Worship Wednesday: Running Toward the Dawn

Today is Ash Wednesday. This day marks the beginning of Lent, a 40-day season of reflection and anticipation leading up to our observation of Christ’s death and resurrection on Easter. Ash Wednesday traditionally involves meditative and contemplative prayer in recognition of Christ’s sufferings and how we are called to take up our own crosses as followers of his teachings and believers in his grace.

During Lent, we invite you to join with the millions of believers who choose to fast during this period. Fasting means more than just giving something up – it gives us the opportunity to fill ourselves with the Spirit and the Word of God in place of certain meals, Facebook, sugar, or whatever you feel called to fast from this season.

We aren’t having a service for Ash Wednesday this year, but we invite you to take some time today to prayerfully contemplate and seek the presence of the Lord. Whether you do this with our Luke To Easter reading plan, music, or your own ritual, we look forward to sharing this day with all of you in our community, and to celebrating Easter with you forty days from now.

Luke Through Lent: Day 33 + Week 6

Today we’re reading Luke 14. Jesus healing on the Sabbath seems to be a reccurring theme, eh? Do you think the sick care what day of the week it is?

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Over the last few weeks, we have taken a journey as a community as we’ve fasted and sought God in our lives. We are drawing closer to God and to the best life that he has created us to have. Has God revealed himself to you? Have you seen evidence of the change he is working in you? Share your experiences with by commenting here or on Facebook!

Scripture

Read the following scripture twice, once for the head and once for the heart. Allow the truth of God’s word to feed you deeply in your spirit.

1 John 5:1 –12 (NIV)

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.

This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Luke Through Lent: Day 12 + Weekly Fast

Start your week off with Luke 5:17-39. Have you ever resisted the change God desires to bring into your life because you’ve got this “God thing” down?

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In case Friday at lunch is an inconvenient time for you to fast, we’re sharing our weekly fast post earlier so you can have it handy for a time and place that works best for you! We truly believe that making more time for God during our week can lead to seeing His work in your life more clearly – and to being more open for His change to work in you.

Luke Through Lent: Day 8 + Tomorrow’s Fast

Today we’re reading Luke 3:21-38. Take a moment and reflect on your own family. How does God use a review of the members of your family to understand who He is, how He works and His purpose?

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This is the second week I’ve been fasting from lunch on Fridays. I hope you’ll participate in this spiritual process with me. Each week on this blog, I’ll share a couple verses and some thoughts about the name and character of God to help us get to know Him better. If you want, you can use these to guide your own spiritual substitution when you fast, even if you participate on a different day of the week.

I am excited about what will occur over these next 6 weeks. I’m looking forward to seeing God move in our lives and the life of this church. I know that He will work in ways we could never have imagined. Together, we can take this journey, and together, we will draw closer to God and to the life that He created us to have. I pray that God will reveal Himself to us and reveal the change He is working in us. Share your experience with me and with others by posting here on the blog or on Facebook about what you’re fasting from and what you’re doing – reading, meditating, praying, etc. – instead. Encourage others as we lean into God this season!

This is what I’ll be reading and meditating on tomorrow, if you want to join me:

An Intro to Fasting + Luke Through Lent: Day 1

Day 1

You’re invited to daily explore the story of Jesus found in the book of Luke in this daily reading plan that takes us to Easter Sunday. Perhaps this isn’t the first time you’ve read the story of Jesus. In fact, maybe you’ve even read through this story several times in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in various versions. If that’s the case, I invite you to something deeply familiar. Jesus, the lover of your soul, wants to spend time with you. Walking the road he took from birth to the cross invites you to remember, reminisce, and renew your soul as you “walk the halls” of Luke with the Savior.

We invite you to interact with our Facebook page or blog to discuss what you’ve read or ask questions that might come to mind along the journey.  If you have personal questions that you’d like to ask our pastoral team, you can always send us an email as well: info@seekreallife.com.

We’ll start at the beginning: Luke 1:1-25. John was known as a man who turned people toward God. What are ways you can help turn people toward God?

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About Fasting

God wants to bring significant change in our lives. He is the change agent. There are things that we can do, practices we can engage in, that help us lean in to what God wants to do in our lives. It’s God’s greatest desire to reach us at our point of need and to have a personal relationship with us. He uses many different ways to speak to us with the hope that we will listen.

Each Friday during Lent, we invite you to participate in fasting. You might think fasting is too intense or challenging for you, but it isn’t! The fast is a spiritual practice designed to better connect us with God. Fasting is giving up something physical we want for something spiritual we need. It is a practice Jesus did and one we are encouraged to make a normal part of our lives. The fast is about focusing beyond ourselves to the One who can bring the life change we can only dream of.

We invite you to prayerfully determine what you could fast from during Lent. Maybe it’s giving up Facebook and using that time to read the Bible. Maybe it’s skipping a meal and using that time to pray or meditate. Maybe you buy coffee every day, and feel called to make an offering of some of that money instead. Tomorrow, personally I’ll be fasting during lunch and spending that time in God’s Word. Will you join me?

–Pastor Jeff