Dear Friends,
Today’s devotional is a poem which draws some very practical lessons from the temptation of Christ. May those lessons strengthen you in our battle against sin and Satan. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,
John Janney

• Mark 1:12-13 (ESV)

  12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

“LENTEN HYMN

“Lord who throughout these forty days

For us did fast and pray,

Teach us with Thee to mourn our sins,

And close by Thee to stay.

As Thou with Satan didst contend

And didst the victory win,

O give us strength in Thee to fight,

In Thee to conquer sin.

As Thou didst hunger bear and thirst,

So teach us, gracious Lord,

To die to self, and chiefly live

By Thy most holy Word.

And through these days of penitence,

And through Thy Passiontide,

Yea, evermore, in life and death,

Jesus! with us abide.

Abide with us, that so this life

Of suffering, overpast,

An Easter of unending joy

We may attain at last!”

[Claudia Frances Hernaman (1838-1898)]