We encourage you to sign up for the 40-40-40 Lenten Challenge, a challenge with our partner Southeastern Iowa Synod to participate in Lenten practices, including these daily devotions. Just signing up counts as participation! More info here.

These words are hitting differently this year as we reimagine faith. In fact, these verses are so well-known to those of us who have been Christians for any length of time, I wonder if their power has diminished for us. Or at the very least, if we have stopped getting curious about how they speak to our lives. The traditional interpretation, and probably one that the broader culture hears, is that Jesus came so that we can get to heaven and not perish in hell after we die.

But the deep riches of the text are lost when our understanding and interpretation stop there because ‘perish’ has so many meanings. There are ways that each of us experience perishing in day-to-day life – hopes that don’t come to fruition; disappointments both large and small; illness of body, mind, or spirit; societal failings that oppress those who are incarcerated, or who face racism, xenophobia, transphobia, misogyny, or any other kind of injustice. Perishing is, indeed, all around us and not limited to the human world, but includes the earth and our natural world.

This all begs the question if God came into the world not to condemn the world, but in order to bring salvation to those who are perishing, how does your faith in this promise both bring salvation to you and empower you to act on that faith? Together, your faith with the faith of other disciples can result in salvation for the perishing: words of hope in the midst of despair, food on the table of the hungry, welcome, and community for the outcast and lonely.

Indeed, God saves you each and every day, and through you and the church, we can begin to reimagine a world where everyone experiences this grace and salvation.

Prayer

God of everlasting promise, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus you have called me to a life of grace and faith. By your Spirit empower me to believe and so believing to act, that living in your salvation I might leave behind all that no longer gives life and step into a future you are calling into existence. Join my faith and gifts with others in my life so that together our faith becomes your gift living in the world. Amen.

Journal Prompt

Lent calls us to practices of faith. Reflect on your own life of faith. When has God called you to take a step into something new? How did you respond? Or, ask yourself if God is currently calling you, like Abram, to leave something behind so that you can start something new, even if that new thing has yet to be revealed. How does that call make you feel?

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Week Two Devotions by Rev. Erika Uthe, uthe@seiasynod.org