jesus, the Divine Warrior feels about the things that plague us.

Recall back in Genesis 2 when God gave Adam his work of tending and keeping the garden of Eden. God gave Adam the freedom to enjoy all of His goodness and blessing that He created and told him he could eat of any tree in the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God then warned him that if he chose to disobey God that he would surely die. Just a chapter later, we see Adam and Eve eating from the very tree that God told them not to, and all of creation was fractured and death entered the scene. Fast forward to Jesus’s day and a little town outside Jerusalem called Bethany.

Recall a few days ago when we looked at the righteous anger of Jesus as He flipped the tables in the temple courtyard. Now, remember a couple of days ago where we read about Jesus’s love for the weary and heavily burdened sinner who comes to Him. Dane Ortlund writes that Jesus is “the perfect human, who loves too much to remain indifferent. And this righteous anger reflects his heart, his tender compassion. But because his deepest heart is tender compassion, he is the quickest to get angry and feels anger most furiously; and all without a hit of sin tainting that anger.”

How this all relates collides in the Greek in verses 33 and 38. Most English translations render this as Jesus being “deeply moved” or something along those lines. The Greek word here is embrimaomai, and the root of the word is brimaomai which literally means to snort with anger. Ortlund goes on to write “Jesus’s inner state is one of profound fury. Jesus approached the grave of Lazarus, in a state, not of uncontrollable grief, but of irrepressible anger.” Why? Because it was never supposed to be this way. What you and I experience outside of the garden is chaotic deterioration, the very curse He came to reverse. “He hates with righteous hatred all that plagues you.” The pain you feel at the death of a loved one, He hates it. Your friend’s addiction to drugs or alcohol, He hates it. The pride that’s destroying your marriage, He hates it. The pornography you keep running back to that’s destroying your soul, He hates it.

“Let Christ’s heart for you not only wash you in his compassion but also assure you of his solidarity in rage against all that distresses you, most centrally death and hell.” - Ortlund

Spend some time today sitting in quiet solitude knowing that Jesus is down in the grime with you, hates that you’re there, and wants to pull you out. Ask Him to use the same power that brought Lazarus out of the grave, to free you from sins that have a stronghold in your life.

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Day 24 (Tuesday, April 1)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Romans 8:9-17.

You gotta hate what you’re firing at

The puritan, John Owen, wrote the book The Mortification of Sin in 1656. In 2016, director Antoine Fuqua released the remake of the film The Magnificent Seven. Granted, the book and film have nothing to do with each other, and Mr. Owen would probably roll over in his grave if he knew that I just mentioned his classical puritan work in the same paragraph with a Hollywood movie. However, the two collided around 2021, but more on that later.

Romans is arguably one of the apostle Paul’s greatest works. In it, he presents a systematic biblical doctrine to Jew and Gentile believers in Rome. He begins by walking the reader through the consequences of unbelief, wickedness, and evil living; the very people Psalm 1 says the blessed person is not like. He then makes sure the reader understands that the whole world stands guilty before a holy and righteous God.

Paul then states the one justified is justified through faith in Jesus Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection. In chapter 6, Paul says that those who have put their faith in Jesus and follow Him as Lord are dead to sin, having been crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. In verse 12, Paul tells us not to let sin reign in our mortal body so that we obey its lusts…but to present ourselves to God as those alive from the dead…For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. In chapter 8 Paul elaborates on the work of the Spirit in the believer. He tells the Jesus follower, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, because if you live according to the flesh you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. This is the scripture John Owen based his book on. His more famous quote from the book is “be killing sin or it will be killing you”. Let that sink in for a moment, you have an active role to play. We saw yesterday where Jesus hates with righteous hatred all that plagues us. But what about you? Do you hate it? Do you tolerate sin in your life? Do you have pet sins that you have convinced yourself you can control? Do you tolerate sin in your garden (your house)? Do you really hate the way you lose your temper? Do you really hate the way you lust after that woman who isn’t your wife? Do you really hate the lies that you tell?

Paul tells us it’s BY the Spirit that YOU put to death the deeds of the body. In the movie The Magnificent Seven, Goodnight Robicheaux is teaching farmers how to shoot rifles due to an impending invasion by wicked and nefarious men. When he yells fire, they pull their triggers and every one of them misses the human shaped target they are shooting at. Shocked and angry Goodnight yells at them “You gotta hate what you’re firing at!!!” And that’s when it clicked. Do you really hate what you’re firing at?

Perhaps another illustration will help courtesy of Matt Chandler. A lot of us treat our sins like a puppy that we just brought home. We think the puppy is cute and we take it out and play with it when we want to. Eventually that puppy starts chewing on your shoes, destroying your furniture, and poops in the middle of your bed. The sins we tolerate in our life are no different. We think they aren’t a big deal, but they begin to destroy us little by little until they ruin us. As Matt says, you need to put a bullet in that puppy. Shocking? Yes. Memorable? You bet it is.

Pray today and ask the Lord to bring to mind the sins in your life you tolerate and toy with. Ask Him to help you see them the way He sees them. And then ask Him to empower you through His Spirit inside you to put a bullet in them. My friend, you gotta hate what you’re firing at!

