Lenten Devotional (6): The Spirit-Empowered Lenten Journey

Lent reminds us that the environment of sin is the Christian’s constant battleground.

It was the Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness. The Devil didn't draw Jesus out to battle. Our Lord was led by the Third-Person of the Godhead, revealing the Triune unity.

The Spirit plays a fundamental role in this season of Lent. According to St. John, the coming of the Spirit is to convict the world of its sin, God’s righteousness, and the coming judgment (Jn. 16:8).

While Lent focuses on the Messianic journey and the reality of the cross, Lent is also a season to magnify the Spirit’s work in convicting us of our sins. The Church season of Lent is only beneficial when the Spirit works within us to produce fruits, virtues, faith, and vigor in our walk. And since the Spirit is conforming us to the image of the Son through these qualities, thus we have a calling to fight in harmony with the Spirit. In short, Lent is the harmony between the Spirit’s work and the Spirit-empowered saints. He is the one who equips us and leads us to battle. There is no such thing as a Spirit-less Christian life.

Just as the Lenten journey was a road of struggle, prayer, and communion for our Lord, our walk to bear and reflect such fruits will also demand struggle, prayer, and communion with our Lord.

Our entire lives can be summed up in warfare.

Lent reminds us that the environment of sin is the Christian’s constant battleground. There is no monastic flight away from it. The remaining weeks stress our need to repent of those things that easily entangle us in a web of deceit (Heb. 12:1). Only the Spirit can lead us well to fight our evil foe. Only the Spirit can lead us to see the victorious Lord who defeated evil for us at Calvary's cross.

Lent is Spirit-centered. None of us can ever expect to gain from fasting and godly habits apart from the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. We trust in him in all seasons, especially in this Lenten journey.

Prayer: O, Holy Spirit, we pray that we would not strive with your work, but allow the perfect fruits to dwell in us and that such virtues would be manifested among the body of Christ. Do not remove yourself from me, but renew your power within me each day, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen!

Hymn of the Day: Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart

Notations

• Leithart’s thesis in The Priesthood of the Plebs is superb. He argues in his dissertation that baptism arises in a particular history of God’s dealings with Israel (2). Therefore, baptism is fundamentally Jewish. Ancient and modern baptism explanations are rooted in feelings (Schleiermacher) or experientialism (Barth). These models are called “Marcionite sacramental theology” (5). The solution is the Augustinian “typological lectio” (7), which roots baptism in the ancient patterns of the Hebrew Scriptures.