Preparing for the Party (Friday Devotional)

“Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that He may have mercy on them, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”

- Isaiah 55:6-7

I’ve learned something as an adult that was beyond my comprehension as a child and even a teenager: holidays and big events don’t just happen. Christmas festivities with the family, Thanksgiving dinner, birthday celebrations—all of these used to be fun get-togethers where all I had to do was show up, eat, and maybe open some presents. It never occurred to me that there was more to it than that for anybody else.

Only after getting married did I suddenly learn the truth—such celebrations are feats of planning and coordination. Finding the right weekend that 25 people can be in the same house for dinner is a herculean task, one best undertaken months in advance. Coordinating with family members so that no one buys the same gift for the same person—something I’d always thought just happily worked out on its own—turns out to be an exercise in stress management. Even cooking the holiday meal, which I’d always assumed was relatively similar to any other dinner, just with more food, is something that requires a minute-by-minute plan before the oven ever starts preheating. I never realized it until lately, but it’s true: if a holiday is going to work, you can’t just show up; you have to prepare for it.

This same principle applies spiritually as we approach Easter. In this Lenten season, when our eyes are fixed upon the cross and our souls are overwhelmed by the scope of its power, there is a need for every believer to seek the Lord in a spirit of repentance. Before you can rejoice at Christ’s power over your sins, you must first acknowledge the reality of those sins, the sad truth that you are prone to wander from the God you love. Before you can sing praises of thanksgiving for the imputed righteousness of Christ, you must first turn your unrighteousness over to Him. Before you can praise God for His mercy, you must first rely on that mercy.

Repentance is not a one-time event, not just step one in the procedure of salvation; it is an attitude that all believers are called to adopt in their daily walk with God. There is never a time in which you no longer need God’s presence in your life, and so there should never be a time in which you stop coming to Him. Long before Jesus walked the earth, the prophet Isaiah declared that God’s people should seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near, that they should repent of their sins and rely upon His mercy. As those who are witnesses to that mercy personified, Jesus Christ dying on the cross, how can we do any less?

As the days draw nearer to Easter Sunday, may you in turn draw nearer to the Lord, approaching Him with the humility of a repentant heart. And by coming to Him daily with a spirit of repentance, may you find yourself newly captivated by the grace of God.