Category: Different Scriptures

Posted in Different Scriptures, Different Thoughts

Ash Wednesday/Lent 2024

Posted on by Wick

(The following “daily devotional” is part of a collaborative effort between several churches in the Wabash Conference of the Free Methodist Church to create a 40-day “Lent” Devotional that highlights traditional Spiritual Disciplines. Download the entire booklet here!)

I still remember the first time I prepared the ashes for “Ash Wednesday” as a pastor in 2010. I’d been in ministry about 7 years, and finally felt confident enough to invite the people I loved to participate in such a moment. I’d heard of “Ash Wednesday”, but it had always been something “those churches” do. Yet the more I studied, and regarded the benefits of such a practice, the more I recognized this was something all followers of Jesus could be blessed by.

So I saved the palm branches from Palm Sunday, and waited as they dried until the following February. I wanted to document the moment, so I set up my camera to record. I had a small metal coffee can and a handheld lighter. I collapsed the
dried palm branches into the can, and slowly lowered the flame into the can. It didn’t take long for the fire to start, and flames easily climbed over the edge of the can. In the video, you can see me looking up. Not looking into the sky, and not in a moment of inspired prayer. I was panicking, because I’d started this moment indoors, completely forgetting I wasn’t lighting candles on cake – I was starting a small bonfire.
I quickly moved my procedure outside where it was safe (and wouldn’t make the church smell like marijuana). It was a humbling moment, and I was reminded of the fragile nature of all things flammable. I was also reminded of my own short-
sightedness, even when my heart is in the right place.

All of this became a great reminder for Ash Wednesday itself. As a practice, it didn’t officially begin until the 11th century or so. But God’s people throughout scripture have associated repentance with ashes. It brings a tangible expression to our
confession of helplessness. We are unable to save ourselves. We are unable to even earn the salvation available. We come to Jesus, fully depending on His Love, His Lordship over death itself, and His Grace. As Lent is a season of preparation to fully
celebrate His resurrection, it makes sense to begin it all by marking ourselves with a reminder: We are dust, and to dust we shall return. Or as some also declare: Repent, and believe the good news of Jesus.

Our world offers us a never-ending buffet of things to be proud of. We digitally curate our daily experiences for others to observe. We collect followers, titles, bank accounts or accomplishments. Yet as Christians, we hear the response of Paul in Philippians 3:8, “More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I
regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”

Today we remember prayerfully – all these things (including us) are passing away. Only what is in Jesus remains.

Questions for Reflection:
1. What title or accomplishment are you most tempted to be proud of in an unhealthy way?
2. If you died tonight, what of you would remain tomorrow?


Lord, I turn away from attempting to be my own source. I confess I am nothing, not even living, without you. Bring me Your Life of the New Creation today. In the resurrected Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Click here to read/listen to a “spoken word” I wrote on Ash Wednesday years ago…

Posted in Different Scriptures

Pentecost as Revival of Relationship

Posted on by Wick

            When have you wanted the Holy Spirit to do something powerful in your life? Perhaps you wanted the healing power of the Holy Spirit, or the miraculous ability to translate foreign tongues. Maybe you wanted the power of God for understanding the future, or a prophetic Word that would speak precisely what God’s heart desires for a given moment or season.
          All of this to say – I think we often approach the Holy Spirit, and even passages like Acts 2:1-21, considering all the Holy Spirit enables the people of God to do. But what if we chose to focus specifically on the person of the Holy Spirit, as we read some of these passages?
         We regularly state that we believe in a Triune God. This is a mysterious Truth from how God has revealed God’s self throughout scripture. In the Nicene creed, after mentioning God the Father, and God the Son, we confess “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.”
         Jesus mentions in Acts 1:8 that we will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes, to be His witnesses. Our world builds so much on power – on seeking it, keeping it, and protecting it. So often we hear about the power here, and become so focused on empowerment, we miss out on the person. Focusing only on the power of the Holy Spirit over the Person of the Trinity, causes us to seek a temporary tool instead of an eternal relationship. In scripture, the acts of power are always as a sign of a relationship now available.

