"DARING TO DREAM GOD'S DREAM"

TM
Location
313 North Patterson Street
Valdosta, GA 31601
Mailing Address
PO Box 807
Valdosta, GA 31603-0807

8:45 am - SonRise Contemporary Service
9:45 am - Sunday School
11:00 am -Traditional Worship Service

First Things First Devotional for Wednesday, February 22

II Corinthians 5:17-21
Today we begin the Season of Lent, a time of spiritual reflection, self-examination, and repentance as Christians around the world focus on their individual relationship with God, and prepare their hearts, minds and souls for the sacred observance of Christ's death and resurrection.

On this first day of Lent, known as Ash Wednesday, followers of Christ will participate in a humbling act of repentance as ashes are smeared on their forehead while the minister proclaims, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” This ritual of penitence is a way of remembering that our Sovereign Lord created us from dust, and we will return to the dust and to God.

This is a day of reconciliation, of being joined back together with God, of being reunited with the One who made us. This is a day of intentionally stopping to remember that we are made in the image of God, and we are to treat others as the image of God. This is a day of consciously living in the knowledge that God made us, that Jesus came among us as a servant in order that we might know God better, and that our wondrous Lord continues to live among us as the Holy Spirit.

Today, may we be reunited with our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer God as we bow before Him in humble repentance, and allow Him to create a clean heart and a new and right spirit within us.

Creator God, Lord of all life, on this Ash Wednesday, wash me clean of my sins and draw me closer to You as You create a new spirit of love and faithfulness within me. And move me by Your Spirit to be reconciled to others through Your life-changing grace and love. For it is in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, I pray. Amen.

II Corinthians 5:17-21 (NRSV)

17So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;

19that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

20So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

21For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

 

Words To Think About

Move into the broken world.
Travel with an intense determination
To find your way into healing,
To take the message of reconciliation
With you, within you,
for everyone.

Rev. Shannon Kelly

 






Rev. Jerry Long
Pastor
First Presbyterian Church
313 North Patterson Street
Valdosta, GA 31601
www.firstpresvaldosta.org

Office: (229) 242-8376




Daring To Dream God's Dream™

 

 

FIRST THINGS FIRST DAILY DEVOTIONAL