Week Five | April 2-8
Day 25 (Wednesday, April 2)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Revelation 3:14-22

Lukewarm and lovin’ it

First off, a confession, the title of today’s devotion should be credited to Francis Chan and his podcast sermon of the same title. Much of what is discussed in the devotion will be a condensed version of his sermon so since you have time on your hands, go look up his sermon of this same title and really get your toes stepped on.

As long as I can remember, well intentioned teachers, youth ministers, and evangelists have used the phrase lukewarm Christians. The problem is, this phrase is nowhere in the Bible and is in fact an oxymoron. Perhaps a better term would be lukewarm cultural conservatives (morally speaking, not political). I can recall growing up and hearing teachings that led me to believe that even if I wasn’t committed to following Jesus in every aspect of my life, it was OK because at some point I’d prayed a prayer and at least I wasn’t going to hell when I died. The problem with that message is that it’s nowhere in the Bible.

Chapters 2 and 3 of the book of Revelation are short letters from Jesus, directed to churches established by the apostles. The letter we just read to the church at Laodicea could just as easily be written to the church in America. Or to drill down even further, to households who attend churches in America. In verse 17 Jesus tells the church “You say I am rich and well off; I have all I need” and then goes on to expose the truth “you do not know how miserable and pitiful you are! You are poor, naked, and blind.” The fact of the matter is, it’s likely no one reading this is concerned about where their next meal is going to come from or where they are going to sleep tonight. It’s hard for us to relate to Jesus’s parable in Matthew 6:25 and following because we think we’re self sufficient.

These are some statistics pulled from the internet:
- If you made $1,500 last year, you’re in the top 20% of the world’s
income earners
- If you have sufficient food, decent clothes, live in a house or apartment,
and have a reasonably reliable means of transportation, you’re among
the top 15% of the world’s wealthy
- If you earn more than $50,000 annually, you are in the top 1% of the
world’s income earners

These statistics put most of us reading this in a dangerous place, a place where religion is a hobby, and Jesus is more like a butler we ring a bell for when we need something we ourselves can’t provide, instead of the Lord of our lives. We’ve spent the last month looking at the choice of blessing and curse and what God says the blessed life is.

In Revelation, Jesus raises the stakes and tells us that if we’re lukewarm, it makes Him want to vomit. He tells the lukewarm they are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. The Bible has been clear, and this study has hopefully shown that there is no middle ground. There’s only two choices and being lukewarm isn’t one of them. It’s not possible to read this passage of scripture and conclude that someone who makes Jesus want to vomit and that He calls wretched, blind, and naked is a follower of Him and will spend eternity with Him.

The conclusion of today’s study requires some intense self reflection. Where do you stand today with regard to the two choices the Bible lays out before us? Where do you stand in light of the last several days of study? Do you hate what God hates? Are you willing to kill it? Are you lukewarm and lovin’ it? Rest assured, lukewarm men will produce lukewarm families. Spend some time today confessing to the Lord areas of your life you haven’t given over to Him and ask the Holy Spirit to give you the strength to give them up, burn the ships, and never look back.

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Day 26 (Thursday, April 3)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Ezekiel 36:22-38.

I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh

The prophet Ezekiel ministered during Judah’s decline and during their exile to Babylon, some of their darkest days. Even in their exile and captivity, Yahweh, through Ezekiel, gave scripture like the piece you just read as a promise for future restoration and hope. The Lord’s promises in verses 25-27 were written to the Jews in exile, but they are for all believers who place their hope and faith in Jesus Christ.

It would be easy to go through the last several days of study and see it as behavior modification, that we just need to try harder, or work harder. The Bible is far from a collection of ancient scrolls passed down through millenia to inspire behavior modification. The Bible, from the opening pages of Genesis to the conclusion in Revelation point to the finished work of Jesus. The fact is, none of what we’ve looked at the past several days is possible in our own strength. The only way we will even see the sin in our lives, recognize our need for a savior, or have a desire to kill our sin and obey the Lord’s commands is through the work of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

We are born with a heart bent away from God, a heart of stone as Ezekiel writes. But the Lord promises He will wash us clean from our sin and idols, and that He will remove that heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. He promises to put His Spirit in us and cause us to want to follow His laws and commands. Did you catch it? His Spirit inside us will cause us to want to do these things. He will do the work, He will cause the change, we just have to surrender. This is the regenerative work that occurs in us when we place our faith in Jesus and profess Him as Lord of our lives. This is the catalyst that causes us to push back against evil and wickedness, invade the darkness, and love like Jesus loves.

In verse 31, the Lord tells His people that they will remember their evil ways and deeds that were not good, and they will loathe themselves for their iniquities and detestable practices. There will come times in our walk with Jesus that we will be reminded of detestable things we have done. In those moments, we need to be reminded of the core truths of the gospel that saved us. That while we were sinners, Christ died for us. In his letter to the church at Galatia, Paul is writing to believers and in chapter 1 verses 3 and 4, he reminds them of the gospel that saves them. We would do well to daily remind ourselves of that same gospel, especially in moments where we are reminded of our former selves. Never forget that the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

One last thing, did you catch the language in verse 35? There’s a promise that God will restore the land that was desolate to become like the garden of Eden. This is Eden imagery, a reversal of the curse. This is the work that God can do in our hearts, in our homes, in our lives. As you read scripture, learn to be attentive to hyperlinks throughout the Bible that connect the finished work of Jesus to a reversal of the curse and restoration of man to God.