            As we read passages like this, what if we held in mind – not “empowerment” as if these followers are all “leveling up” in some cosmic video game – gaining new abilities…but what if we listened to the description as God’s people are entering into relationship with the Holy Spirit as a person, one person of the fullness of God?
In these moments, God is revealing what has changed as we are brought to New Life by the arrival and indwelling of the person of the Holy Spirit.
             In John 14:16-18, Jesus says “I will ask the Father, and he will send another Companion (comforter/advocate), who will be with you forever. This Companion is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world can’t receive because it neither sees him nor recognizes him. You know him, because he lives with you and will be in you.”

        Our God wants us to know Him intimately, as He already knows us intimately. Here are some things I believe we learn about the person of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:1-21:

  1. The Holy Spirit comes from heaven.   Verse 2 – “from heaven there came a sound..” Heaven is where God is, and here is the source of what arrives. Luke 24:49 tells us the Holy Spirit is sent by Jesus and promised by the Father.
    Are we being attentive for God to respond from His presence, or are we waiting for His help and response to arrive from the sources/systems of this world?
  2. The Holy Spirit is revealed as uncontrollable wind and yet also purposeful fire. 
    The wind arrives, and fills the entire place. The Spirit is all-encompassing, arriving in ways that fill every corner of our being and our space.  The fire arrives, but doesn’t fill the entire place. Instead, it divided so that it rested on each of them. The purifying Spirit of God is purposeful and personal.  How are you in need of the Holy Spirit to arrive in your life today?
  3. The Holy Spirit enables living according to His reality. The breath of God always brings New Life. This IS Holiness: abiding in the Love of and living in the ways of God. In the presence of God, all are united as one. Language is not a barrier. This was obviously unexpected by those observing what was happening, as Luke describes them as being bewildered, amazed, and astonished.
    Filled and being used by God for His purposes – they are being made Holy. This is His desire for our lives as well – that we would experience being so filled with His Love and Spirit, that our purposes and hearts are refined to fully reflect His own.  In what ways could the realities of God arrive as unexpected in your life?
  4. The Holy Spirit makes right what humanity has made wrong.
    There’s confusion and bewilderment here, as languages unexpectedly come together. The same confusion happened in Genesis 11:7 in the opposite direction, when God scattered the people into different languages due to their prideful ways at Babel.  In order to humble them enough that they might reach out to God (remain in relationship), God had scattered them.  Here, as relationship is restored – there is a safe place for global healing.
  5. The Holy Spirit brings glory to God – not the individual.
    They were used to prophets, priests, and kings – individuals who represented God’s Reign and Rule. Even when Jesus was with them, there were arguments about which of them would be recognized as closest to Him.
    Here they were all speaking about the mighty acts of God.
    Now the promise of Jeremiah was being fulfilled: “..this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. They will no longer need to teach each other to say, “Know the Lord!” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord; for I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34)
  6. The Holy Spirit brings fulfillment of God’s promises.
    Peter quotes the prophet Joel, reminding them of the words they were now seeing fulfilled.  In Joel chapter 2, he calls on a people who are experiencing the judgment of God to repent. To humble themselves, turning away from their own desires and toward God. He prophecies that God will respond with rescue and redemption, and then these words that His Spirit will be poured out on all people – yes even people precisely like YOU – in ways that ripple out to impact all of creation.  Scripture proclaims no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3b).  John Wesley wrote, “Every true Christian now “receives the Holy Ghost,” as the Paraclete or Comforter promised by our Lord.” (Wesley, “A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion”)  We understand that we are included in those Joel talks about as able to receive the Spirit of God. We include all those we would normally overlook as those with potential to be those who speak for God…even the self we see in the mirror.

To what end? The final verse – Acts 2:21 reveals to us the most important way that we “expect the unexpected”.  Who might experience salvation?

The expectations of our world says things like:
Everyone who is born into the right circumstances..
Everyone who makes good decisions..
Everyone who achieves enough in Jesus’ name..
Everyone who lives a really really good life..
Everyone who _______ (other reasons we think God will accept us)..

Instead – “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

This is an invitation into relationship…the one in need of salvation knowing and being known by the one saving. There are no requirements of proving any sort of ability in order to come and receive.

Do you desire the Holy Spirit – who is our living invitation into the power of relationship here and now with the Triune God? This IS Salvation. Come and receive. Come and be received by the power of the Holy Spirit, into right relationship with God.