{"id":145,"date":"2010-02-18T15:23:05","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T20:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/grace-culture"},"modified":"2010-02-18T15:23:05","modified_gmt":"2010-02-18T20:23:05","slug":"grace-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2010\/02\/grace-culture.html","title":{"rendered":"Cross culture that sticks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ash-wednesday\" “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope–the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”<\/em> (Titus 2:11-13 NIV).<\/p>\n

We had a special Ash Wednesday service last night. We had an extended time of\u00a0“unplugged”\u00a0worship, with public prayers and Scripture reading. We concluded with a challenge from the Word and a time of response that included receiving the sign of the Cross in ashes upon our foreheads.<\/p>\n

We’re not a traditional church, so we don’t usually follow such practices. In fact, it’s the first Ash Wednesday service we’ve ever held. I actually had to look up the recipe for ashes on the internet (“Make sure to mix in a little olive oil with the ashes to make them stick.” – One minister suggested<\/em>).<\/p>\n

We’re serious about being a new culture of those called out from the world’s culture, a people marked by the Cross of Christ. We believe that this salvation in Christ that we have received is shaping us and making us a new people,\u00a0a people that can say “No” to that in the world’s culture that is ungodly. But this salvation doesn’t just call us out of the world’s culture, it also sends us back in, showing us how to live godly lives in “this present age.” So, we become bearers of the Cross of Christ, pointing people to the blessed hope of His return.<\/p>\n

The traditional words spoken by the minister while\u00a0making the mark of ashes\u00a0are, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” This is taken from Genesis 3:9 and reminds the congregant of their own mortality and need for repentance and salvation. We certainly affirm this.<\/p>\n

But we wanted to say something different. We wanted to say something about being the people of the Cross and carrying the message of the Cross. So, as I looked into the tear-filled eyes of person after person, coming forward to receive the sign of the Cross last night, I said,<\/p>\n

“Remember the Cross.”<\/p>\n

After the service, as we walked back out into the night, I prayed that the world wouldn’t quickly wipe it off. I prayed that the Oil would make it stick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope–the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:11-13<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060,2061,1,2062],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-religion","category-uncategorized","category-weblogs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}