Today as you reflect on this scripture, examine yourself and your heart. Thank the Lord that He did the work and that He removed your heart of stone and gave you a heart of flesh. Ask Him to remind you today of the gospel that saved you and to remind you daily.

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Day 27 (Friday, April 4)

Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read John 15:1-11.

Abide

What does it mean to abide in something? The Greek word here is menō, it’s a verb whose root can be translated “to continue to be present”, “to be held or kept”, and “to remain as one, not to become another or different”. So when Jesus says in verse 4 that we are to abide in Him and He in us, it sounds like there is some intentionality on our part and His. Jesus goes on to say that a branch that does not abide in the vine cannot produce fruit. This seems to be common sense but how guilty are we of trying to “do better”, to stop that habitual sin, to be a “good husband, son, or dad”, or be obedient to the Word of God in our own power? Willpower will only get us so far. Walk through your closest vineyard and you aren’t likely to hear the sounds of frustration of groaning and straining coming from the branches attached to the vines. They simply remain attached because that’s what they were made to do, and by remaining attached they produce clusters of fruit.

We saw in Genesis 1 and 2 when God chose to make man, He created us with a purpose, to commune and co-rule with Him. We were made to be with our Creator. Saint Augustine wrote “You made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You.” Perhaps this is why nothing satisfies our hearts outside of abiding with Him. If we were made to be with our Creator, and Jesus uses the analogy of a vine and branches to help us understand, then anything we do outside of our created purpose is going to leave us lifeless, fruitless, and frustrated.

Jesus goes on to make sure His followers understand that apart from Him, we can do nothing. This absolutely destroys any ideas of behavior modification or self improvement. In fact, it could be argued that one of the most successful methods of the enemy is convincing us we need to “be better” with regard to some behavior, but then either convincing us that we don’t need to spend time with Jesus or helping us fill our lives with useless things so that we buy into the mirage that we don’t have any time available. Jesus then drives the point home that any branch that does not abide in Him eventually dries up and it's only use is to be thrown in the fire. A life that does not spend time with the Lord will lose its purpose, become frustrated, wither, and dry up.

As we abide in Jesus and He in us, our desires are shaped by Him, and our asking will fall in line with His. This is the truth Jesus speaks in verse 7. The more we abide in Him and the life giving sap of the vine pours into us, we will not only resemble the vine, but we will bear much fruit. The intentionality of abiding with Jesus grows out of a love for Him and a desire to spend time with Him.

Recall in the definitions earlier, one was “to remain as one, not to become another or different.” As men, we often find ourselves enamored by things of this world and as our heart desires those things we begin longing for something different. We lose sight of our purpose and what we were created for – to commune with God and bear fruit from that relationship.

After a month of practicing the disciplines in this study, have you found areas in your life where you can abide more with the Lord? Consider being intentional about guarding those areas after this Lent season is over. Practice discipline and self control in how much of your time you give away to things the world tells us we need, when all we really need is to abide with our Creator.

Ask the Lord to help you abide more in Him and ask Him to produce the fruit in your life that He wants.

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Day 28 (Saturday, April 5)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Philippians 2:12-18 and Phillippians 4:8-13.

Now do it!

Despite what some people may think, we’re not going to find a verse in the Bible that says God helps those who help themselves. We’re also not going to find a verse in the Bible that would make us believe that God is going to do everything for Christians. If you remember a few days ago, we saw in Ezekiel where the Lord will place His Spirit in us which will cause us to want to follow His laws and commands, but there is still the action of executing that must take place. As long as we are in this broken, earthly body, the believer will have a will of the Spirit and a will of the flesh battling inside him. Don’t forget, you gotta hate what you’re firing at…

The Bible shows us that the Lord will do certain things for the follower of Jesus, but the believer must then respond in faith. The Lord will even provide the strength for crying out loud! Contrary to what our favorite athletes might think, Paul didn’t have hitting a baseball or shooting a basketball in mind when he proclaimed that he could do all things through Christ who gives him strength. This verse has been appropriated so much that we tend to gloss over it and miss the richness of what it's actually saying.

In the pieces of scripture we read today, Paul is in essence imploring the believers at Phillippi to bear the fruit of a right relationship with God through the very power supplied to all Jesus followers. To do everything without complaining or arguing? Yep, through the strength provided by Jesus. Be innocent and pure while living in a world of sinful and corrupt people? Yep, through the strength provided by Jesus. Dwell on things that are true, honest, pure, just, and lovely? Yep, through the strength provided by Jesus. Let’s make it more personal…To be innocent and pure while working in that accounting office/construction site/classroom with people who could care less about God? Yep, through the strength provided by Jesus. But lest we forget so quickly from yesterday…apart from Jesus, we can do none of this.

The Lord will supply the illumination of the Holy Spirit so we can be aware of our sin. The Lord has supplied the means of salvation from that sin. The Lord will supply His Spirit to lead us to want to obey His commands. The Lord will supply His strength to bear fruit and be the people He has called us to be. We just have to accept it, apply it, and do it. Now, do it.

Today, ask the Lord to give you the strength you need to live the life He wants you to live. Thank Him that He doesn’t leave you to do it in your own strength.

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Sunday, April 6
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you.

