John Strain

It was about this time in the first Holy Week when the woman anointed Jesus with the valuable ointment.  Mark, Matthew, and John record the event for us.  The scene is touching, intimate.  For Jesus and the woman, it’s a time of mutual love and care.  For everyone else in the room, little love is sensed or exhibited.

Here is the way Mark describes it:  And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head.  There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that?  For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her.  But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.  For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me.   She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial.   And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” (Mark 14:3-9 ESV)

The story reveals some things that Lent teaches us about living with and serving Jesus.  Like the woman in the story, the rigor of the Lenten practices brought cost and risk to those who lived them.  The early church leaders may have intended that new believers learn the lessons, through the Lenten practices, early on in their Christian lives.

The first lesson comes from the criticism the woman and Jesus received for the anointing.  This woman (John identifies her as Mary.) loved Jesus.  She wanted to do something for Him.  In love and humility, she took something of great value and poured it out on Jesus.  Jesus commended her.  The disciples criticized her.  And there is the lesson.  Choosing to serve Jesus is risky business.  People won’t always understand.  We can count on criticism.  It will come.

The second lesson comes from the offering Mary brought in serving Jesus.  Some Bible commentators think this ointment may have been the most valuable thing Mary owned.  In her love for Jesus, she sensed an inner prompt to use her valuable ointment to serve the One who was of more value.  And there is the lesson.  Walking with Jesus and serving Him is always costly.  Take time to read Romans 12:1&2 again.  The words confront us with the cost of living for Jesus.

Risk and cost; they come with serving Jesus.  We discover the worth of both when we hear Jesus say, She has done a beautiful thing to me.

Thanks for joining me on the risky, costly journey.

We’re almost there!  Resurrection Sunday is coming, and our hearts and minds focus on the great celebration.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could move from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday without going through Holy Week!  No betrayal.  No denials.  No trials.  No scourging.  No lies.  No crown of thorns.  No Golgotha.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful!

God’s marvelous story of love and grace doesn’t allow for shortcuts, however.  We can’t skip all the realities Jesus experienced during Holy Week.  We can’t celebrate the resurrection without the betrayal, denials, trials, scourging, lies, crown of thorns, and Golgotha.  No shortcuts.

This Lenten season, in which we’ve focused on reflection, repentance, and renewal, always brings us to this week.  It calls us to remember all that Jesus endured.  It calls us to remember that Jesus lived Holy Week for us, for our redemption and restoration.  The rigor of Lent brings us to this Holy—set apart—Week and asks us to keep staring at Jesus.

The goal of all of it is simple.  Consider the Apostle Paul’s words to the Galatians: my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! (Galatians 4:19 ESV)

Gazing on Jesus during Holy Week offers us new opportunities to see Christ formed in us.  We see His courage.  We see His compassion.  We see His humility.  We hear His teaching.  We see Him alone and in agony in the garden.  We follow Him to Golgotha.  We watch Him die.

The Lenten season brings us to this Holy Week after preparing us for all that will happen.  We’ve experienced self-denial.  We’ve done acts of mercy.  We’ve spent time in solitude.  Now, we walk with Jesus through this awful week, so that Christ may be formed in us.

Consider the words from the Epistle to the Hebrews as you join me in the journey through Holy Week: looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)

We refuse the shortcuts.  We choose the whole journey because nothing is more important than knowing that Christ is formed in [us].

Thank you for sharing the Holy Week journey with me.

Lent is about the journey, not the event.  Salvation occurs in a moment, an event in space and time.  Transformation and preparation occur over time, during the journey.  Salvation declares us holy before God.  The journey calls us to live out holiness every day.  Increasing holiness in our lives is the look of renewal.

I invite you think with me about renewal today.  Renewal comes in two ways.  Both ways are necessary, and I don’t believe we can experience renewal without both ways.  The forty days of Lent call us to think (reflect) about “the ways” of our lives.  These days also call us to change (repent) “our ways” for God’s glory and our good.  They call us to holiness.

In that call is the look of renewal.  I invite you to consider the words of Peter, the Apostle: As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:14-16 ESV)

Peter shows us the two ways by which renewal comes; one is negative, the other is positive.  God calls us to pursue obedience.  That obedience includes not being “conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.” We say “no” to some forms of thinking and behavior because they aren’t congruent with our new life in Christ.  During the Lenten season, we discover some of those incongruences and turn from them.  That happens during reflection and repentance.  Saying “no” to some things is the negative way.

The positive way to renewal is wrapped up in the next words from Peter’s teaching: you also be holy in all your conduct. Describing holiness gets complicated.  Sometimes we try to make it all about behaviors and rules.  I think it’s simpler than that.  Real holiness in the follower of Jesus is just becoming more like Jesus.  We watch His life on the pages of the Gospels.  We hear His words.  We pay attention to what He affirmed and what He rejected.  Becoming like Jesus is the positive way.

