Lent
March 9, 2023
Scripture Reading: Romans 5:1-11
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. –Romans 5:1-5
Justified, as used above, means to be made right cleared of all charges through our faith relationship with God. I love the phrase God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. We live, breathe, and have our being (Acts 17:28) with that presence in our lives. We waste much grace when we do not maintain a close relationship with the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts.
My paternal grandmother practiced praying without ceasing. She married and had six children with her first husband, of which the only son died when he was nine. Two years after the boy’s death, her husband was killed in a storm, leaving her to raise those five little girls alone. She remarried a few years later and had three more children, including my father. That couple had been together for about ten years when he died from sepsis. The next year the stock market crashed, starting the Great Depression, and finding my grandmother with a houseful of pre-teens and teenagers living amid the Dust Bowl. Her faith guided her through those times. I was five when she died, but I remember her as a loving woman whom you would never have guessed had dealt with such challenges.
We all need to recognize and relate to God’s presence in all aspects of our lives by always keeping that conversation with God open.
Prayer:
Lord, lift me up, and let me stand
By faith, on heaven’s tableland;
A higher plane than I have found,
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground**. Amen.
*https://biblehub.com/greek/1344.htm
Refrain from the hymn I’m Pressing on the Upward Way by Johnson Oatman, Jr. See at https://hymnary.org/text/im_pressing_on_the_upward_way
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.