Sundays are not counted in the 40 days of Lent. Spend the day today remembering Jesus’ death and resurrection. Spend time worshiping with your local church body. Spend time with your family. Meditate on what it means to be a fruit bearing branch and thank the Lord for giving you the desire, means, and strength to do it.

You may relax one of the disciplines that is NOT technology related or the cold shower.

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Day 29 (Monday, April 7)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read James 5:13-18.

Reset the breaker

Have you ever gone to plug in an appliance in your kitchen or bathroom only to find out it won’t turn on? Something is wrong and it isn’t receiving the power it is supposed to. The lights are on in the house so you know the power bill has been paid and there isn’t an issue with the power getting knocked out from a storm. So, why isn’t the appliance you need getting any energy from the outlet? Once you inspect the outlet, you realize the GFCI breaker has tripped for some reason and you need to press the red button to reset the breaker so there’s power restored to the appliance. In a loosely interpreted way, our prayer life is similar to this.

For the last few days we’ve been looking at abiding in Jesus and what it means to live the life of a Jesus follower through the power and strength He gives us. But what happens when something interrupts that power? In James chapter 5 verse 16 we read that the effective prayer of a righteous person can accomplish much. James then uses Elijah as an example of the power of prayer but makes sure he points out that Elijah had a “nature like ours”. Elijah wasn’t perfect, and neither are we. Interestingly, the Greek word for effective and accomplish in verse 16 is energeō. Energeō looks like the English word energy and the definition is to be operative, be at work, put forth power. So, what does the power in verse 16 hinge on? The righteous person, the person who keeps the commands of God, whose heart is right with God, whose heart has no unconfessed sin in it.

Psalm 66:18 says “If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” If we are praying and asking the Lord to give us the strength to live the life He wants us to live and produce the fruit He wants us to produce, but we know there is something in our lives that isn’t right with God, He will not hear our prayer. He will hear our prayer of confession and repentance of that sin, and He is eager and willing to forgive it. But until we deal with the unconfessed sin in our lives, He will not hear our prayers, even the prayers for strength to live the lives of obedience to Him.

Maybe over the last several days you have felt the call to ask for the Lord to give you the strength to live the life He’s called you to live. Maybe you’ve even prayed in earnest for that power, but you know there is unconfessed sin in your heart. If you know there is sin in your heart that needs to be dealt with, then deal with it, now! Until you do, the breaker is going to be tripped and you won’t be able to tap into the power that is readily available to you. Isaiah 59:1-2 says “Don’t think that the Lord is too weak to save you or too deaf to hear your call for help! It is because of your sins that He doesn’t hear you. It is your sins that separate you from God when you try to worship Him.”

Spend time in reflection and prayer today and confess any sin you know is present in your heart. Ask Jesus to go deep into the dark corners of your heart and to shine light on anything that needs to be brought to Him.

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Day 30 (Tuesday, April 8)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Luke 14:25-33.

Give it up

Living in the 21st century in America, it’s easy to become possessive of things. We make ownership claims of “my house”, “my family”, “my job”, “my truck”, and “my money”. As men, many of us are raised and conditioned to this line of thinking, and in one sense, it’s not completely wrong. The issue is, we aren’t owners, we are stewards. We’ve been supplied things in our life to manage or look after that ultimately belong to someone else. Just like Adam was placed in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and care for it, we’ve been placed in our specific spheres of influence to cultivate them and keep them for Kingdom purposes.

In verse 33 of Luke 14, Jesus tells His followers that none of them can be His disciples unless they give up everything they have. This wasn’t a call to a vow of poverty and to physically give away all of our possessions. It was a call to surrender. It was a call to recognize what the psalmist in Psalm 24 recognized, that “the world and all that is in it belong to the Lord; the earth and all that live on it are His.” Or the psalmist in Psalm 50 who quotes the Lord saying “and yet I do not need bulls from your farms or goats from your flocks; all the animals in the forest are mine and the cattle on thousands of hills. All the wild birds are mine, and all living things in the fields.”

There’s a name on the tag of everything that exists, and it isn’t ours, it’s the Lord’s. This includes our lives and our bodies. How we spend the time we’ve been given, the resources we’ve been provided, how we treat the families we’ve been blessed to be a part of, and how we treat the people God has placed us around reflect whether or not we understand what Jesus is calling us to in verse 33. It means waking up each day and choosing to die to ourselves. It means giving up any claim we may think we have on anything in our lives and choosing to steward everything God has given us in ways that please Him. It means seeing the two paths before us, we can choose to do it God’s way and find life to the fullest, or we can choose to do it our way and wither and die as we give our worship to the created instead of the Creator.

As of today, you’ve completed 5 weeks of practicing self discipline, being more intentional about spending time with the Lord, and being a better steward of the blessings God has provided you. As this plan comes to a close in the near future, the choice will be yours on how you fill your days and weeks. Ask the Lord today to give you a fresh perspective on the blessings in your life and how you steward the people and things that ultimately belong to Him.

Week Six | April 9-15
Day 31 (Wednesday, April 9)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.
Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Romans 12.

Do not be conformed, but be transformed

An officer once told his subordinate that life at work is like a board on a wood deck with a bunch of nails in it. All of the nails are expected to be uniform across the board. If there’s a nail that is sticking up, then expect that nail to get hammered down until it looks like the others. He said “If you’re going to be the nail that continues to stand out, then expect to get hammered on until you look like the others. They don’t like things that are different from them.”