There is the look of renewal; it’s the look of Jesus increasingly showing up in our lives.  It’s the look of real holiness that comes as we keep staring at Jesus.  Maybe that’s what the songwriter had in mind while writing these lyrics:

To be like Jesus
To be like Jesus
All I ask- to be like Him
All through life’s journey
From earth to glory
All I ask- to be like Him.

Thanks for joining me on the journey to Christ-like holiness, the look of renewal.

It’s OK to Stare

All of us who have children remember the days when we said to them, “It’s not nice to stare.”  They saw someone who looked a little different, perhaps with some kind of deformity.  They didn’t know it wasn’t OK to stare.

God gives us permission to stare, and the Lenten season offers us a time to stare even more intently.  Granted, we can’t stare at just anybody or anything, but we can stare.  I offer you the Apostle Paul’s words: And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV)

Unlike Moses who had to wear a veil on his face after being in the presence of God (Exodus 34:29-35), Paul pictures us looking face to face at the glory of God.  Beholding it.  Contemplating it.  Staring like a little child at the indescribable majesty of God.

The Lenten season slows us down enough to stare.  The Lenten season takes the scattered nature of our lives and helps us focus.  The Lenten season reveals that which is of greater value and demands our unveiled stare.  The Lenten season turns our eyes away from that which is false—which would do us damage—and places us in front of God’s glory.  We can stare as long as we want.

Unlike the staring of our small children, this staring isn’t only OK; it’s life changing!  Little by little, one degree of glory to another, staring into the glory of God’s being changes us.  The Bible word is “transform.”  We become more like Jesus.  It’s not instantaneous; so we need to keep staring, keep beholding.

The Apostle offers us another piece of important insight in this line from Scripture.  He tells us we are being transformed.” We don’t change ourselves.  For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.  We stare; God works.  The simplicity of the transaction is amazing!

With just a few more days of Lent left, it’s good for us to find time each day to behold the glory of the Lord, to fix our gaze on God.  While considering His life, His sacrifice, and His great gift to us, it’s OK to stare.

Thanks for sharing the journey with me!

We begin the last full week of Lent today.  The journey is almost over.  Resurrection Sunday is almost here.  Let’s use the beginning of this new week to review how we’re doing.

Most of us don’t have the benefit a new Christian in the early church had.  Each of them had a more mature Christian to walk the journey with them.  Some man or woman would sit with them, pray with them, offer them wise counsel as they prepared for entry into the church.

Too often the twenty-first century Christian pursues the journey in isolation. I hope that sharing these thoughts each day has helped some of us not go it alone.  As a pilgrim on the journey, I’ve written with the hope that other pilgrims will join me and not travel alone.

Let’s revisit the “The ‘R’s’” that have framed our journey: reflection, repentance, and renewal.  Think back over the last weeks—reflect—and rediscover what we’ve learned about making time for some “holy thinking.”

“Be still, and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth!”

(Psalm 46:10 ESV)

Remember that reflection is central to all that Lent accomplishes in our lives.  It is time we offer to God.  It is time the Holy Spirit uses to guide our thinking in ways that grow us, strengthen us, and transform us.  In revisiting the first “R,” we want to confirm that we regularly make time for some “holy thinking.”

It is also to our benefit to revisit the second “R,” repentance.  As broken people, “holy change” is almost always a result of “holy thinking.”  We discover things in our lives that aren’t congruent with our profession of faith.  The Spirit of God directs us to change our minds and our direction.  The psalmist showed us the pattern.

When I think on my ways,

I turn my feet to your testimonies;

I hasten and do not delay

to keep your commandments.

(Psalm 119:59-60 ESV)

When repentance occurs we are better prepared for the ultimate goal of the Lenten season: renewed hearts that are ready to celebrate Resurrection Day.  After reflecting on our ways, we turn our feet in obedience and experience “holy change.”

Finally, after reflection and repentance, we experience renewal.  Allow me to call it “resurgent holiness.”  In quietness and solitude we allow God’s Spirit to show us the cobwebs of our soul.  In turning our feet, we experience a spiritual “spring cleaning” that allows renewal of life as God intended.  In the words of the Apostle John, we come back to our “first love.”

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2 ESV)

“Holy thinking.”  “Holy Change.”  “Resurgent Holiness.”

Join me in this last full week of reflection, repentance, and renewal.

The Lenten journey is five weeks old today.  With just more than a week and half to go, the goal is almost in sight.  Resurrection Sunday is coming!  It’s a good time to think about distractions and focus.

The distractions come like a “double whammy.”  Jesus taught us that in following Him we are “in the world, but not of the world.”  That “in the world” part means that distractions abound.  Some of those distractions are benign, but still dangerous.  Their danger exists in their potential to pull us away from following Jesus.

