My Vision of a Walk with You-Lent 4, 2020

Prayer Focus: Walking with God

Father, as I reflect upon the words of the hymn “In the Garden” I am overtaken by the knowledge that Adam and Eve once had the continual joy of a close and perfect walk with You in the perfect place called Eden. The hymnist wrote, “I come to the garden alone, While the dew is still on the roses; And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, The Son of God discloses. Refrain: And He walks with me, and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own, And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known.” We thank You that we can walk with You because of Your love and mercy, even more now because of the grace and sacrifice of Your Son Jesus Christ. It was His blood that paid for my sins so I could have a walk with You. That my reply to Your question of Adam and Eve “Where are you?” doesn’t have to be their response of hiding. How awful that temptation is so insidious to lure them away from a perfect walk with You and into human sin and hiding in total shame. May I be reminded at times I sin, both knowingly and unwittingly, that forgiveness was bought at such a heavy price as the blood of Christ. I want to walk with You and to hear Your voice of assurance. Assurance of forgiveness. Assurance of Your mercy. Assurance of Your love. Assurance of my being able to walk with You in eternity and that it isn’t based upon my efforts, but rests solely on the foundation of Christ’s sacrifice. The punishment—all Your righteous wrath against sin—was poured out on Him so I could be forgiven. Assurance that even though I still fall short time and again of the way I want to be, that I can repent and find You ready to forgive, abounding in grace, and merciful because You know my frame and my heart. Lord God, help me to walk with You at all times, pray without ceasing, and to know that walking with You is a combination of intentional awareness and habit of life. May I set out each day to walk more closely with You. To hear Your voice in all circumstances shining a light before my feet, telling me “This is the way. Walk in it” and that my response would be automatic and eager. Be with me this day, Lord. Guide me by the power of Your Holy Spirit. Keep me from sin and temptation. Preserve me by Your grace, forgiven through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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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.