Week of March 15, 2026
I AM CHANGING
Monday | March 16
Read: Romans 6:11
Devotion: One of my favorite writing strategies an author will use is creating a timeline that leads up to and then continues after a major life event. This typically looks like documenting “3 weeks before...,” then “2 weeks before...,” and so on, until the reader experiences the event with the protagonist. This event that the book leads you to typically creates a cosmic shift in the life, viewpoint, or attitude of the main character. It impacts their foundational beliefs surrounding life.
In a similar way, we as Christians get to experience a foundation-shaking transformation. Through baptism, we are joined in the death of Christ and then the new life He gives us. The waters of baptism symbolically drown the “old Adam” - our sinful selves – and resurrect us as a new creation in Christ afterward. This is the major life event of a Christian. With a new life, we get to act in ways different from our sinful nature. God calls us into life in Him, which then moves us to extend love, grace, and mercy in a way that reflects the love, grace, and mercy shown to us. This is an ongoing sanctification process that moves the believer’s heart and life ever closer to alignment with God’s heart.
Reflect: How will you let the effects of your baptism impact your life today?
Pray: Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing me to new life in Christ. Help me to put off my old, sinful tendencies and put on the life you have called me to live. Amen.
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Tuesday | March 17
Read: Luke 9:23-24
Devotion: I once had a theology and philosophy professor who would end his classes by saying, “Go and sin some more” – the opposite of Jesus words in John 8:11 when He tells the woman accused of adultery to “Go and sin no more.” The reason my professor would say the opposite was to point out that our sin is inevitable, but God’s grace continues to cover us.
The Christian life is one of constant struggle and growth. We sin, repent, and promise to do better. Except we don’t always follow through on the doing better part. It is in our sinful nature to be selfish. The words of Jesus in Luke 9:23 are among the most difficult to obey – to deny ourselves and lose our lives to selfishness. There is a cost to following Jesus.
It takes incredible strength of character to repeatedly deny oneself for the sake of others. We do it on occasion, when we put others first and serve them. When we do not boast in ourselves but become humble and give glory to God. When we set aside our worries and seek first His Kingdom, as Matthew 6:25-34 lays out for us. And we don’t do this alone. We go with the only one person who did it perfectly, Jesus Christ, who laid down his life for us. He did that so that even when we revert to our selfish ways, we are covered by His blood and fully forgiven and ready to live for Him.
Reflect: How can you daily take up your cross and follow Jesus?
Pray: Lord, I repent of my sin and promise to do better. Thank you for your forgiveness that covers me. Help follow you better each day. Amen.
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Wednesday | March 18
Read: Isaiah 30:19-22
Devotion: There’s a cliché statement in Christian circles that says, “God loves you just the way you are, but loves you too much to let you stay the way you are.” Isaiah gives us this insight into how God works in our lives to change us. It’s this beautiful picture of God whispering in our ear, “This is the way, walk in it.” (Is. 30:21) We have a God who is so near to us, so ready to guide and show us how to live life in a way that gives glory and honor to His name.
This is one way the Spirit of God works: He shows us the way to live in step with Jesus Himself. He whispers in our ear, “A little more to the left – a little more to the right.” Sometimes that whisper comes directly from His Word, sometimes from family and friends, sometimes it’s in the silence while we are in the middle of our prayer time.
Are you so in tune with God that you recognize His voice when He speaks? Are you listening to other voices – your own desires, what you think your parents would say, Media voices, etc.? As we tune our ears and hearts to hear the voice of God, He will direct our steps and change us by the power of the Holy Spirit, transforming us into the image of our Risen Savior.
Reflect: Dwell on how you hear God’s voice. AND if you aren’t sure, read His Word, pray, stop, and listen to see if God impresses something on your heart.
Pray: Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Amen.
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Thursday | March 19
Read: Colossians 3:5-9
Devotion: Have you ever used an Etch-A-Sketch? You use two knobs at the bottom of a small display to draw lines into an intricate creation. When you have finished your artwork, or if you make a mistake, you simply shake the Etch-A-Sketch, and you have a clean slate to draw something else. While I find them wildly frustrating and so much easier to just draw with pen and paper, I get the appeal. You can start over. With a simple shake, everything from before is gone, and you can begin again.
