Break Our Hearts! Practicing Compassion Together. Sample

The season of Lent:

One special time of focus and renewal in the church year is the season of Lent. Lent is a season of forty days, not counting Sundays, which begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday. Lent comes from the Anglo Saxon word lencten, meaning “lengthen” and refers to the lengthening days of spring. The forty days represent the time Jesus spent in the wilderness, enduring the temptation of Satan and preparing to begin his ministry. The season of Lent is typically a time to devote some extra attention and commitment to spiritual formation and self-awareness with an emphasis on repentance and fasting in anticipation of Easter.

The vision for this plan is that you the reader would invite your YouVersion friends to join you during this Lenten season asking the Lord to break your heart for what breaks his as you join in:

1. Praying the prayers of the people of God (the Psalms).
2. Reading the story of the people of God (Old Testament).
3. Joining in the good news for the people of God (New Testament).

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday, specifically, is a day to remember that you will die. The ash in “Ash Wednesday” is based on a common way of mourning during the biblical era (for example see Jeremiah 6:26). It is also a visceral reminder of the fact that we are dust, and to dust we shall return (Genesis 3:19). This reality is a part of the curse of the fall, the curse caused by sin.

What a strange and depressing thing to do! Why should we take a day to think about our death?

Theologian Esau McCaulley has put it this way:

“Life with God contains the good, the true, and the beautiful. God’s call to repentance is a call to give up those things that can only bring death. Ash Wednesday calls us to remember death, and by calling us to remember death it calls us to remember what causes death: sin and rebellion. By forcing us to remember our sin, it helps us realize that, at bottom, our sins are lies about the true source of joy.” (Lent, p. 17)

As you begin this season of Lent, reflect on your death and your sin. Consider fasting from something during this season, and remember that the true source of our joy, as Christians, is the one who conquered death. It is he who will welcome us into eternal life, to him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Praying with the People of God:

Over the years churches that have a more liturgical order to their service often follow a pattern of prescribed readings and prayers which include reciting a "prayer of illumination". This is a prayer not only meant to help us, the people of God, frame our time in the Word, but most importantly it is a petition to the Spirit of God to open our eyes, hearts, and minds to what he has for us in that moment from His Word.

Throughout this reading plan, as you pray these prayers of illumination, you will be praying the same words that the people of God have been praying for a long time with expectation, anticipation, and humility. Don’t skip these prayers! Take the time to truly pray them in preparation for your time in God’s Word!

Today’s Prayer of Illumination:

Living God, break my heart for what breaks yours, help me to hear your holy Word that I may truly understand; that, understanding, I may believe, and, believing, I may follow in all faithfulness and obedience, seeking your honor and glory in all that I do; through Christ my only hope. Amen.