" 'Yet even now', declares the Lord, 'return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.'"

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As the Lord calls you to "rend your hearts,"--that is, to tear them open--we're reminded that love can be painful sometimes.  It's painful if you love someone, and they don't return your love.  It's painful when you love someone dearly and you're separated by distance, or circumstance, or even death.  It's painful when you watch someone you love make mistakes of go down the wrong path.  Love hurts sometimes.

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Love was painful for Jesus, too.  He loved you so much that He was willing to die for you.  His blood was shed out of love for you.  And now for us, it's painful to think about what Jesus had to undergo.  It's not pleasant to hear of His suffering and death.  Sometimes we want to just skip past Good Friday and to straight to Easter and the resurrection.

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But it's this Lenten journey to the cross where Jesus teaches us what true love is all about.  He teaches us to examine our lives in the mirror of the Law and to see whether we have been loving towards all others, including even our enemies.  And in all honesty, it causes us to see our faults and failures; it causes us to weep, and mourn, and tear open our hearts out of grief.

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But Jesus doesn't leave our hearts torn open.  He answers our prayers as we sing together Psalm 51: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."  He takes your empty, broken heart, and gives you a new, pure and holy heart.  He gives you a heart made whole by His love.

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If you're looking for a new heart, a new love, the kind that only Jesus can give, join us once more on this Lenten journey to the cross, the tomb, and the joyous celebration of the resurrection...all for you.

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God's richest blessings!​

 

 

​​​​​​​​​​​Pastor M <t><​​