03/05/2025
ASH WEDNESDAY: Day 1 of Lent
Today's reading from Joel 2:12-17 NIV
Rend Your Heart
12 “Even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
13 Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
14 Who knows? He may turn and relent
and leave behind a blessing—
grain offerings and drink offerings
for the Lord your God.
15 Blow the trumpet in Zion,
declare a holy fast,
call a sacred assembly.
16 Gather the people,
consecrate the assembly;
bring together the elders,
gather the children,
those nursing at the breast.
Let the bridegroom leave his room
and the bride her chamber.
17 Let the priests, who minister before the Lord,
weep between the portico and the altar.
Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord.
Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn,
a byword among the nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”
Today is Ash Wednesday and even though we will not meet to dispense ashes as a church, I encourage you to begin Lent with a time of mourning and repentance over your sins. Our sins matter to God. There are no little sins. Any and every sin deserves death (Romans 6:23). No one should be proud of their sin and what they think they got away with. We will stand before God to give an account for our sin. Without Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we will stand alone and will face the consequences of our rebellion.
However, when we accept God's forgiveness which He extends to all who truly repent, our sins are forgiven. When we stand before God to give an accounting for our sin, Jesus stands with us. Having forgiven our sin by His death, we stand in God's presence acceptable and welcomed. God extends forgiveness to the repentant of heart. David said, " A broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise" Psalm 51:17.
