Twenty-third Day of Lent

 Monday, March 15, 2021

Hallelujah!  He is risen!

A Lenten Devotional Guide

By Patience Nave

 

And it came about, when the days were approaching for His ascension, that He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem…. And they did not receive Him, because He was journeying with His face toward Jerusalem.

Luke 9:51, 53

It is overwhelming to me to realize that Jesus went about his ministry with the realization always with him that he was going to die a terrible death. I know how easily I am distracted from a task by something that is pressing – a job, a need, an illness. And often those pressing matters cause me not to do something or to do it poorly, simply because I cannot keep my mind on the task at hand.

Not so with our Lord! He had a tremendous ministry in the three short years that we know about his adult life, and he knew all along that great pain and suffering awaited him in order for him to complete the task for which he had come. Amazing!

We know he dreaded it because he asked that, if possible, it not be. Yet he faced it, went about taking care of others’ pain, of others’ separation from God, or others’ questions and multiple needs.

I am so challenged by his remarkable focus. Sometimes when we love someone, we say to them, “I’ll do anything you ask. Anything!” That’s what Jesus said to God, and he meant it! And that, I am sure, is what kept his focus when he faced the pain and suffering necessary to save this broken world that God loved so much!

Father, I am so fickle. I say that I love you, yet I get distracted from what I know you want me to do. You have promised to change me to be like Jesus. Do that in this area of focus. Keep my mind and actions directed to the things that I know you want me to do. Amen

Hallelujah! He is Risen!
prepared for First United Methodist Church of Homosassa, Florida
Spring 2011
compiled by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator
reproduced and edited by Patience Fort