The world is a lot like this story of nails and boards. Romans 12:2 echoes a thought process presented throughout the Bible, that a follower of Jesus should not look like the world. If the world is a board and the people are nails, the follower of Jesus is going to stand out from the others. If we stand out, we shouldn’t be surprised when the world tries to hammer us into submission and conform to its expectations. Paul tells his readers in Romans that the way to not conform to this world is to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Through that transformation and renewal, we will be able to discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. We’ll be the tree planted firmly by streams of water.

The Greek word for transformed in this passage is metamorphoō which we get the English word metamorphosis from. Think of a butterfly from science class which undergoes a change from a caterpillar to a butterfly, a change of the form or nature of a thing into a completely different one. The moment we profess our faith in Jesus and follow Him as Lord, we are being changed from one thing into a completely different one through a process. Paul tells us it's a process of a renewal of our minds. We renew our minds by being intentional about our relationship with the Lord. If we spend time reading and studying scripture, in prayer, and in communing with Him, He will transform us from the inside out. We will begin to look more and more like Jesus the more we spend time with Him.

If you’ve been sticking to this plan for the last 5 weeks, there’s probably been a few times someone has realized there is something different about you both spiritually and physically. Hopefully, you’ve taken that opportunity to share with them what the Lord is doing in your life lately. We are all given the same 1440 minutes in a day, how we choose to spend them is up to us.

Thank the Lord for the work He is doing in your life to metamorph you into something completely different from your old self. Ask Him to help you be intentional in spending time with Him for the rest of your days and to be faithful in the renewal of your mind. Also, don’t be surprised if the lukewarm people in your life are the ones hammering the hardest.

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Day 32 (Thursday, April 10)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22.

Keep the channel open

Scholars believe this letter that Paul wrote to the Jesus followers at the church in Thessalonica was probably his earliest letter written. Thessalonica at the time of Paul’s letter was a thriving city in the Greek region but under Roman rule. If you recall from ancient world history, Greece had a pantheon of gods they worshiped and between some of the religious practices, and the Roman way of life, sexual immorality was rampant. Jesus followers in this area at this time were subject to intense persecution, not just from the local government, but also from families and communities who would’ve disowned them after their proclamation of Jesus as Lord. Their adherence to Jesus’s teaching would’ve not only made them stand out in their communities, but also hated because of their counterculture living…remember, the nails in the boards don’t like it when a nail is different from them.

This first letter to the church at Thessalonica is one of Paul’s more uplifting letters he wrote. When you have time, read the whole letter, it can be read in under 10 minutes. Paul is pleased to find out the church is thriving even in the midst of persecution and he tells them to continue growing in the Lord, to continue to be transformed by the renewing of their minds!

As Paul is closing out his letter to the church, he gives them some marching orders encouraging them to keep heading in the right direction. Pay attention to some of the things he says, keeping in mind all the things we can do through Christ who strengthens us: warn those who are undisciplined, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone, make it your aim to do good to other believers and to everyone, be joyful and thankful. Tucked away in all of this, he tells them to pray without ceasing.

As men, we often have a tendency to just handle stuff as it comes, we’re fixers. (which by the way is why your wife gets irritated when she wants you to just listen to what is going on in her life and not try to fix it). If it has to do with anything you’ve been professionally trained in, you feel confident in your self sufficiency and handle it as if it’s second nature. Usually, if we’re honest, praying comes to us as a last resort. When we’ve exhausted all of our resources, we go to God frustrated or desperate. But what if our line of communication with the Lord was always open? What if we were so aware of the presence of God in our lives and all around us, we naturally went to Him with everything? God wants to be that involved in your life. We discussed a few days ago what can happen if the GFCI breaker gets tripped in our prayer life and how to reset it. When the power is flowing freely, be mindful to always be tapped into it.

One last thing on prayer. Romans 8:34 tells us that Jesus is actively interceding for us. Bible commentator Robert Murray McCheyne said “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.”

Spend time in prayer today asking the Lord to make you aware of His presence in your life, ask Him to help you keep the line of communication open with Him at all times. Act on these things and practice talking with the Lord throughout your day.

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Day 33 (Friday, April 11)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.
Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Hebrews 12:1-13.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint

The Bible is full of sports analogies, running races, boxing, conditioning our bodies, etc. In chapter 12 of Hebrews, the writer uses a qualifying word for the race we are running, endurance. Sprinters don’t need much endurance, they just need to cover a short distance as quickly as possible. Compared to soccer players, baseball pitchers don’t need much endurance either. The author of Hebrews wants to make sure the reader understands that if we’re going to follow Jesus, it’s going to require endurance.In the chapter before this, the author lays out what some scholars call the Hall of Faith, describing the role faith played in many well known people from the Old Testament.

In verse 1 of chapter 12, he is telling us to keep these people in mind as we run our races of faith. Their lives weren’t perfect, far from it, and it would be good for us to be familiar with these people and their backstories.
As we trip and stumble through our race, it can be encouraging to see the kind of misfits God is able to use.

