It Is Well with My Soul: The Sacred Roots Annual 2022-2023

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T he S eason of L ent

WEEK 14 F irst S unday in L ent February 26 - March 4, 2023

The Lenten Season, a forty-day period starting on Ash Wednesday and ending on Holy Saturday of Holy Week, calls us to reflect on Jesus’s suffering, crucifixion, and death. As disciples of the humble Nazarene, we embrace his lowliness and humility, seeking to share the mind of himwho was obedient to death, even death on a cross.

THIS WEEK’S THEME It IsWritten, Matthew 4.1-11

After the Lord Jesus was baptized, the Spirit of God led him into the desert to be tested by the devil. After fasting forty days, our Lord became hungry. At that moment of vulnerability and exhaustion, the tempter sought to undermine our Lord’s trust in the Father by tempting him to turn stones into bread, to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple so angels could rescue him, and to bow down and worship him, the tempter, in exchange for possession of the world’s kingdoms. In every case our Lord resisted the temptation, quoting God’s Word and standing true to the Father.

D aily D evotional G uide P reparing O ur H earts Invocation: Our Prayer of Acclamation

Dear Savior and Shepherd, who for love of the Father and for our redemption fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards, endured the devil’s temptations, so grant us the strength to overcome our numerous and insistent temptations of the flesh. By your Spirit, help us overcome, and so bring glory to God, your Father and ours. For the sake of Christ, amen.