Lent Devotional 2021 - Pittsburg - Flipbook - Page 6
the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the
wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know
what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his
commandments. 3 He humbled you by letting you hunger,
then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you
nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you
understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by
every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 The
clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not
swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a
parent disciplines a child so the LORD your God disciplines
you. 6 Therefore keep the commandments of the LORD
your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For
the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land
with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters
welling up in valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley,
of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive
trees and honey, 9 a land where you may eat bread without
scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are
iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. 10 You shall
eat your fill and bless the LORD your God for the good land
that he has given you. 11 Take care that you do not forget
the LORD your God, by failing to keep his commandments,
his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you
today. 12 When you have eaten your fill and have built fine
houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks
have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and
all that you have is multiplied, 14 then do not exalt yourself,
forgetting the LORD your God, who brought you out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you
through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland
with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow
for you from flint rock, 16 and fed you in the wilderness with
manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and
to test you, and in the end to do you good. 17 Do not say
to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have
gotten me this wealth.” 18 But remember the LORD your
God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that
he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors,
as he is doing today. 19 If you do forget the LORD your God
and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly
warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the
nations that the LORD is destroying before you, so shall you
perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD
your God.
DEVOTIONAL
Many of us have experienced a wilderness in life—a time of
trial or difficulty that forced us to drill down to the essentials
of who we are, especially we who are in Christ. That is what
the Israelites experienced in the wilderness. They were totally
dependent on God. Their dependence was always at the
forefront of their minds, because they were literally helpless
without God’s provision (vv. 2-4). As they neared the land
of plenty, God exhorted them to continue to follow God’s
commandments, to continue to live in the fear of the Lord (v.
6).
6 Lent Devotional 2021
Living in the fear of the Lord is a liberating concept. It is an
invitation to worry only about what God thinks over and
above what anyone else thinks, even ourselves. Times of
wilderness are often blessings that bring us back to the
essentials of who we are in Christ. It’s times of plenty that
we have to worry about. In times of plenty, we think we can
strike out on our own and live by the bread we make with
our own hands. Instead of blessing God for all that God has
given to us (v. 10), we go astray, no longer living for God but
living for ourselves or other people. Verse 11 reminds us as
we approach a time of plenty, “Take care that you do not
forget the LORD your God.”
God has called each one of us uniquely to participate in the
redemption of the world. When we forget God and start
living for other things or other people, we forsake that which
God has uniquely called us to do. During Lent, let us fast
from the fear of other people, the fear of other things, even
the fear of our own thoughts. Let us instead turn back to
God and live in the fear of God only by remembering that
“one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that
comes from the mouth of God” (v. 3).
PRAYER
Gracious God, you know how easy it is for us to be driven
by the fear of other people, other things, and even our own
thoughts. Help us to be motivated instead only in fear of you.
Help us to see that fearing you is an invitation to living fully
into the calling you have uniquely given to us. Help us to seek
you in times of wilderness and in times of plenty, so that in all
the times we live through we will faithfully reflect your love in
the world. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2021
Jane Larson ’17/’20
SCRIPTURE
John 2:13-22
13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to
Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle,
sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their
tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out
of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured
out the coins of the money changers and overturned their
tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take
these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house
a marketplace!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was
written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews
then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing
this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and
in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “This
temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and
will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking of