Today is Ash Wednesday 2013!

Today is Ash Wednesday! 

Everyone recognises the importance of a day of humble repentance, because repentance is the beginning of the journey of forgiveness, growth and eventually victory in Christ! 

Everyone knows that the only response possible to God’s divine love for us is to love the Lord too. And if we in any way shunned God’s love with our choices, our priorities and unfaithfulness, repentance is the beginning of the journey back to the joy in the Lord.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the 40 days before Easter Sunday in which the passion and suffering of Jesus are central to our teaching, worship and prayers.  Remembering the sacrifice of Jesus culminates on Good Friday.

The “ash” of Ash Wednesday reminds us that the wages of sin, is death!  We also remember that in Biblical times people put ashes on their heads as a sign of sorrow and mourning. We do not grieve because Jesus died, but praise God that he, in his love and compassion for us, gave his only begotten Son to make us his own. But we do grieve because our sins caused his torment.

Psalm 51:13 - 17   I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you.

¹⁴Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Saviour, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.

¹⁵Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. ¹⁶You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

 ¹⁷ My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.

Repentance leads us to a prayer to be delivered from guilt. It brings us to a prayer that comes from a broken heart about our faithlessness and to an assurance that God will not despise a miserable spirit that is the result of our transgressions and unrighteousness.

We need to return to the Lord and we can only do that through repentance.

If we don't talk about repentance, we miss the point of the cross of Jesus. If we don't talk about repentance, we forget the main reason why Jesus came. If we don't talk about repentance, we may miss the point that God in divine love accepts us. If we don't talk about repentance, we may think what is wrong with us requires only a hug and a pat on the back, instead of a bloody cross.

And more importantly, to repent means that we recognize the wonder of God's love. The more we see the depths of our sin, the more we see the heights of God's love.  And when we see the miracle of being so much loved by the Lord that he gave his life that we may live, it will stir in our hearts a life changing love that will help us to make this radical decision: not to live without God, but to repent and experience the joy of salvation.

Ash Wednesday and the Season of Lent are the blessed times of humble repentance and therefore of healing and receiving help and remedy for our natural spiritual status called: sinner!

May the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit bless us on this Ash Wednesday and bring the joy of deliverance and forgiveness to our hearts and lives.