ASHE WEDNESDAY DEVOTIONAL –

Ash Wednesday – February 18, 2026

Today begins Lent. A time of reflection and leaving the past behind and stepping into the newness and the new way God calls each of us to. Through out this season – devotionals have been prepared by the people of the ARCC – Allegheny Ridge Covenant of Churches. We are thankful to be able to share each day perspectives from each person’s heart for God as we journey together through this season to draw closer to God.

Today’s devotional has been prepared by Diana Bernhard.

ASH WEDNESDAY –

DIANA BERNHARD

SCRIPTURE – 2 CORINTHIANS 5:20-6:10

Before we were saved we were God’s enemy.  We had a very broken relationship with him.  He loved us and did good things for us every day, while we disobeyed His rules, ignored Him and even used His name as a curse.  Then someone witnessed to us about Him and we realized how awful we had become.  We were told how to be reconciled to Him and now we have a Daddy-child relationship with our God.  Hallelujah!! 

Now we should be God’s ambassadors to all we meet.  An ambassador is an authorized representative or messenger.  Our job now is to tell people about how Jesus, who never sinned, took all the sins of humanity on Himself while dying a horrible death.  When he did this Jesus overcame death by coming back to life.  The first human to live eternally.  And through belief in Jesus all mankind is able to do the same.

Through these verses Paul is begging us not to waste the grace God showed us.  If we don’t witness to others, we are wasting the opportunity to share the awesome life we have found.  We have love, forgiveness, peace, fellowship, a purpose for living.  Paul tells of all the hardships he and his followers went through to spread the gospel.  We should consider them heroes and want to emulate their faith.  They knew that they were working with the Holy Spirit and after they witnessed the Holy Spirit would do the convicting work.

We need to step out in faith, out of our comfort zone, and witness for God.  His spirit will do the rest.  Think about where you might be now if someone hadn’t witnessed to you.