^“For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”

Psalm 103:13-14

 

Dear HBIC Family,

One of our great blessings is that the body and church of Christ is both local and global. God so loved the world that Jesus came for us all. God so loves the world that the Spirit is living in and inspiring believers all across the globe. And God will so love the world that heaven will come down in the end. It is God’s love that also reminds us that we are one together in Christ, in the Spirit and as one body, the Church.

Today, we join with Christians around the world to commemorate Ash Wednesday. With our sisters and brothers, we walk together with God during this journey through Lent. This season reminds us of Jesus in the wilderness and provides for us a chance to focus on prayer, self-restraint, repentance and reconciliation. This season also points us towards Calvary’s cross and Christ’s resurrection at Easter.

Today we remember that from dust we have come and to dust we shall return. We repent and believe the gospel, for Christ has come, lived, died, was raised and now lives again. In Jesus, we can be set free and be with God forever. I would like to invite you to join us tonight on Zoom for our Ash Wednesday worship service beginning at 7 pm. Tonight we will sing and pray, listen and reflect, worship and celebrate the love that God has for us – we who are dust and who may one day return to dust are the blessed and beloved redeemed of God.

Ash Wednesday also leads us to our next sermon series, Walking with God: A Journey Through Lent. For the next several weeks, we will look at some major themes of the Lenten season while remembering that these days are both about God walking with us in the desert and our march to taking up our crosses to follow Jesus. We will start by returning to David’s most famous Psalm, the twenty-third, and focusing on how it can teach us how to pray.

To prepare for this week’s service, I would like to invite you to read and meditate on Psalm 23. As you reflect, I would like to ask you to focus on the following questions:

 

How do you define prayer?

How do you pray?

What is the role of honesty and vulnerability in your prayer life?

How has prayer grown your faith?

What is one thing that you are committed to keep praying for today?

 

In the desert, Jesus reminds us that our physical needs should be superseded by our full reliance on God. In the desert, Jesus reminds us that we don’t need to trick God to receive the blessing of God’s protection. In the desert, Jesus reminds us that we should bow down and fully submit to God and God alone.  Lent helps us to let our physical needs point us to God, in whom we rest and move and have our being. Lent reminds us that God is with us now, watching over and leading us. Lent reminds us to take up our cross, to follow and fully submit to God alone.

Praise God for the blessing of our physical needs being met, and our spiritual hunger being filled. Praise God for our wanderings being led by the Spirit and finding home in Jesus. Praise God for this and every season that reminds us that we need God and we need one another as we take up our crosses to follow Jesus.

God bless you all, and take care.

Love in Christ,

Pastor Hank (Psalm 103:13-14)