The second part of the “double whammy” is the enemy of our souls.  We’re foolish if we don’t take Peter’s warning to heart: Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (I Peter 5:8 ESV) This enemy is the father of lies, the master of deception and diversion.  If he and his minions can find a way, they will rob us of our focus on following Jesus.

We can learn from “the blessed man” in Psalm 1.  Consider the words from the early verses of the psalm:

Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

(Psalm 1:1&2 ESV)

This “blessed man” saw the distractions for what they were.  The counsel of the wicked, the way of sinners, the place where scoffers sit—all distractions!  He chose not to walk, stand, nor sit in places where distractions could rob him of focus.

The Psalm 1 man made choices.  He rejected that which was of lesser value for that which was of greater value.  A part of the Lenten practice pushes us to make those kinds of choices.  The practices urge us to think about our choices.  They urge us to discover the worth of living like Jesus.  They call us to reject sitting, standing, or walking in the ways that can only distract us.

We learn from the “blessed man” that we can resist the distractions by choosing something better.  He found “delight” in God’s Word.  Through the practice of meditation, he maintained focus “day and night.”  This man knew Lenten practices before Lent existed!  He discovered the importance of reading the Scriptures.  He lived a life of reflection, allowing those Scriptures to become a lamp to [his] feet and a light to [his] path. (Psalm 119:105 ESV)

This Lenten journey is worth the effort.  May God help us to avoid the distractions and remain focused on Jesus.  Thanks for sharing the journey with me.

Are you a reader of Scripture?  Do you have some plan for consistently reading God’s Word?  It is a key piece of the Lenten practices, but it’s more than that.  It’s food for our souls.  We can’t neglect Scripture and expect to live healthy Christian lives.

That pursuit of spiritual health is at the core of the Lenten season.  The early church leaders wanted those “catechumens” to get started well on their journey with Jesus.  They wanted them to start healthy and stay healthy.  Those leaders had discovered for themselves that a Christian life without God’s Word wasn’t the path to spiritual maturity and health.

The practice of Lent, as observed in the early church, didn’t allow for short cuts.  This life we enter with Jesus is, as Eugene Petersen called it, “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.”  We have a manual for this new life—the Bible—and we can’t possibly live life well without it.

So, let me offer you what I’d like to call the “forgotten jewels” of our study of Scripture.  The first of the two jewels is memorization.  Consider a familiar little line of scripture from the Psalms: I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. (Psalm 119:11 ESV)  I know very few people who invest time in scripture memory, and that’s a very sad thing.

Let’s not spend time trying to prove the value of scripture memorization.  Rather, let’s understand its importance for our walk with Jesus.  It brings stability and security to our lives in ways that simply reading God’s Word can’t do.  Most of us think we can’t memorize scripture.  My experience tells me that “can’t” isn’t the issue.  The truth is that most of us just don’t want to do the hard work of sticking with it.

Don’t just read God’s Word; store it in your heart!

The second “forgotten jewel” of Scripture is meditation.  Do you remember that little word seen so often in the Psalms—Selah?  You’ll see it seventy-four times, and it always means the same thing.  “Think on this.”  “Consider this.”  It’s an invitation to meditate on Scripture.  The psalmist offers us the invitation to let a thought from Scripture settle in our souls, to become part of us, to transform us.

Reading God’s Word is good for us.  Storing it up in our hearts through memorization is better for us.  Allowing it to transform us through consistent meditation is best for us.  The combination of the three brings radical transformation.  Reading, memorizing, meditating are tools for our journey with Jesus that will make us more like Him.

Good.  Better.  Best.  Selah!

Thanks for sharing the journey with me.

During the early years of ministry at First Baptist, several retired pastors/preachers made FBC their home.  At times it was pretty intimidating, but each of those men became a good friend and encourager.

One of them, Dr. Roy Watson, would comment on a message simply by saying, “Good word this morning.”  That was about as good as it got.  He wasn’t prone to gushy compliments.  I heard Roy say that so often, that I find myself saying it when I think someone has preached well or said something worthwhile.

I tell you the story to remind us all of the “really good Word,” God’s Word.  In the Lenten journey’s development, reading the Scriptures became a core practice of the experience.  Those early church leaders knew the power of the Scriptures.  They knew the transforming capabilities of God’s Word, and they wanted young believers to grasp its importance in their lives.

Richard Foster, who wrote Celebration of Discipline, in another of his books, speaks of the “streams of Christianity.”  He describes the various traditions within the Christian faith.  In his thinking, evangelicalism is a “word-centered” tradition, and I affirm that thinking.  Part of the richness of the evangelical tradition is its commitment to Scripture and the teaching of God’s Word.

