3 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
Matthew 3:1-3
Prayer
God, we come to you today, together yet also alone. Each of us has our sin baggage that has taken us away from You. Please take away our sin. Open our eyes to the distance we have drifted from you. We turn from the damage we have caused others and ourselves. Every sin we have committed has harmed one of your children and we are sorry. Please restore us. We turn to You because You are the only thing that is good. Give us eyes to see those things that we had no idea was causing so much damage in our lives. Be with us as we look at our lives. Holy Spirit come and make your home in us new.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen
As we take our steps in faith today, day two of Lent, we notice the freshness around us. Thankfully, yesterday greeted us with warmer weather and sun in our area! This new life we are stepping in to is great! It feels so freeing already. As we have either taken away something that have been weighing us down or added things of actual value back to our lives like prayer and reading God's word, we feel good about it right now. I could get used to this!
I am very thankful for this honeymoon phase we are in, but remember it is exactly that. Our stomachs are still pretty much full, we've only been 1 day without the world as we knew it and we must remember that Satan will tempt us, yet when we are going to be at our weakest just like he did to Jesus.
We have time to get into that down the road, but right now let us start with repentance. This is for me and for you to find ourselves in our time alone with God to come clean. How have we drifted? Maybe it is too soon to really know yet. It will come.
How have we turned our back on Christ? Think deeper into the 10 commandments and know that Jesus says to even think it is a sin. At first this sounds ridiculous. I can't control every thought I have. But as we go, we learn that everything we do affects us to our core. What do we listen to, watch, read? Are all those things worshiping our God? Or are they worldly and even demonic that we can't stop looking at or watching on our favorite streaming apps? Think back to a small child. Is everything you consume beneficial for a small child to grow closer to God? The first excuse for the sin in our lives is, "I can handle it."
Look around. Look at where you are and what you've gotten attached to slowly but surely over the years... We can't handle it. Sin is tricky. Slow an innocent at first but never satisfied until we can't live without it in our lives constantly. It's time to come clean, give it to God. "Repent and make straight paths for him."
