Third Sunday of Lent

​If you have decided to follow Jesus, you are finished with sin. But you are not finished with suffering and temptation of sin. Suffering itself is not sin, although we often pair the unpleasantness of the pain of suffering to a wrong doing, but the type of confrontation we will face as Christians isn’t based on making mistakes or doing wrong, but on doing right for the Kingdom. The suffering we will face is from living in the way that the Kingdom functions in a worldly setting, avoiding the things that will draw us away from our King.

What does does it look like to walk as a Christian in a world of opppdition?

- Read 1 Peter 4

This passage is great to read in the New Living Translation

- Devotional Thought

​This chapter talks about having had enough with your old ways, the old sin, the old habits and disentangling from that which had held you in your old ways. But now with Christ, that is over. Things change, you change, your priorities change, your dreams and hopes change. You find yourself walking differently, acting differently, and in this big turnaround, you will be met with people who don’t recognise who you’ve become. And also, in this new way of life, you’ll be met with opposition by people who have not moved forward the way you have and who now find your way of life threatening or convicting.

Our job is not to try and change them ourselves but to invite them higher in how we live our lives. We have the opportunity to reach beyond what our words can say in the way that we conduct our lives as we follow Christ. We live in a broken and hurting world, one that doesn’t always know Christ and doesn’t take lightly to the turnaround He brings in our lives. But knowing the trials He endured for our sake, we look to Him to persevere and resist falling when others oppose us. Nothing compares to the hope of the glory to come,

- Passage to focus on 

​“Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.”

‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭4‬:‭12‬-‭13‬ ‭NLT‬‬

- Image for today 

​Like a dove, his spirit follows you, it rests on you. It’s gentle, it helps and it guides.

- Prayer 

Father,

We chose to follow you because we finally realised that we cannot live apart from you. We have realised that our old ways are not good ways and we are not supporting ourselves or others by following the deisres of our flesh. But in you we have found hope, we've found a hope that is beyond all we could ever dream of and now we change our life to be more like you.

Help us to have the confidence to continue following you in every part of our life, to be strong in what you tell us to do and to not worry about what others think of us. We want to be your hands and your feet in our life every day!

Amen

- Active idea

​How can you “preach” through your life today? How can you model the way of Jesus to someone who doesn’t know him in how you treat them?

Thank you for joining me today! Hope to see you again soon!

Have a blessed Lent

~ X ~