Sanctified By Grace

Tonight we continued our study of what it means to be sanctified by grace. Our working definition of sanctification is “the process of Jesus making us more like Himself”. With this focus we are emphasizing the process, or journey of faith is all about Jesus.

The intersection of discipleship and sanctification is to live missionaly. We all know what it means to be a missionary: noun—to go to another culture and proclaim Jesus. To be missional is to: verb—be sent ones in our culture, proclaiming Jesus.

Question, how do we unpack this pursuit into daily living, into bite size pieces if you will?

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, a day of repentance and reflection. Typically, liturgical churches “celebrate” the day by having ash put on their forward in the sign of the cross. What a strong marker of identification!

This can serve as an awesome reminder that we are but dust and that is what we will return to. In this ceremony the ashes used are typically made from the burning remains of the previous years palms from Palm Sunday. The following is a decent website, in a question and answer format, for more info: http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/ash_wed.htm

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, the season before Easter. Lent is a forty-day period before Easter. In counting the days of Lent, Sunday’s are skipped. Accordingly, Lent begins today and ends on the Saturday before Easter, March 26.

Traditionally, Lent started as a time of dedication for those wishing to get baptized on Easter. These new disciples would focus on Christ’s teachings and doctrines of the church. Because these disciples would become members of the church, at baptism, the whole congregation took the season of Lent to affirm their beliefs and actions.