Pastor’s Newsletter: Lenten Season 2024
Spring 2024
As we approach this season of Lent for 2024, I have started to ponder the reasons why we love Jesus’ teachings so much. It is the parables and the stories He uses to illustrate for us His instruction for our lives. Our theme for this coming Lenten season here at Glenmoore United Methodist Church is “Inner Search, Outer Walk.” Make this year’s Lenten season a time to capture the wonder and power of reading God’s Word and apply it to our lives and our hearts. Get started during this 40-day season of the contemplation of Jesus Holy Words found in the New Testament and how it can search us inwardly in order to affect us outwardly. Use the great instruction Jesus gives us in Matthew 6 as He teaches about giving, praying, fasting, money and how we handle the constant problem of worry in our lives.
Lent is a time of contemplation and of discipline. A time for repentance and to hope. Of Christ’s journey and sacrifice on the Cross, taking our sin, doubt and shame with Him to display His forgiveness and love for us. Jesus’ ministry on earth was filled with lessons on how to live our lives. Here in the Gospel according to Matthew, that our giving, our serving, and our spiritual discipline start with an inward journey and that our motives to do these things be pure. Of giving and serving the Lord for the sheer joy and not for any outward or selfish reasons. This type of Godly living cannot be found in any self-help book or motivational speech, but by the Word of God. As we delve into His Holy Word, we can learn how to be holy, and not just “seem holy.”
This 40-day discipline of reading and researching our Bible and finding true meaning starts with our yearning to change and to grow. Deep and profound faith in the Lord Jesus comes from the inside, out. Our willingness to serve, to pray, to fast, to give generously, and trusting the Lord with every detail of our lives is an inside job. When we adopt these spiritual disciplines and keep and dedicate them for the audience of God and God alone, between the practitioner and God, they can become the source of great power, joy, and genuine devotion. When they are used for status or show, they become the hypocritical tools of evil and can undo our relationship with God.
I look forward to taking this inner journey with you during Lent and sharing in the joy of our outward walk together, towards the cross. I pray this Lenten season will be the most meaningful and life changing of your lifetime.
In Christ,
Pastor Dan