As we’re putting into practice all the things we’ve discussed over the last several weeks, it’s important for us to remember the life of a Jesus follower is a marathon, a race run with the expectation that it will be long. The author tells us that throughout this race we must keep our eyes on Jesus, be in tune with Him, communicate with Him, know Him. Also, don’t miss the call to lay aside every hindrance and sin that easily entangles us. This should take our minds back to hating what God hates and killing the sin in us.

Hopefully, you’ve been faithful to the physical exercise included in this plan, at least 30 minutes a day, three times a week. If it’s been a while since you’ve exercised consistently, maybe you notice a difference in your strength or your endurance. Our walk with the Lord is no different. The more you make scripture study, prayer, and intentional time with the Lord a part of your life, the better conditioned you’ll be to run the race set before you. Some days you may move faster than others, here and there you may feel like all you did was trip and stumble forward that day. To pull from Eugene Peterson’s book by the same title, the Christian life is a long obedience in the same direction.

Make it a point over the next several months to become familiar with the people mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11 and their backstories. Ask the Lord to help you run the marathon before you with endurance, knowing that some days will be better than others but that all days are moving in the same direction. Ask the Lord to help you keep your eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

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Day 34 (Saturday, April 12)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Ephesians 6:10-18.

Spiritual Warfare

In order to understand what Paul had in mind when referring to spiritual warfare, we first need to have a picture in mind of what is going on. Once sin entered into God’s creation, the holiness of God and the darkness of sin could not be in the same place at the same time. Picture if you can, two large circles, one on the left and one on the right. The circle on the left is the world and the darkness that permeates the world due to sin and rebellion. The circle on the right is the Kingdom of Heaven and the light that the truth brings, ready to invade the darkness.

When Jesus announced that the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived (Matt. 4:17), He was proclaiming that the invasion of the darkness has begun. In our picture of circles, the circle on the right moved toward the circle on the left and is overtaking it. When Paul is writing to the Jesus followers at Ephesus about the full armor of God, He isn’t recommending that believers try to confront or take on the supernatural rulers and powers by means of exorcism or the like. The tools of warfare that he knew would be successful were truth, righteousness, the gospel, faith, salvation, the word of God, prayer, and perseverance. As Dr. Heiser puts it, “...spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6 is about having persevering faith in the gospel and the word of God and living a holy, prayerful life as a follower of Jesus.”

Heiser goes on to say, “While not spectacular, adherence to truth and committed discipleship is what constitutes spiritual warfare in New Testament theology. To be blunt, this is a lot harder than yelling commands in the name of Jesus at a demon…Being obedient disciples is what makes us fit soldiers for Christ. The mission of every Christian is to carry out the Great Commission, the means by which the kingdom of God grows and the kingdom of darkness recedes.”

Paul also points out in verse 12 that our battle is not against flesh and blood. This can be difficult to swallow because we’d much rather rail on someone on social media or in the comments section of an article than actually pray for them and see them as a fellow image bearer of God who has been enticed and seduced by the wicked and nefarious powers of darkness. Did you notice too that Paul implores his readers to pray at all times (v.18)? Or that Paul says to stay alert with perseverance, another word for endurance? There’s a common thread here over the last few days, faithful, intentional study of the Word, consistent prayer, and endurance for the long term. We will not be effective at pushing back the darkness as soldiers of Christ unless we are intentional about the sin in our lives, how we spend our time and resources, and how we see our influence in the spheres that God has placed us in.

Spend some time in prayer today asking the Lord to help you be intentionally consistent with the things you’ve discovered in this study. Ask Him to help you understand your role in the spiritual battle raging all around us and to know when and how to push back against the darkness.

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Sunday, April 13, 2024
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you.

Sundays are not counted in the 40 days of Lent. Spend the day today remembering Jesus’ death and resurrection. Spend time worshiping with your local church body. Spend time with your family.

Today is Palm Sunday, the day where we remember Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem and fulfillment of prophecy. A little over 2,000 years ago, the same people that were shouting “Hosanna” as Jesus entered the city would be shouting “crucify Him!” just five days later as they marched Him out of the city.

To close out our study we will spend tomorrow studying our impact on the world around us and then starting Tuesday we will be intentional about following Jesus on His journey to the cross and then His resurrection.

You may relax one of the disciplines that is NOT technology related or the cold shower.

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Day 35 (Monday, April 14)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Psalm 139:1-18 and Acts 17:22-34.

Uniquely wired and uniquely placed

If you tried to think of all the twists and turns in life that got you here to this day, doing this study, you’d have to spend hours and likely still wouldn’t be able to paint the whole story without leaving out something. If you added in all of the steps necessary through the generations who came before you it would be impossible. But here we are, almost seven weeks of cold showers, Bible studies, and trying to push each other to follow Jesus closer each day.

In the scripture from Acts, we read about how Paul is addressing Greeks in the Areopagus in Athens. This is the same Paul whose Hebrew name was Saul who used to persecute the church until an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. The twists and turns that got Paul to this place at this time are amazing in and of themselves. As Paul is presenting the gospel to the Athenians, he tells them God has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. Paul is telling these listeners that they have been uniquely placed in this time and at this place so that they might seek God. The same is true for us, we have been uniquely placed in the spheres we influence for Kingdom purposes.

