Today is Ash Wednesday.

 

Today marks the beginning of Lent.

 

And for some of us…that might not mean a whole lot. 

 

Odds are, if you’re like me and grew up in the Church of the Nazarene or any other “Protestant” church denomination, the season is unfamiliar. I know that my earliest recollection of the season was summed up in a few questions: 

 

What’s with the black smudge on the forehead?

 

And most predominately:

 

Isn’t it something only the Catholic or Orthodox Church celebrate?

 

And like I did, maybe you have or still question who Lent is for.

 

Is it for the Catholic Church?

 

Or is it for the Orthodox?

 

Well, I think I can answer that question. If Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior of your life…

 

Lent is for you.

 

Simply put, if Easter Sunday is the day in which we celebrate what was accomplished on the cross, we can look at Lent as the preparation for the party.

 

Lent is a time in which we are challenged to recognize that our sins have separated us from God and that it cost Him His one and only Son to close the gap. It’s a time of reflection on life. And it’s about reframing our focus on how we live it.

 

And for forty days we attempt to do what Christ did before us. As Matthew would write, after Jesus was baptized:

 

 

 

In its simplest form, Lent is about fighting off temptation from the “stones” in life that attempt to distract us from God and understanding that we are reliant in Him. It’s about doing what Jesus did as He was led through the wilderness.

 

Are you following along here?

 

Lent connects us to Jesus.

 

Just as Jesus spent forty days reflecting on His need for God, for forty days we are called to do the same.

 

And on Ash Wednesday we are reminded of a sobering reality:

 

 

Physically, we don’t live forever. Eventually our physical bodies that came from the ground will return to the ground. And let me add insult to injury here for a moment by adding to this reality by reminding us of what James would write to the church:

 

 

We don’t live forever. And our lives are short.

 

Yikes.

 

Ouch.

 

However, let us not forget the beauty of it all. God gave life to that dust. And it’s not just a life that we experience once our bodies return to dust. It’s a life that God intends for us to live right now. It’s a life that Jesus, Himself, brought and described when He said:

 

 

It’s a life of joy and praise.

 

A life of grace and mercy. 

 

A life of service and blessing. 

 

And so, with our mortality in mind, we are reminded that we are absolutely, entirely, and completely in need of God for this type of life…now and forever. 

 

Do you recognize your need for and dependence on God?

 

Do you understand that without Him, you’re just dust?

 

If Easter is the party and Lent is the party preparation, what are you doing to make sure that the celebration is one that you will never forget?

 

As you do some of your own wilderness venturing, how is the tempter tempting you?

 

Maybe there is a “stone” in your life that is distracting you from God’s provision?

 

While I’m not necessarily asking you to give up a specific commodity for the season, I will ask this of you…

 

Reflect.

 

Reframe.

 

Refocus.

 

Fight.

 

Lent is the season to do just this.

 

Lent is for you.

 

Or better yet…

 

Lent is for God.

 

-Pastor Cody

God expects big things from us.

 

Have you ever thought about that? Or considered the weight of that reality?

 

Truth is, God has created us with a pretty high ceiling when it comes to potential. Don’t take my word for it, Paul wrote these words before I made that statement:

 

 

 

 

That word “handiwork” that Paul uses comes from the Greek word “poeima.” And if that word sounds familiar it’s because “poeima” is where we get our English words “poem” and “poetry.” So a literal translation of Paul’s words tells us that we are actually God’s work of art—His masterpiece.

 

We have been carefully and skillfully and intricately made to be God’s poem, to be His work of art, to be His masterpiece. However, we weren’t created just to sit on the wall for people to stare at. But unfortunately that’s where people tend to draw the line with Paul’s words. These words, more often than not, are used to remind us of our value, to build our self-esteem, and to show us of just how special God thinks we are.

 

There’s nothing wrong with doing that. However, if it’s the only takeaway you get from Paul’s words—you’re missing the point.

 

We are God’s “poeima” for the purpose of doing big things for His Kingdom. And part of the incredible value in being created by God is that our potential to do great things in life are pretty limitless.

 

And if there was anyone in the Bible who missed out this, it was Scripture’s muscle man, Samson.

 

In my humblest opinion, he is the greatest example of wasted potential that we can find in the Bible. He is the epitome of someone who lived a “life well wasted.”

 

At the point of his entry into God’s narrative for earth, we find the Israelites—God’s people—in bondage to the Philistines. It was mainly because the nation of Israel was a spiritual mess. And because they didn’t have strong, Godly leader to lead the nation, they found themselves going through the same cycle every 40 years: they would sin, they’d be captured, they’d cry out to God, and then God would save them. Rinse and repeat.

 

However, during their bondage to the Philistines, even though they hadn’t gotten to the part where they cried out to God, He was already working ahead of them, raising up their next deliverer in Samson.

 

Samson was going to be special.

 

God expected big things from him.

 

He was a miracle child—born to parent’s who weren’t able to conceive.

 

And an angel of the Lord told his mother specifically:

 

 

And did I mention he was given a ridiculously large amount of physical strength to accomplish this?

 

Samson was God’s handiwork, created to do big things with big muscles.

 

But here’s the catch…while God had big plans for Samson, he was told to live by a higher standard. He wasn’t just being called into God’s work, he was told to live into that calling. He was called to live as a Nazirite.

 

To be Nazirite meant he would hold himself to three specific promises: 1) he wouldn’t eat grapes or drink wine, 2) he wouldn’t touch anything dead, and 3) he would never cut their hair. The purpose of these promises were to set himself completely apart from the culture that he lived in—to be different in order to make a difference for God.

 

With his strength he did some pretty big things. But he could have done more. He never lived up to his potential—he didn’t live up to the hype. He never fully engaged his purpose.

 

All those things that a Nazirite wasn’t supposed to do—the wine, the dead, the hair—he did all of it. He hung out in vineyards and loved to party, he ate honey out of the dead lion’s carcass, and his hair was cut all because of a beautiful woman. But not just that—Samson was a liar, he was disrespectful, he was lustful, he let his anger always get the best of him, and he never learned to seek God and because of that he never saw the value that God had placed in his life.

 

So his story doesn’t end the way you’d expect it to. Without the strength that God had blessed him with, he found himself captured by the Philistines, with his eyes gouged out. He went from being a superstar to a complete dud.

 

But we know how the story goes—on death’s door he had a “come to Jesus” moment where we see this:

 

 

It wasn’t until this moment of desperation that Samson finally reached out to God—the God that set him up for success in life. And in one last display of His power, not Samson’s power, God gave Samson strength enough to destroy a Philistine temple—killing himself and more Philistines than he had ever killed in life.

 

And here’s the point I want to make: God wants to use us. And He’s set us up for success.

 

We are God’s handiwork. His poem. His work of art. His masterpiece.

 

He’s given us skills, gifts, and abilities to accomplish His work.

 

Do you live in this truth?

 

Or are you living a “life well wasted” like Samson? Are you squandering your potential?

 

Are you loving to the best of your ability? Are you serving God with what He’s provided to you? Are you building His Kingdom here on earth? Do you serve others? Do you live a life set apart?

 

Or like Samson, do you just serve yourself? Do you live a pretty “ordinary” life by the world’s standards?

 

God expects big things from us.

 

To remind us all, one last time, of how high our ceiling is, let me leave us with this Scripture:

 

 

 

To me, that doesn’t seem like a life well wasted, that to me seems like a life well lived.

 

–Pastor Cody