Ash Wednesday (Includes: Prayer, Fasting & Repentance)

In the Old Testament ashes on the head symbolized mourning, being repentant for sins, and/or humility. Although, today most Christian churches do not put ashes on their heads, but some may mark their foreheads with ashes in the sign of the cross, symbolizing their brokenness over their sin, which Jesus covered with His blood at the cross. Ashes were a sign of “being of the earth; fallen humanity; mourning – for a death, or mourning for our sins (being repentant). What is Ash Wednesday All About? Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting, is the first day of Lent in Western Christianity. It occurs 46 days (40 fasting days, if the 6 Sundays, which are not days of fast, are excluded) before Easter and can fall as early as 4 February or as late as 10 March. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the 40-day season of Lent, a time of repentance and preparation for the great celebration of Easter. Observing Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season can be a way of restoring the important practices of confession and renewal in the church. Ashes were regarded as a symbol of personal remorse and sadness. Often an uncomfortable "sackcloth" garment made of coarse black goat's hair, was worn as well. There are many Old Testament references to the practice. Here are a few: •Job 42:6 "Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Job (whose story was written between seventh and fifth centuries B.C.) repented in sackcloth and ashes while prophesying the Babylonian captivity of Jerusalem. •Dan 9:3 (c. 550 B.C.) "And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes." •Jonah 3:5-6 In the fifth century B.C., after Jonah's preaching of conversion and repentance, the town of Nineveh proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, and the king covered himself with sackcloth and sat in the ashes. •Esther 4:1 "When Mordecai perceived all that was done [the decree of King Xerxes, 485-464 B.C., of Persia to kill all of the Jewish people in the Persian Empire], Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry." The very early Christian church encouraged the use of sackcloth and ashes for the same symbolic reasons. Tertullian (c. 160-220 AD) wrote that the penitent must "live without joy in the roughness of sackcloth and the squalor of ashes." Eusebius (260-340 AD), the famous early church historian, recounted in his "The History of the church" how an apostate named Natalis came to Pope Zephyrinus clothed in sackcloth and ashes begging forgiveness. Also during this time, for those who were required to do public penance, the priest sprinkled ashes on the head of the person leaving confession. Fasting is also included in the rituals of Ash Wednesday. Some just refrain from eating certain foods. But how does God say we should fast? God says, “Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every enslaving yoke? Is it not to divide your bead with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house - when you see the naked, that you cover him, and that you hide not yourself from the needs of your own flesh and blood?” “Then shall your light break forth like the morning, and your healing (your restoration and the power of a new life) shall spring forth speedily; your righteousness (your rightness, your justice, and your right relationship with God) shall go before you, conducting you to peace and prosperity, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.” “Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and He will say, Here I am. If you take away from your midst yokes of oppression (wherever you find them), the finger pointed in scorn toward the oppressed or the godly, and every form of false, harsh, unjust, and wicked speaking. And if you pour out that which sustains your own life for the hungry and satisfy the need of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in darkness, and gloom become like the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy you in drought and in dry places and make strong your bones. And you shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters never fail.” “If you turn away your foot from doing your own pleasure on the Sabbath, from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a spiritual delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and honor Him and it, not going your own way or finding your own pleasure or speaking with your own idle words, then will you delight yourself in the Lord, and I will make you to ride on the high places of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage promised for you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.” (Isaiah 58:6-14 Amp.)

The Wonderful Affects of Praise, Thanksgiving & Obedience

Today is a world-changing day! Today is the beginning of the election caucuses and primaries to determine our next President of the United States. We are in a fight for our country and our very lives. I believe our only hope to have God's mercy on us and our country is to call on God in humility, confessing our sins, and turning from them, and completely committing ourselves into His hands knowing that He is the only one Who can help heal us and our country. The twentieth chapter of II Chronicles tells of King Jehoshaphat, the God-fearing king of Judah, who was surrounded with armies of surrounding nations beyond the Dead Sea. These armies were marching against his army and people. In verse three and four it tells us, "Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself determinedly, as his vital need, to seek the Lord; he proclaimed a fast in all of Judah. And Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord; even out of all of the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord, yearning for him with all their desire. Then King Jehoshaphat stood before the assembly of Judah and prayed, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You." (Amp.) God is our only hope to see a healing in our country, from the President to the lowliest. God gives us a promise of this in II Chronicles 7:14, “If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, pray, seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.” Notice God said, “If My people,” speaking to Believers (those who trust only in His saving blood). After sincerely doing these things mentioned in this scripture (God knows our hearts), then we can be assured if God said it, He will do it – in His time and in His way. Because we can trust in His promises, we can even now praise Him, even before we see the results. Praising God for Who He is, and thanking Him for what He has done and will do, is the most powerful weapon against all the forces of our enemy, Satan, because it brings faith alive in our hearts (and Satan cannot stand against the faith of the believer). After you have put on all the other spiritual armor, as told about in Eph.6:10-18, verse 16 says to, “Lift up over all the covering shield of faith;” and praise and thanksgiving (with obedience) are the tangible parts of faith. Faith is believing the reality of things you cannot see now, but have the assurance that the reality will come in its time, so, in the mean-time, you obey now what you have been instructed to do by God’s Word – and God cannot lie. Faith in God is the assurance that “if God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” Therefore, I can trust Him, I can expect Him and have the confidence that he will do what He says He will do. So I have hope in His trustworthiness, in His integrity and in His faithfulness. So I can praise and thank God now, even though I don’t yet see that for which I am anticipating - His promise to “heal our land;” if I will “humble myself, pray, seek His face, and turn from my wicked (wrong) ways.” By praising God, thanking Him, having faith in Him, trusting and obeying Him, I and all of God’s people can see the answer to our prayers, and that will magnify and glorify God to all who are watching.