How appropriate for Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day to be the same day this year!  One reminds us of our great need, and the other reminds of us the greatness of Love’s provision.

Ash Wednesday helps us remember our own sinfulness and mortality.  After Adam and Eve had sinned in the Garden of Eden, God spoke words to them which are true of us as well:

“. . . dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”  (Genesis 3:19)

Job, after suffering unimaginably and then questioning the justice of his fate, came face to face with his own humanity and weakness compared to God’s greatness and power.  He humbly declared:

“I am unworthy . . .” (Job 40:4)

“My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.  Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”  (Job 42:5-6)

We, like Adam, Eve, and Job, are unworthy and in need of repentance.  We are dust.  BUT instead of giving up on humanity and leaving us as dust, the Almighty God of creation has proven to be, as the Bible proclaims, an amazing God of love.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  (John 3:16)

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us!  If we confess our sins, He promises to be faithful to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  Not only does He forgive and cleanse us from sin, but He adopts us as His own sons and daughters for this life and all eternity!  That, dear friends, is incredible beauty from ashes!  What a perfect Valentine!

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”  (1 John 3:1)

Humanity is but dust destined for dust without Jesus.  Praise God it doesn’t have to end that way!  While it’s true we are all outwardly wasting away–our earthly bodies will one day die–inwardly we can be renewed through the power of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit at work within us.  Hallelujah!

May the Lord open the hearts of many today and lead to repentance, new life, and never-before-known beauty from ashes.

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know that love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”  (Ephesians 3:16-19)