Healing (Lent 24, 2024)

There is nothing in this world more healing to the soul than being fully known—for all your sins, flaws, mistakes, bad judgments, poor decisions, lifestyle choices, the deepest, darkest secrets that you don’t want anyone to know—and yet amazingly, to be fully loved with infinite, unconditional love because God created you in His Image.

The Samaritan woman knew it (John 4:18); the “sinful woman” (Luke 7:37-50) did too. But this healing is not just for women. Zacchaeus understood it (Luke 19:2-10). So did Peter who denied Christ (John 21) and needed Christ’s clear commission to heal his struggles with failure in leadership.

Seeing God’s Love with New Eyes means
acknowledging the healing He offers by His Love.
He already fully knows us. He already fully loves us.

“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Exercise: Think about the thing in your life you really wouldn’t want anyone to know about who you are, what you’ve done, how you’ve been, etc. Remind yourself that God knows it with crystal clarity since the moment in which you were choosing to do it. Now bask in the healing touch of the love of our God who knew all that about you and would choose to die for you anyway. Turn to Him and be healed.

If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2024 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:

Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014.
Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations. We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17.
ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ. It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.
Lent 2019 gave us a deeper window into Easter “More to the Easter Story” since we miss so much when we rely only on a superficial understanding of the work of Christ. These devotionals are archived beginning March 6, 2019.
Our Lent 2020 devotional series offered prayer points surrounding “Be Thou My Vision” and were aimed at helping us to see God for who He is. The full set of devotionals are archived beginning February 26, 2020.
The theme for 2021 Lent Devotionals was how to live between two worlds while waiting for Christ’s return. Into the gap between the City of Man and its fixation upon sin and the City of God with its demand for holiness, two words minister peace: But God. Praise God for His intervention! They are archived beginning February 17, 2021.
Revelation in 40 devotionals for 2022 offered 40 vignettes, scenes, concepts, and thoughts to inspire us to read the Book of Revelation as it is written and to go deeper. They are archived beginning March 2, 2022.
Last year’s devotionals “Created to Display His Image” explored what it truly means to be made in God’s Image and the profound significance of that fact. They are archived beginning February 22, 2023.