Spring is coming which means Lent is coming to the church.  Lent traditionally is a time of fasting that began around the time of the council of Nicaea in 325AD.  It has been celebrated in more and less structured ways over the centuries.  In the early centuries, only one meal was to be eaten per day—meat was prohibited even during that meal.  Today we don’t typically fast...at least not as they fasted in the early centuries.  Actually, today, other than the celebration of Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday, lent is not a concept we typically consider except for the change of the paraments in worship to purple.  Lent is to be a time that we prepare ourselves to receive the grace offered to us by the empty tomb.  The grace that encompasses not only forgiveness but also everlasting life that is offered by that same empty tomb.

As the Lenten season begins this year I want to challenge you to enter a time of introspection and reflection on who you are and how you are loving your neighbor.  This can be a fearsome task:  to ask the same hard questions of ourselves that we often look for in others.  I am reminded that Jesus called those present to him as he was giving the Sermon on the Mount to “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” Matthew 7:5 NRSV  I need to examine my own life, my motives, my desires, and my actions before I examine the lives of others.  My dear sweet Granny often reminded me to “sweep around my own doorstep before I start sweeping around someone else’s.  She was telling me that maybe I had done as bad or worse than they had and needed to pay attention to myself before judging their actions.  I call us this Lenten season to do just that; to do a vigorous examination of our lives before we examine others.

John Wesley believed this practice to be of such importance that he didn’t just require the members of the Holy Club to make examination during Lent but every day.  Below are the questions Wesley required of those participating to answer for themselves.  I offer these as a means of helping us all to examine our lives and find the places we need to grow during Lent in order to be ready to accept the grace of Christ when the resurrection is upon us.

As we move toward Easter, I hope we can find a deeper place of growth as we seek to become disciples of Jesus Christ and as we learn more fully to offer the grace, we have received from Him to others in our lives.

Holy Lord, Come and fill us with your grace.  Open our eyes to the things in our own lives you desire us to change.  Give us the strength to change and grow to be who you made us to be.  Help us to offer grace more freely to those around us and to love them as you have loves us.  Amen

Everyday Disciples: John Wesley’s 22 Questions
These are 22 questions the members of John Wesley’s Holy Club asked
themselves every day in their private devotions over 200 years ago.

1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am?  In other words, am I a hypocrite?
2. Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
3. Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?
4. Can I be trusted?
5. Am I a slave to dress, friends, work, or habits?
6. Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?
7. Did the Bible live in me today?
8. Do I give it time to speak to me everyday?
9. Am I enjoying prayer?
10. When did I last speak to someone else about my faith?
11. Do I pray about the money I spend?
12. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
13. Do I disobey God in anything?
14. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
15. Am I defeated in any part of my life?
16. Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?
17. How do I spend my spare time?
18. Am I proud?
19. Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican?
20. Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?
21. Do I grumble or complain constantly?
22. Is Christ real to me?

Do you ever feel blindsided by your emotions? Do you feel irrelevant, or burned out? We will begin our lenten sermons series and book study based on the book: "Didn't See It Coming" by Carey Nieuwhof. Come join us as we look at the things that can sideline us in life if we are not aware.
 
A 7-week Book Study Starting Wednesday, March 13 @ 4pm & 6pm.
There will be a Sub Sandwich supper at 5:00 pm in the Fellowship Hall - Led by Pastor Wayne Cook
 
This will be a study that expands on the sermon topic of
each week during Lent.
 
The founding Pastor of one of North America's most influential churches, Carey Nieuwhof wants to help you avoid and overcome life's seven hardest and most crippling challenges: cynicism, compromise, disconnectedness, irrelevance, pride, burnout, and emptiness. These are challenges that few of us expect but that we all experience at some point.
 
We will study this amazing book together for 7 weeks.  Book Cost is $13.60 Kindle Version $12.00  Please sign up at the Adult Studies
Table by March 6.

It’s almost that time of year, hearts will soon be everywhere, flowers delivered, men and women with goofy looks and googly eyes over their “true” love.  I have come to the age where it almost makes me laugh, just on general principle.  Don’t get me wrong, I have laughed many times at my children when they were in “love”.  Today when we talk about love we are usually referring to a feeling or a state of mind in which we are “in love” with another person.  We often believe that relationships are based on this thing the culture calls love; a thing that makes many a young person do stupid things to get their “beloved” to notice them.  Think back for a moment to your younger days and to your first love.  That person who was once so vital to your life, the person you couldn’t live without being near.  Do you remember their name? How they looked?  Do you know where they are today?  Many of us might remember their name but we lost touch with them many years ago.  Some are still with that first love but I am pretty sure the relationship has changed; it is no longer about a goofy feeling in the pit of our stomach; it has matured to something more real.  So what is love really?  It is how we feel about someone.  It is deeper.

     1 Corinthians 13 tells us what love is to be in the community called the church.  

     Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.  (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NRSV)

     This scripture helps us to understand that love is not a feeling but a way of life, it is filled with conscious actions toward each other.  To love others requires us to treat them with the highest of respect and to always seek the best for them.  It’s sad to me that in our society love has become something that comes and goes in our lives but in God’s design it is something that is permanent and is a decision we make about each person we meet.  Jesus tells us in Matthew that love is not limited to those we like or want to be around but even to our enemies.

     “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  (Matthew 5:43-45 NRSV)

     I am sure someone is going to ask if I think God really meant that and to answer that question, yes I do with all my heart, and I am still working on loving my enemies.  (I have a ways to go.)

     Our job is to be lovers of those we meet each day of our lives and to show others what love means.  We have a difficult job to teaching that it’s not a feeling but a way of living that puts others first.  So know that I love you and I am trying to learn to love more in a Christ like manner each day.

     Happy Valentines Month.
 
     Blessed to Be Your Pastor,
 
     Pastor Wayne