Seeing God’s Love (Lent 1, 2024)

Try this exercise: Close your eyes.  Imagine God.  What do you see on the screen in your mind as you are honest with yourself about who you think God is?

Do you see a Being who harshly judges, throws lightning bolts, condemns people to their own desires, or exerts wrath upon everyone who won’t agree or bow a knee to Him in this very moment?  Perhaps in accordance with another tradition you see an angry God who calls you to punish infidels with torture or death unless they submit. To a far lesser degree, do you see a disapproving God because of how people live on earth and demands you do what you can to convince others of their errors?  Maybe you see an apathetic Being who created us and then left us on our own to work things out?  Is your God a Being who is so holy as to be unapproachable or conversely, beyond friendly as a very human equal buddy?  Or do you see One who overflows with grace and mercy?  These are among the ways people view God.

Now look in the mirror or use the selfie mode of your mobile phone camera.  What do you see looking back at you?  Someone who, as an Image-bearer, looks like God as you have imagined Him, or do you see someone totally different?

This devotional series for Lent, “Seeing His Love with New Eyes,”
is very personal to me.  
I wonder if it could be for you, too.

My heart wants to see the infinite love of God and always to feel loved like this, but my finite mind and conscience are an archive of 65 years on this planet, with my sinning the entire time. Maybe you would like to be free of condemnation too, and to know the love of God in new and personal ways.

We exercise many things for our health, but this exercise in our faith can do wonders for understanding God.  Begin with this exercise: Open your eyes to seeing God’s love in new ways. 

It’s not trite to say that “God is love.” (1 John 4:16)

Join me tomorrow as we see how sin has distorted our view of God.

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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.