Consider the words of Paul, the Apostle.  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV)

The benefits of Scripture are listed for us in two short verses.  Those benefits, consistent with the goals of the Lenten journey, help us become “competent, equipped for every good work.”  They also prepare our hearts for Resurrection Sunday.  They teach us.  They reprove us.  They provide correction.  They train us in righteousness.

So . . . how do we get this practice rooted in our lives?  Bible-reading plans abound.  You can read from a Bible in your hand or on your computer or on your phone.  You can read from one familiar translation, or you can discover fresh insights by reading from a less familiar translation.  Perhaps the line from the old Nike ad campaign is the best advice: Just Do It!

Every traveler needs food for his journey.  God’s Word is that food for the Jesus-follower.  Let it become a Lenten practice that stays with you long after the Lenten season is past.

Thanks for joining me on the journey.  Let’s “Do It!”

I still have the first Bible I received after becoming a Christian in 1962.  It was the old edition of the Scofield Reference Bible, and just about everyone in the independent Baptist church I called home used one.  Like many believers of the day, I used the blank pages at the front and back of the Bible to write down various quotations from messages I heard.

One of those quotations has remained in my mind.  I have no idea how to give credit to whomever originated the saying, but I’m grateful to him or her.  It goes like this:

Jesus

Others

You

The acronym using the word joy offers at least one person’s suggestion about how to know true joy.  The acronym also speaks to one practice that is central to the Lenten journey.  It’s the practice of mercy, or acts of compassion.  The leaders in the early church saw wisdom in teaching new believers the need to serve others.

Choosing to follow Jesus places demands upon our lives.  Jesus must come first.  In His own words, Jesus told us that He did not come to be served but to serve.  He focused on serving, usually those who were in the most need.  He taught and modeled a humility that included putting others before Himself.  That sounds very much like the acronym for JOY.

Compassion, acts of mercy, didn’t start with Jesus.  It’s as old as the Law of Moses, and it was always a big deal with God.  Micah may have put it in focus better than any of the prophets when he said,

He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the LORD require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

(Micah 6:8 ESV)

The word kindness in Micah 6:8 is often translated mercy.  Both words have the same idea: love doing gracious things for others, especially those who most need grace.  God clearly expects us to invest our lives in acts of mercy, compassion, and grace.

The early church leaders may have seen two benefits of doing acts of mercy.  First, they saw the need for new believers to live selflessly, to walk humbly with God.  They may have also realized that learning to live with a “mercy mindset” reflected the heart and mind of Jesus.  Learning to love kindness is learning to walk like Jesus.

We’ve seen the billboards urging us to do “Random acts of kindness.”  That’s not a new thing.  God thought of it several millennia ago.  Our impetus for loving kindness doesn’t come off a billboard.  It comes right from the heart of God.

What act of mercy might God want you or me to offer today in His name?

Thanks for sharing the journey with me.

We begin a new week today, the fifth week of the Lenten season.  Our journey may have been full of blessing, or it may have been a time of struggle.  Probably, for most of us, we find ourselves in between.  We’ve experienced blessing, and we’ve struggled.  I think life tends to be that way.

That balance of blessing and struggle is part of what makes this season good for us.  The songwriter knew us well when writing the words “frail children of dust and feeble as frail.”  Without the focus and rigor of times like this, our vitality becomes vulnerable.  We are susceptible to drift.  And that puts us in good company.

You remember the story of the last Passover Jesus spent with the disciples.  It was the night before Calvary.  It was the night He was betrayed.  Early in the evening, Jesus said something to them that rocked them.  All of a sudden, they weren’t sure about themselves.  Their “feeble as frail” was front and center.

When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve. And as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?” (Matthew 26:20-22 ESV)

After three years with Jesus, each of the disciples wondered if he would betray Jesus?  None of them were sure.  Each of them considered the possibility.  What prompted each of them to ask Jesus, “Is it I, Lord?”

The early church saw too much betrayal.  Too many who professed Jesus as Lord caved in and went back to whatever they had come from.  Many who “went back” probably never thought they would.  But they did.  The pressure to recant their faith weighed on them every day.

The early church leaders saw the practices of the Lenten season as a preventative to the failures.  Especially for the new believers, learning the practices of prayer, Scripture reading, self-denial, and acts of compassion put strength in them.  The practices provided tools to help them walk the journey.  Eventually, the church discovered that an annual review of the practices could help keep all of them on the journey.

I invite you to look at the practices today with this question in mind.  “Is it I, Lord?”  I can’t say I’ll never betray the Lord.  I don’t think I will.  I don’t want to betray Him.  Asking the question, however, is a good exercise.  It prompts me to examine my life.  It helps me see the rigor of reflection, repentance and renewal with new perspective.  These sacred practices keep me from drifting.  They protect me from the ugliness of betrayal.  They keep me on the journey.  They put strength in me.

As we continue the journey, I invite you to join me in thinking about the question.  “Is it I, Lord?”