A Lenten Devotional, Day 5: First Sunday

A Lenten Devotional, Day 5: First Sunday

Welcome to Lent!  This season, we’re blessed with a set of Lenten devotionals by contributing author Lee Hinkle.  Find out more about Lee at the bottom of this article, or at hinkledownunder.com.

Sunday

Sundays are a day of celebration during Lent; a day of feasting. This will be the day that we have a reading from the Book of Psalms. We will allow it to be our reading, meditation, prayer and action. It can be all four things for us. Let us bless the LORD. Let us praise the LORD.

Reading, Meditation, Prayer and Action

Psalm 135 (ESV)

Praise the LORD!
Praise the name of the LORD,
     give praise, O servants of the LORD,
who stand in the house of the LORD,
     in the courts of the house of our God!
Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good;
     sing to his name, for it is pleasant!
For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself,
     Israel as his own possession.

For I know that the LORD is great,
     and that our Lord is above all gods.
Whatever the LORD pleases, he does,
     in heaven and on earth,
     in the seas and all deeps.
He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth,
     who makes lightnings for the rain
     and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.

He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
     both of man and of beast;
who in your midst, O Egypt,
     sent signs and wonders
     against Pharaoh and all his servants;
who struck down many nations
     and killed mighty kings,
Sihon, king of the Amorites,
     and Og, king of Bashan,
     and all the kingdoms of Canaan
and gave their land as a heritage,
     a heritage to his people Israel.

Your name, O LORD, endures forever,
     your renown, O LORD, throughout all ages.
For the LORD will vindicate his people
     and have compassion on his servants.

The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
     the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
     they have eyes, but do not see;
they have ears, but do not hear,
     nor is there any breath in their mouths.
Those who make them become like them,
     so do all who trust in them.

O house of Israel, bless the LORD!
     O house of Aaron, bless the LORD!
O house of Levi, bless the LORD!
     You who fear the LORD, bless the LORD!
Blessed be the LORD from Zion,
     he who dwells in Jerusalem!
Praise the LORD!

-Psalm 135, ESV

• • •

Lee Hinkle is an American pastor who, with his family of 7, felt God’s call to pack up and plant a church in Fremantle, a town in Perth, Western Australia.  Last Summer, the Hinkles left Indianapolis and arrived in Oz to begin their work.  You can follow their adventures at hinkledownunder.com.

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