Day 1 - Ash Wednesday
Bible Verses: Matthew 6:1-15
Spark Bible: The Lord’s Prayer (p.278)
Devotion: Today is an important day in the church calendar: it’s called Ash Wednesday, the day when Lent starts. Lent is a 40 day journey where we prepare ourselves for Easter, and today is the start of that journey of prayer and thinking about how we live our lives.
In our passage today, Jesus teaches his disciples and the crowd around him how to pray. I’m sure everyone who was there was really surprised: ‘Um, Jesus, we already know how to pray. Tell us something that we don’t know!’ But many people in Jesus’ time were praying loudly and with really long prayers so that everyone could see how good they were at praying. He was worried that people weren’t praying for the right reasons, so he taught them a simple prayer that is still the best known prayer in the world: The Lord’s Prayer.
Jesus shows us many different ways that we can pray: thanking and celebrating God (‘hallowed by thy name’), asking for help for other people (‘Your kingdom come’), asking help for ourselves, (‘Give us this day our daily bread’), and asking for forgiveness. But even more important than the words that we say is how much we mean those words deep down in our heart. As we travel through this season of Lent learning and praying along with other families, I hope we can feel the love and care that each family brought to these devotions.
Reflection: When do you usually pray? Do you say the same prayer each time, or do you try to pray for different things?
Prayer: Dear God, thank you for having Jesus teach us how to pray. Please help me say prayers about the things that are important to me. Amen.
Spark Bible: The Lord’s Prayer (p.278)
Devotion: Today is an important day in the church calendar: it’s called Ash Wednesday, the day when Lent starts. Lent is a 40 day journey where we prepare ourselves for Easter, and today is the start of that journey of prayer and thinking about how we live our lives.
In our passage today, Jesus teaches his disciples and the crowd around him how to pray. I’m sure everyone who was there was really surprised: ‘Um, Jesus, we already know how to pray. Tell us something that we don’t know!’ But many people in Jesus’ time were praying loudly and with really long prayers so that everyone could see how good they were at praying. He was worried that people weren’t praying for the right reasons, so he taught them a simple prayer that is still the best known prayer in the world: The Lord’s Prayer.
Jesus shows us many different ways that we can pray: thanking and celebrating God (‘hallowed by thy name’), asking for help for other people (‘Your kingdom come’), asking help for ourselves, (‘Give us this day our daily bread’), and asking for forgiveness. But even more important than the words that we say is how much we mean those words deep down in our heart. As we travel through this season of Lent learning and praying along with other families, I hope we can feel the love and care that each family brought to these devotions.
Reflection: When do you usually pray? Do you say the same prayer each time, or do you try to pray for different things?
Prayer: Dear God, thank you for having Jesus teach us how to pray. Please help me say prayers about the things that are important to me. Amen.