I WEAR ASHES ON MY FOREHEAD TODAY

I wear ashes on my forehead today because I confess, with much sorrow and remorse, how I defiled and defaced the beauty of the Lord’s image in me through my stubbornness and sin. I wear them on my forehead as a BADGE OF SHAME.

I wear ashes on my forehead today because I acknowledge that my life is just as worthless and meaningless as a heap of ash when divorced from the saving and nurturing love of God. I came from ashes, I will return to ashes. I am only because God breathed on a pile of dirt and called me out of it. I came to be only because of God’s immeasurable love for me. He is everything. I am nothing. I wear them on my forehead as a SIGN OF HUMILITY.

I wear ashes on my forehead today because I am reminding myself of the sheer ugliness and filth of sin and evil. I wear them on me to remind myself and others of the inescapability of the reality that the more we cling on to our shortcomings and selfish ways, the more that we drift away from the source of all life and beauty. I wear them on my forehead as a reminder of how my sins take away from me my original beauty in having been created after the very likeness of God. I wear them on my forehead to remind me of my NEED TO BE PURIFIED AND FORGIVEN.

I wear ashes on my forehead today. And they are traced on me in the form of a cross. This is the most important thing that I celebrate today: CHRIST JESUS HAS TRANSFORMED MY SHAME INTO JOY, MY HUMILIATION INTO VICTORY, MY HELPLESSNESS INTO STRENGTH, and MY DEATH INTO LIFE ETERNAL. This my sweet Savior has triumphantly accomplished on the Saving Cross of His love for you and me.

Thus, more than a badge of shame, a sign of humility, a reminder of my need for purification and forgiveness, I wear ashes on my forehead today as a SIGN OF HONOR, a CROWN OF VICTORY, a PLEDGE OF SALVATION, a MARK OF BELONGING TO THE ONE FOLD OF OUR SAVIOR!

Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see!