In Psalm 139, David is praising God for his all knowing and all present power. In verse 14, David proclaims that he has been remarkably and wonderfully made. David knows that his Creator has uniquely wired him for the time and place and purpose that He had for him. Again, the same is true for us. Each of us has been uniquely wired with our likes and dislikes, our unique character, and our abilities to influence the spheres we are in for Kingdom purposes.

A long quote from the book Supernatural will help land this thought:“Consciously thinking of ourselves as God’s agents - His imagers - means the decisions we make matter. Christians, (people who are) no longer lost in sin, can fulfill God’s plan with the help of the Holy Spirit. We are here to spread the goodness of life with God and tell people who need the gospel how they can enjoy that too. Our lives intersect with many people. Their memories of those encounters ripples through their lives and through all the people whose lives they touch. We are a glimpse either of life with God or of a life without God. There’s no middle ground…What we’ve learned has an impact on so much of how we see each other and relate to each other. Racism has no place in God’s world. Injustice is incompatible with representing God. The abuse of power - at home, at work, or in government - is ungodly. It is not how God dealt with His children in Eden, so it has no place in how we deal with fellow imagers…We either stand against the darkness, sharing the life God wants everyone to ultimately experience, or we don’t. The opportunity doesn’t need to be spectacular, it just needs to be taken.”

Thank the Lord today for wiring you the way He has and for all the twists and turns in life it took to get you to this moment. Thank Him that even in your worst moments, He is able to use those for good for His glory and His purpose. Think of ways you can act in a manner that stands against the darkness and affects the lives of those around you that will ripple through their lives and through all the people they touch, and then take those opportunities.

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Day 36 (Tuesday, April 15)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker. Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Matthew 21:14-46, Mark 11:12-19, and Luke 19:41-48.

Holy Week: Monday and Tuesday

After Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, He spends the next few days traveling back and forth from Bethany to Jerusalem. Remember, Jesus has recently thrown down the gauntlet at the gates of hades and revealed His true divine nature at Bashan. He’s put Satan and his demons on notice and succeeded in picking a fight with them. Also, keep in mind, the powers of darkness can’t see into the future, they have no idea what is about to happen, all they know is they want Jesus dead.

Jesus proceeds to confront the religious elite, talk openly about His coming death with His disciples and tells parables about the current situation and the Kingdom of God. In Matthew 21:31-32, Jesus makes a bold statement in front of the Pharisees, “Truly I tell you tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.” When writing about pride and vanity, the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote “It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.”

In Luke’s gospel, he writes about Jesus weeping over the city of Jerusalem during these days as well. This clearly shows the Creator’s heart over His creation. While the Divine Warrior is ready to take the keys of death and the grave from the enemy, we see His heart for the lost and dying world He came to save.

Spend some time in prayer and meditation today thanking Jesus for His willingness to die for us. Thank Him for His bravery in how He faced down evil head on.

Week Seven | April 16-20
Day 37 (Wednesday April 16)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Matthew 26:1-16.

Anointing for burial

By all accounts, it appears Wednesday was spent by Jesus in and around Bethany. According to Matthew’s gospel, this was the day that Mary (according to John) broke a very expensive jar of perfume over Jesus’s head. Matthew tells us that more than one disciple was indignant at this action but Jesus tells them she has done a beautiful thing and is preparing Him for burial. Again Jesus is openly telling His disciples what is going to happen but they just can’t wrap their heads around it.

Meanwhile, the religious elite are plotting a way to trap Jesus, arrest Him, and kill Him. But, notice they have to do it in secret because they are afraid the people might riot. Matthew also tells us this is the day Judas went to the chief priests and offered to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

Reflect on the week so far for Jesus. He’s closer to completing the work He came for, He’s fully aware of the evil around Him, He’s taking care of His disciples and trying to prepare them for what is coming, and He’s heartbroken over the hardness of heart of the people of Israel. Spend some time in prayer and reflection today of the boldness and tenderness of Jesus.

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Day 38 (Thursday, April 17)
Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Matthew 26:17-75 and John 13:1-20

Passover and the First Lord’s Supper

Thursday sees Jesus and His disciples celebrate the Passover from Exodus, being obedient to Jewish law. According to John’s gospel this is also where Jesus washes His disciples’ feet. During the Passover meal, Jesus being fully God, tells the disciples that one of them is going to betray Him. In John 13:26-30 we read about the revelation of betrayal in more detail and that Satan was now at work in Judas. Jesus closes the meal by giving them instructions on the Lord’s Supper, the same sacrament we continue today.

After the meal, Jesus and His disciples head to the Mount of Olives to pray. At this point Jesus was in agony, feeling betrayal and hurt, knowing that in a short time He would feel the worst pain of all, separation from the Father. While His disciples are sleeping and He is praying, Judas and the chief priests and other religious leaders enter the garden and arrest Jesus in the dark of night. A sham of a trial proceeds where Jesus is brought from one authority to another, falsely accused of blasphemy until finally the religious elite get what they want and Pilate pronounces a death sentence on Jesus. Jesus is mocked, stripped, beaten, whipped with a torture device called the cat of nine tails which was created to rip the flesh and muscle away from the bone of the receiver. This is also the night that Peter denies His Lord that he proclaimed just a short time earlier he would die for.

The table is set for the purpose of Jesus’s whole mission.

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Day 39 (Friday, April 18)

Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.

Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Matthew 27:27-66 and Leviticus 16:1-22.

Good Friday and the Goats of Atonement

After Jesus is sentenced by Pilate, He is forced to carry His cross from the governor’s residence to the place where He will be executed, Golgotha, outside the walls of Jerusalem. The sentence of crucifixion was intended to be a slow and painful death of suffocation. There would be the obvious pain of the spikes being driven through his wrists and ankles. There would be the pain as the cross is dropped into place, likely wrenching His shoulders from their sockets. Following that would be a slow methodical death by suffocation as He would have to pull Himself up to breathe in each time He needed a breath. As His muscles gave in to fatigue, He would no longer be able to pull Himself up and thus would not be able to breathe.

Before His death, Jesus has a dialogue with one of the thieves He is crucified with. In Luke’s gospel, the thief asks Jesus to remember him when He comes into His kingdom. Jesus responds “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Dr. Tim Mackie points out that the Greek word Luke writes for paradise is paradeisos. This word was a word used by Persians for a grand park, enclosure, or preserve and another definition is a garden. In essence, as Jesus is dying and the thief professes Him as Lord, Jesus tells him ‘I’ll see you in the garden later today.’ This is the reverse of the curse, this is Edenic language and getting us back to the garden!One last thing to point out. In Leviticus 16 we read about the Day of Atonement and the two male goats.

One is slaughtered and the blood is taken into the Most Holy Place (the only day of the year the priest can go in) and sprinkled on the Ark of the Covenant. The other goat has been called a scapegoat by many English translations. This goat was kept alive and the priest would press both of his hands on the goat’s head, professing all of Israel’s sins over the goat as a way of passing the sins from the people to the goat and then the goat would be sent into the wilderness. In 16:8 this wilderness location is called ǎzā’zēl, an uninhabitable place or the desert wilderness where the demonic powers were thought to reside. According to Dr. Mackie, this goat was like a garbage truck taking on all the sins of the people and released into the wilderness to take all the sins back from where they came from, the demonic garbage heap.

Do you see it? Can you see where Jesus is both the goat that is slaughtered and also the goat that takes on the sin of the world. He’s the Passover lamb that is slaughtered to protect God’s people in the Exodus. In Jesus, we see an intersection of so much from the Old Testament. At His death, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom, representing that the barrier between God and man had been done away with through the blood of Jesus. We can come to God through, and only through, the finished work of Jesus on the cross.

Spend time today thanking Jesus for His sacrificial death on the cross, that He paid for our sins once and for all.

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Day 40 (Saturday, April 19)

Begin by settling yourself before your Lord. Be conscious about slowing yourself down. Whether you’re sitting in a chair, or seated on the floor, straighten your posture and take a slow deep breath in through your nose, feeling the air fill your lungs, and then slowly breathe out through your mouth. Do this process at least three times or as long as it takes to slow your body systems down, block out the internal and external noise, and focus on being with your Maker.
Ask the Lord to work in your heart, soul, and mind today and in the coming weeks to move you to where He wants you. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and discernment as you read and meditate on His word. Ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins and to cleanse you. Read Matthew 27:62-66, Luke 23:56, 1 Peter 3:18-22, and Jude verses 5-6.

The darkest Saturday

Try to imagine it. You’ve been following Jesus for the last 3 years, listening to His teaching, convinced He’s the promised Jewish Messiah who will free the prisoners from captivity. Then, just yesterday, you watched Him be arrested, tried, crucified, and buried. It’s Saturday, the Jewish sabbath started at sundown on Friday. Not much is said about the Saturday after Good Friday, but Luke makes sure his readers know they rested according to the commandment. According to Matthew, the Roman authorities also secured the tomb in case there were any grave robbers or Jesus’s disciples tried to hide the body. 1 Peter 3 and Jude allude to something going on behind the scenes though, in the supernatural realm.

Both of these passages of scripture paint a picture of Jesus, alive by the Spirit, going to make a proclamation to fallen angels who are in chains of the finished work of their impending doom. Some scholars say that 1 Peter 3:21-22 is a statement of faith that when a believer is baptized in symbolic agreement with Jesus’s resurrection, it is a declaration of war and whose side the believer has chosen. In spiritual warfare, when a believer is baptized, the angels in heaven rejoice, and the demonic powers are reminded of their final judgment.

Spend some quiet time today in reflection of the price Jesus paid yesterday and the coming celebration tomorrow. Also, recognize your standing in the cosmic spiritual battle that is ongoing, and make a stand to continue renewing your mind daily long after this plan is finished.

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Easter Sunday, April 20

Today is Easter Sunday. We celebrate the bodily resurrection of Jesus and serve a risen savior who has conquered death, hell, and the grave and now sits at the right hand of God the Father interceding on our behalf.

Today is a feast day. Relax disciplines, enjoy that warm shower, and enjoy time with family and friends celebrating the meaning of today. Look to the future and your freedom in Christ. Practice self discipline moving forward as you guard your schedule and spend your time wisely. Be intentional about spending daily time with the Lord, studying scripture, praying, and being quiet before Him. Use some of the habits you’ve created, establish a rhythm, and carry them forward.

Spend time with your local church body and celebrate together the one thing that binds us, the life, death,and resurrection of Jesus and the level ground at the foot of the cross.

AMEN!!