Colossians 3 calls us to do just this. We are shaken clean and called to be different. In Christ, there is no trace of who we were before, but we are a new creation.
How do we live as new creations, though? Paul warns us in Colossians 3:5 to “put to death … sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness.” Our lives are easily infiltrated with all of these, and sometimes these characteristics are celebrated by the very world we live in. But as new creations, we are not just shaken clean but washed by the blood of Jesus - a permanent fix to all of our temporary problems.
Reflect: What step can you take today to put to death sin that infiltrates your life?
Pray: Heavenly Father, please forgive us for our sin. Help us live as new creations in Christ. Lead us, guide us, be with us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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Friday | March 20
Read: Romans 8:11-13
Devotion: Life and death are repeated themes throughout the Bible. Resurrection, particularly, is the work of God and God alone: a new life from what should have been the end of one. These resurrection stories don’t only happen in the Bible. It’s our story, too. We have been resurrected with Jesus. God is redeeming our bodies. In the work of receiving new life, death must happen. The deeds of the flesh – our sinful nature that leads us to act solely out of selfish ambition – must be put down so that we can pick up the new life given to us through the Holy Spirit.
This extreme language can feel like an exaggeration. Do we really have to put to death the desires of our flesh? The answer is yes. We have been freed from a life that only promises temporary happiness and ends in eternal death. We have been gifted life eternal and joy that knows no bounds through Jesus. It doesn’t make sense to want to continue in our old ways when we reckon with the radical salvation we’ve been given. The truth of this new life moves us to leave our old ways and chase after God in our daily lives. We also have the assurance that when we fail and fall back into old patterns of thought and behavior, God has mercy on us. He pursues us and invites us back into a relationship with Him. He is steadfast in His offer of freedom from the deeds of our flesh.
Reflect: How can you strengthen your relationship with God and live by the Spirit today?
Pray: Lord, forgive me for when I live in debt to my flesh. Change me, Jesus. Move me to life in you and help me put to death my old ways. Amen.
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Saturday | March 21
Read: 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
We’re familiar with the phrase “glass half-full or half-empty,” which expresses a person’s outlook. But what’s our outlook if we “see” a glass that isn’t there? I once watched an illusionist appear to fill one glass by pouring liquid into another glass. They were somehow connected, but my eyes couldn’t see how. Similarly, these scriptures give us eyes to see other glasses, filling us with other-worldly vision and hope.
Life is very tedious. Daily, we eat, clean, sleep, move, and work. We age, and our bodies change despite any effort to slow the process. Life is also hard at times. We focus on making a living, trying to provide “enough” to get by, while doing something worthwhile with our days. We can be humming along when tragedy befalls us: illness, death, accidents, mistakes, addiction, or struggle. In the tedious, daily, hard life, we all long for a link to the eternal. We long for all of this to “matter.”
This scripture reminds us that what we see and experience now is temporal. Though it feels heavy, it’s truly light and temporary. Though we experience regular inertia and struggle, the truth is we are being renewed, daily. Somehow, through God’s immense redemptive abilities, what we’re going through in this life – the tedious, agonizing, confusing, grievous – accomplishes a sustenance weightier than can be compared in this life. God is no illusionist; He’s constantly transforming the broken into the substantial. He wants us to see the beautiful He is accomplishing by pouring His power into our broken, daily lives.
Reflect: What one thing in your life feels too heavy to bear? Could you use Lent as a time to envision this burden as light and momentary, and as accomplishing something eternal?
Pray: Dear Redeemer and Lord, please transform our vision. Help us to see our lives the way you do. We give you the weightiest burdens we carry and ask that you teach us how to see them differently, as light and momentary. We give you our aging, broken bodies, and ask you to show us how we’re being renewed daily. We pray that what we’re going through now, by your Spirit, would truly accomplish something weighty and beautiful that gives you all the glory. Amen.
