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Lenten Devotions 2022

Welcome on this Lenten journey!

Lent takes us on the path of remembrance, reflection, and repentance. When we open ourselves up to the invitation that God sends to us, we may find that we are transformed and deepened in faith and love. Each week we invite you to really spend your week meditating, praying, using this as a guide on this journey…  take some quiet time throughout the week to center yourself, putting God IN that center, with all of the hope and grace that Jesus’ resurrection brings. 

LENT WEEK TWO!

What do we celebrate this week?

As we prepare our hearts for Easter, we celebrate belonging to God. Being HIS children. As we pray this week, pray for all of the ways we can draw closer to God, and FEEL his love. Sometimes you can just FEEL it all around you. Explore some of the ways that God feels close to you… as you pray, end your praying with: DEAR FATHER, I am glad to be yours. I am grateful to feel your presence all around me when I pray. I love you… AMEN.  

What do we lift up to God for help in prayer this week?

This week we again ask for God to protect all of His children who are caught in the middle of War and suffering. We also add to our prayer those who do not feel your presence as we do. Pray that something will touch their hearts and that they will be reminded of God's INFINITE love for them, and that they are not really alone. Pray for the needs in your own life, as well. Spend as much time as you are able in prayer for help, healing, and love.  

Scriptures for the Week

John 4:1- 42 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’ Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.’ Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.

Isaiah 7:14

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.  

Luke 1:35

The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.  

Week One: PHOTO OPP:

What do you see in God’s Creation that will make you reflect on the wonder that is God. Each week try to capture a photo so that you can go back and look at it when you’re having some just you time with God, or doing your Lenten Devotions, or whenever you need to look at something that God has created and not something man-made.  

Water Shows God’s Salvation, Purity, and Mercy

Jesus uses the term “living water” to proclaim his role as the world’s Savior. Then later Jesus uses the water to describe his gift of salvation: “but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Water, which is necessary for our bodies to thrive, shows how our relationship with God is important for our souls to thrive. Water is always moving around our planet from flowing in oceans to freezing in the cold… God moves in our lives, so often unseen, but always at work. Water contains wondrous power which reminds us of God’s even greater power to transform our lives.  

Take your photos this week of water in nature…

Put them together with your photos of the sunrise you took last week, and marvel in God’s creation and remind yourself how beautiful God’s work can be  

Families:

This week as you eat a meal together, or you sit together at a quiet time, ask your kids to tell you what they know about Jesus in their own words. They can start wherever they want, from that tiny baby at Christmas, to the adult who carries his own cross. Some of them may remember LOTS about Jesus and some of them may not remember things on their own, and that’s ok! That’s why we tell them all about Jesus and his work and love!

This week, on another day after they’ve told YOU stories of Jesus, read them the story of John Baptizing Jesus! (Matthew 3)