“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” – Matthew 6:1

When Jesus teaches his people how to pray and how they should practice their faith he tells them to focus more on their relationship with God and less about their relationship with other people.  The common practice was to “show off” your holiness and righteousness before other people rather than keeping that between you and God.  Jesus teaches that the people who are “showy” with their faith have already received their “reward” on earth because they only cared about what other people thought of them.  Instead we ought to focus on what God thinks of us.

As we enter the season of Lent this Ash Wednesday, we are offering a couple of opportunities to repent and pray.  Please join us in person and online at noon tomorrow for our prayer service.  OR you can come to our Interactive Social-Distance Prayer Stations at 6pm.  These stations will provide an opportunity for us to repent and pray, receive the gift of God’s forgiveness through the self-imposition of ashes, Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and transformation of a clean heart.

Almighty God, We come to worship You as the Lenten season begins, aware of our frailty and our failings. We come seeking Your mercy, acknowledging our mortality. Having received the waters of baptism, we also are marked with ashes. Remind us that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  The treasures of this earth do not last; our treasure is in heaven, our heart’s true home. Amen.