Luke 4:3-4 NLT

Then the devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.” But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone.’”

One immediate challenge with persevering is that we never know at the start how long we shall need to endure. Here Jesus faces his first approach from the devil. We know with the benefit of scripture that this season will be for 40 days, around six weeks. Jesus is unlikely to have known how long he was to face temptation in the desert. What he discovers is that the devil wants to mess with his mind. What’s more, the devil approaches him after 40 days of desert life. One imagines Jesus is at a low point for he has been fasting and would have been in great need of food. When we are tested, it is our resolve that is slowly challenged and we become increasingly vulnerable to Satan’s tricks.

The experience of the desert generally leaves us feeling distant from God. Like Jesus, the enemy will whisper in our ears something that in itself is reasonable and logical. After all, the Son of God is a miracle-worker and so perhaps this authority is for his own benefit. Jesus resists. None of us dare take action until and unless God speaks. When I relieve my pressure through human ingenuity, I remove myself from the space in which God can act and I can both learn and grow.

I discovered that during my early life where I leaned on my own understanding, classically trained, academically astute and full of human passion and energy, I failed to learn much about leaning on God. When I found myself lost in the desert where I literally ran out of solutions arising from human imagination, I was ill-prepared to trust God. I felt acute fear and was challenged by the devil hour after hour. My Christian life began to unravel, since I was naked before both God and the devil and had little but human resolve to resist the mayhem of my mind.

QUESTION: Are you a problem-solver that struggles to wait and trust God for an answer?

PRAYER: Help me today to walk with “faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7, NIV)

Luke 4:1-2 NLT

'Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the River Jordan. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.'

Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent. The word “Lent” means “lengthening” and identifies the growing hours of daylight as spring advances. Symbolically, it speaks of the approaching light of Christ, with the resurrection dispelling darkness once and for all. Easter is the moment darkness is defeated and God re-established friendship with all humanity. Today, in many traditions, Christians will receive an ash cross upon their foreheads, a sign of penitence and reminder that it is “through many tribulations” that we enter God’s kingdom (Acts 14:22, NKJV).

In an instant, the Spirit leads Jesus from the glory of his baptism to the wasteland of the desert. How often have I fallen from the heights of worship and wonder to the despair of doubt and despondency? The desert is an essential element in the life of every disciple. Israel must cross the desert before entering the Promised Land, Elijah flees from the moment of his greatest triumph, depressed he enters the loneliness of the wilderness.  The desert is where we learn to trust and grow in God.

The desert simplifies all of life. It is a place that I either enter or die within, or somewhere I learn to survive through sheer persistence. The desert cannot support life. Only when we find God are we able to ensure both nourishment and survival. Jesus fasted for there was nothing to support life in the wilderness. However, he fed off the bread of life and discovered what he later taught, that we do not live by bread alone. Israel discovered this with the miraculous provision of the manna.

QUESTION: Does the desert experience call to you repel you? Or are these opposites in equal tension?

PRAYER: My heart is set on you, God, and I choose to persevere in my quest to deepen my friendship with you.

Romans 5:3-4 NLT

'We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.'

Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day is the day before Lent starts, a season of abstinence in preparation for Easter. It recognises Jesus’ trial in the wilderness and is also called the Great Fast by some churches. On this day all the fats and foods that were to be avoided throughout Lent are used up, hence pancakes. The idea is that if all the temptations are removed from the house, it is easier to manage our human frailty, and thereby offers us support in persevering through this voluntary fast.

There are no rules as such, although some traditions, such as the Orthodox and Catholics, offer a framework. The idea is that we embrace a fast to focus on our faith choices and reflect upon our faith commitments. It offers an opportunity for couples and families to draw together around their faith. Often food is at the centre of our fast, but this is not the only fast we can make. Jayne, who already has a limited and strict diet due to her health condition, has fasted TV for example, since that requires greater perseverance than what would be no more than maintaining her diet on a food fast. It can also mean dropping a meal and eating smaller servings.

Of course, abstinence alone is not the point. It is in those moments of abstinence, a missed meal or cooking without certain ingredients, we are encouraged to take some time to reflect upon our friendship with God and the condition of our faith. This may involve some self-reflection on the past year. It will also engage us with thoughts and prayers about how we might want to live our faith in the future. In essence, Lent offers a healthy pause for thought, a time to recalibrate our Christian walk.

QUESTION: A fast to get to know Jesus better; what’s to lose?

PRAYER: I want to endure and grow in my love and faith. Help me identify spiritual disciplines that help develop deeper Christian character.

1 Corinthians 13:7 NLT

Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Perseverance is characterised by the ability to achieve something despite difficulties and obstacles that stand in our way. It takes both grit and determination, and is not easily accomplished. In fact, it reveals the depth of our convictions and the lengths to which we persist.

The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ encounter with the devil in the wilderness reveal perseverance is not simply grim determination. It requires clarity of thought in finding ways to press on and avoid capitulating early. Jesus used scripture to counter Satan’s craftily composed temptations (Matthew 4). The core of our perseverance as disciples lies in the reality of the depth to which we are loved by God. Great news here – no matter where we find ourselves, God never gives up on us. We are invited to build our faith muscle by persevering through challenges.

