Opening Prayer:
Almighty God, thank you for meeting with me in this time. Please walk with me through this season of Lent and this day, that I may experience your presence in a new and refreshing way, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.

Read: Quote from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
“Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. (However) When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realized that our position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about. They offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. They offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the Moral Law and yet also a Person. They tell you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf, how God Himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God.”

Reflect: What do you think Lewis means by saying “our position is nearly desperate”?  How does Lewis say God saved us from God’s disapproval?  What does this passage teach us about sin?

Prayer: for the church, for others, and for myself

Hymn: “Dear Master, in Whose Life I See”
Dear master, in whose life I see
All that I would, but fail to be,
Let they clear light forever shine,
To shame and guide this life of mine.

Though what I dream and what I do
In my weak days are always two,
Help me, oppressed by things undone,
O thou, whose deeds and dreams are one!
– John Hunter

Benediction:
Almighty God, be present in my life today as I seek to walk in the abundance of grace available through Jesus’ work on the Cross. Amen.