Lent 2025 –Changed by Faith in the God who Saves – Stations of the Cross 6 – Purity 1628
Purity 1628 04/09/2025 Purity 1628 Audio Podcast
Purity 1628 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a green, yet snow-capped mountain range beneath a wonderful, cumulus cloud filled, blue sky comes to us from an unknown FB friend who shared this majestic scene on social media back on July 7th, 2022. If this memory is yours, give us a heads up and we will photo-credit you on the blog after the fact.
Well, It’s Wednesday and I share this mountain majesty to visually represent our arrival to another mid-week summit (happy Hump Day) and to inspire us to never stop seeking the higher ground of our new lives in Christ. Christ came to set us free and to give us life and life more abundantly and so we do not lose hope when we fail to progress and instead believe that the Lord is working in our lives even if we can’t see it.
My morning weigh in tells me that the few compromises I made to my food plan in the past week had a consequence – a slight weight gain. In reviewing the past week, I know what I did wrong and will endeavor to not make the same mistakes again but I am also oddly encouraged as I have noticed a change in my attitude towards the foods that would normally trip me up and I have been exposed to some good Christian teaching via audiobooks by R.C. Sproul and John Eldredge that I believe are going to be used by the Lord to lead me where I should go.
As much as we would like to pull ourselves up by our boot straps and will ourselves into a transformed life, we have to realize that the flesh is weak and if we don’t ask the Lord to help us to change our hearts about the things that cause us to stumble, whatever fleshly progress we make will eventually be lost as our uncrucified flesh and our volitional strength will give way to the world, the flesh, and the devil.
God has to change us, and I was reminded in this fact by the In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley devotional from yesterday and so I am sharing it on the blog today to encourage us to trust in the God who saves. Charles Stanley writes:
“The God Who Saves
Salvation isn’t something we earn; it is a gift of God.
Today’s passage (Ephesians 2:8-9) tells us that we have been saved by grace through faith. Whatever we’re asked to change or give up for Jesus’ sake pales in comparison with that amazing gift.
The Lord isn’t looking for people who change a few habits by sheer force of will; He’s calling people to surrender themselves to Him. The only action God requires is belief in Him. That means trusting Jesus is who He says He is, will do what He promises, has the authority to forgive, and will equip His people to live a godly life. Because of those convictions, a new Christian is empowered to turn away from his or her old life—in other words, to repent—and begin the process of living as “a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
We don’t evolve into a saved people by stopping old habits and instituting better religious ones. Rather, we are transformed by the saving power of Jesus Christ when we believe in Him.
Since salvation isn’t something, we earn, no one can boast before God. Compared with the holiness of Jesus Christ, all of our moral living, good deeds, and strenuous efforts to change bad habits amount to nothing (Isaiah 64:6). Only His righteousness can cover our sins and make us right before the Father.” – Charles Stanley
Amen. After struggling to fix or improve my life for most of my life, I was blessed to learn of the power of our faith in Jesus to change us for good.
Our belief in and our faith in Jesus, coupled with our surrender to do God’s will for our lives, gives the Lord power over our lives and provides Him with the fertile ground of humility that He will use to cause us to grow and to become the people that He made us to be.
While we will have to do our part in the process, the process of transformation is the Lord’s work and sometimes He likes to take His time to help us to learn as we go.
It is by faith alone that we are saved, and it is also by faith that we will be changed.
So, keep believing and trusting in God. Keep seeking Him. Keep asking Him for help and trust that the good work He has begun in you will be completed. When we repent and believe in the gospel amazing things can happen.
Speaking of repentance, during this season of Lent, the Lord has put it on my heart to present the Stations of the Cross, one day at a time, to help us to never forget Christ’s sacrifice and the cost for our freedom. It is my hope that presenting the Stations of the Cross will help us to draw close to our Lord and Savior as we move toward Resurrection Sunday, aka Easter.
Today, we go to the sixth station, where Veronica wipes the face of Jesus as He carries His cross to Calvary. For more on the story of Veronica, I am sharing a link on the blog from Got Questions.org that gives the background of who Veronica is and how her story became a part of the Roman Catholic Church tradition and the Stations of the Cross: Is Veronica Mentioned in the Bible?
The prayers and liturgy of “The Way of the Cross” leads us to pray:
Figure 1 – Sixth Station of the Cross: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus – Catholictradition.org
(To examine and to pray through the Stations of the Cross, I will be utilizing “The Way of the Cross” PDF that you can download from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester and images from Catholictradition.org).
Amen. While the story of Veronica wiping the face of Jesus, and the relic of the “Veil of Veronica, which according to legend held the likeness of Christ’s face and the power to heal, is not reported in the Bible, her story is part of the Stations of the Cross and although there are some serious question of whether or not this account is more fiction than fact, I feel that it worth reflecting on because it conveys the love and compassion that Christ’s disciples had for Jesus and focuses on His human nature.
It is my prayer that reflecting on Christ’s suffering will cause us all to be compassionate towards the human suffering that we encounter in our lives and that we would be moved to offer comfort to those we find in need.
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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/.
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Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By John G. Kruis.
(While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s work. (The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling By John G. Kruis on Amazon )
This morning’s meditation verse comes from the section on Loving God.
1 Chronicles 28:9 (NIV) You, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.
Today’s verse falls under the seventh point of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Loving God.
7. David’s charge to his son Solomon, to serve God with wholehearted devotion, is good for all of us.
Today’s Bible verses are a father’s best advice to his son. King David’s life was not without its regrets, mistakes, and sufferings and so in this passage of scripture he makes his impassioned plea to his son Solomon, to seek the Lord and His will for His life and to do it with wholehearted devotion.
David was the man after God’s own heart after all and he sought to make his son understand that his relationship with God was a love relationship and that if he pursued the Lord with anything less that his whole heart, he would run the risk of being rejected forever.
While opinions differ on whether or not Solomon had “saving faith”, we can all learn from his life and his father’s advice to seek the Lord with all of our hearts.
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.com where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from “Day by Day Along the Way” By Jay E. Adams.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Adams’ books for your own private study and to support the late author’s work. This resource is available online for less than $20 at many sites.
Day 127
Then Jesus returned to Galilee by the Spirit’s power … – Luke 4:14
There is a time for testing; there is a time for tasking. Having gone through the worst that the Devil could throw at Him (short of the cross), the temptation would have been to rest on His laurels—as we so often do. After all, the test was wearisome, difficult, and exhausting. But rest was not to be. The test was to prepare for the task. So, too, when you have that great breakthrough, when success in suffering is over, remember, work must now begin. There can be no slacking off. The spirit not only leads into tests, He also empowers for tasks. His power is given when it is used for the purposes for which it is given. It is not an entity to be savored for itself; it is to be used for work in serving Christ. Have you settled down now that you have successfully endured the test? Are you willing to go forth into your Galilee to serve? If so, the power of the Spirit will rest upon you, giving you wisdom and strength for the job. Never forget that the test precedes the task, but the test is useless unless it prepares for the task.[1]
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[1] Jay E. Adams, Day by Day along the Way (Cordova, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 135.
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