Holy Week Devotional-- Day One (Palm Sunday)

When the resurrection of Jesus is proclaimed, lives change! To get my own heart ready for Easter Sunday I’m reading John Piper’s ebook, , Love to the Uttermost: Devotional readings for holy week. In the Preface editor Tony Reinke observes, “There’s nothing intrinsically holy about particular days, but for most of church history Christians have set aside eight days between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday (to) solemnly focus… on the greatest events in human history, the acts of our Savior Jesus Christ.” (i) If this is your desire I invite you to join me. You can download Pastor John's ebook for your Kindle, Nook or as a PDF file for free here.

 

Early each morning I'll post a few thoughts and questions from that day's reading. If you like, feel free to share your thoughts or comments. Enjoy!

 

Day One: Palm Sunday, March 24th-- Read the Prologue: A Vision for Holy Week (pages iii-v) and Palm Sunday: Seeing the King on Palm Sunday (pages 1-3).

 

Read Matthew 12:18-21. How ought the Father's delight of His Son provoke us toward worship? What insights do you gain into the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy by Pastor John's vision of the "little lamb" (iii-iv)? How has (and will) the cross and resurrection "justice to be victorious"?

 

Read Luke 12:32. Have you ever felt the way Pastor Piper describes here? God “is basically angry—always angry. And the best we can do is stay out of his way, and maybe, if we keep the rules well enough, we could sneak by him when he is in one of his temporary good moods.” (Page 2) How does the reality that God takes “good pleasure to give you the kingdom” change your misconceptions about God? What motivation does this provide for “welcoming  King Jesus into our city and into our hearts”?

 

 

I invite you to join me in getting ready for Easter with John Piper's week-long devotional, Love To The Uttermost. As Pastor John explains, this one term — uttermost — is loaded with significance. When used of Jesus’s willing death for his friends, it means he endured unimaginable degrees of suffering to do so (John 13:1). To love to the uttermost is to love freely, without reserve or limit, and without flaw or failure. As we watch his arrest and trial and death unfold for eight days, we gaze on a God-man who begrudges no pain or reproach on his pathway to redeem lost sinners. This is the man who “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”  (Philippians 2:8). This devotional ebook can be downloaded for FREE here.