Listen:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”(Mark 12:30, NIV)
“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.” (Revelations 2:4, NIV)
Reflect:
“Lent is the period of 40 weekdays which comes before Easter in the Christian calendar. Beginning on Ash Wednesday, Lent is a season of reflection and preparation before the celebrations of Easter.”
Tomorrow, marks the beginning of the Lenten Season. Many people voluntarily choose to “give up” something during this time period in order to identify with the 40 days of sacrifice of Jesus in the desert prior to His arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection.
For me it is a time for soul-examination: is Jesus still my first love? Have other people, circumstances, things… pushed my love for my Savior to the background?
Lent can be a good time to contemplate Jesus’ life given up for us and to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us to recognize, repent, and return to our first love.
Prayer of Response:
Holy Spirit reveal in each of us the ways in which we have forsaken God as our first love. May we be quick to repent and return to You Lord. Thank You for pursuing relationship with us Jesus, and extending grace upon grace upon our return. Amen.
—Submitted by Terri La Brie
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