A friend introduced me to the concept of the learning zone. This is made up of a comfort zone, a learning zone and a panic zone. The comfort zone is where we most naturally reside. Here we apply our knowledge and skills and nothing tests us. However, to grow we need to step beyond the familiar and this will feel uncomfortable, as we will not know if we can navigate this sphere. Push too far and too fast and we enter the panic zone. Here we learn nothing because we are overwhelmed by fear. Jesus knew something of his roots, experienced the love and devotion of his parents and experienced the presence of God speaking at his baptism. Then he sets out into the learning zone to discover how he related to God beyond the familiar landscape of his childhood.

Most of us have a reluctance to step beyond the comfort zone; yet, we can only ever know more of God as we entrust ourselves to the learning zone. Here we discover more about both God and ourselves. Here we develop the skills we need to live an active and effective Christian life on earth and explore the supernatural character of our eternal God.

QUESTION: How do you plan to step into the learning zone in your faith?

PRAYER: I don’t want to stagnate but am drawn to remain in the comfort zone. Help me to trust you and step forward in faith.

Acts 4:32 NLT

'All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had.'

Unity creates an atmosphere of trust and harmony. Within such an atmosphere, remarkable things become possible. I grew up with stories from my mother of life in Britain during the Second World War. The war years affected her from age 14 to 20. She lived away from London, but close to Plymouth, which as a naval port, suffered from enemy bombing. Yet, it was not the inconvenience or danger of war she spoke most of, it was more the way her local community came together and cared for each other. The war had united them in heart and mind, and consequently they shared freely with one another in a common goal.

When there is no visible threat, it is easy to become consumed with my own interests. Individuals and families are shocked and appalled when some interruption to their plans breaks in, such as an unwelcome illness. There is usually little motivation to pull together. Indeed, much of our social and economic narrative promotes the idea of individual responsibility to make one’s way in life. Those who fail to do so, for whatever reason, run the risk of being labelled as scroungers and parasites. We are not building a kind society, it seems.

We are citizens of heaven and as such, a community with a shared purpose and a common enemy. Our success, as with Britain when facing seemingly impossible odds in the Second World War, is to pull together and enter into “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:10-16), which is God’s call and gift to us. We are individuals, with the uniqueness that accompanies our individuality, yet we are called to join the family of God, clearly expressed through the Church. Our responsibility is not to engage in endless internecine war with each other, but to collaborate in defeating our common foe.

QUESTION: Are you in one heart and mind with fellow Christians and working to defeat God’s enemy, the accuser of humanity?

PRAYER: I want to found my life on the character and teachings of Christ – help me to love God first and to love my neighbour as myself.

Philippians 1:27 NLT

Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good News.

A quick search on Google will identify how different countries identify citizenship. Common to all is that it is a relationship between rights and responsibilities. The scripture contains the essential elements required of a disciple, aka a citizen of heaven. As with all relationships, my freedom in Christ is related to my willingness to abide by God’s life-giving instructions.

Perhaps, as Ghandi, the Indian nationalist, declared that he would be a Christian if it wasn’t for Christians. This followed his exclusion from a Christian church in Kolkata on the grounds that it was for high-caste Indians and whites. Having been drawn by what he read of Jesus in the Gospels, Ghandi turned his back upon a religion that preached well yet was found wanting in its application. This is always our dilemma as citizens of heaven. How might we reveal the love and life of Jesus through our daily life?

So, while the gospel has a tremendous power to draw people of all backgrounds together, it so often flounders upon its followers’ inability to live out their responsibilities as heavenly citizens. Too often faith is reduced to dogmatics, or expressing strongly held opinions as facts. This drives others away, or worse still, we dismiss them, in a way that Jesus never does throughout the Gospel accounts. It’s not that I don’t have clear and strong views about what Jesus means to me and the place of scripture. Yet, I do not expect someone else to agree initially. They need first to meet the One who convinced me, Jesus.

Learning to live as a citizen of heaven challenges me daily over my own reluctance to fulfil my responsibilities

QUESTION: What reputation does your local church have?

PRAYER: May I be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Romans 12:4-5 NLT

Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.

Last summer I ran down the garden, stretched down and picked up a fallen apple, recreating my great cricketing fielding past. I felt my right tricep scream out in complaint, and so began a journey of sorting out an injury.

St Paul’s analogy of the human body (Ephesians 4) for the community of Christ is well-made. It’s all too easy to forget that we each exist and play an essential role in making the community function.

After some delay after injuring my arm, I made an appointment with a physiotherapist and got some advice on how to manage the healing process. This was not instantaneous and demanded a lot of me, some of which included further physical discomfort. The tricep injury impacted my ability to cook, garden and do other tasks.

There is a unity to the human body in that each part is designed to work with every other part. This enables each one of us to live an effective human life. So too within the body of Christ. There is a unity, which can only be achieved when we respect the role each part plays in the wider objective of revealing God’s kingdom on earth.

Of course, we carry injuries from time to time. And injuries take time to repair. Some do so naturally; yet others benefit from some specialist and external advice. But ignoring an injury is unwise and can delay recovery. Self-diagnosis is also risky. Best to acknowledge and address the injury, seeking informed advice to aid a return to full effectiveness.

The benefit of injuries is that I can learn from them and so ensure that I continue to function well, despite the natural impact of ageing, both physically and spiritually.

QUESTION: What injuries are you carrying today?

PRAYER: Thank you for the gift of local church and for the variety of people in them.