Sixth Day of Lent (Tuesday, 24 February 2026)

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Jesus wasn’t the only one heading to Jerusalem.

During Lent we remember how Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51), starting down the path that would lead to his betrayal, arrest, and death. At the same time he and his disciples headed down that road, there were no doubt others alongside them. It was time for the Passover, and there would have been large crowds of Jews also heading to Jerusalem for the commemoration of their liberation from bondage in Egypt. Those same crowds would be there to welcome Jesus when he came into the city on what we call Palm Sunday, shouting with excitement and hope that a new deliverer like Moses had perhaps come into their midst.

Imagine what it must have been like to be on that road to Jerusalem with Jesus and those journeying for the festival. Was there a sense of anticipation already in the air? Did pilgrims along the way glace over at this itinerant rabbi from Nazareth and whisper among themselves, “That’s him! That’s Jesus, the one many say will set us free!” What kind of conversations took place as they stopped for the night around a fire and a meal? What did they hope for? What did they pray for?

Tradition has it that Jewish worshipers making their way to Jerusalem for the three major festivals each year would sing songs from the Hebrew psalter as they approached the city, hymns of pilgrimage that would echo in spiritual terms the physical journey that they took. In our English bibles these psalms are labeled the “Songs of Ascent,” since Jerusalem was situated on a high hill. They are found in psalms 120-134, and for many Christians around the world these songs are an important part of their Lenten journey.

This theme of ascent is evident in the opening verses of Psalm 121:

“I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
—Psalm 121 (NRSV)

The songs of ascent are words of encouragement for a weary pilgrim. Weary not only from the journey but from life. They remind the singer that God is our help, the one who protects us and guides us. In these songs the call for help goes out, the reminder of who God is sinks in, and the eyes of the troubled ones look up.

For followers of Jesus today, troubled eyes look to more than just the various hills of Jerusalem for a reminder of their help. They look to a specific hill outside Jerusalem, a hill where the one whose right hand never leaves us allowed the hands of his only son to be pierced on our behalf. And it is because of what happened on that hill outside of Jerusalem that we today can declare with certainty alongside the pilgrims of old the same unassailable truth: that in our going out, in our coming in, today and forevermore, the God of the universe is watching over us. We lift our eyes up to the mountain of Calvary, and we know beyond the shadow of a doubt where our help comes from.

He watches over you
Like a shade from the sun by day and the moon by night
He watches over you
No evil can ever invade the covering of Yahweh

Read the rest of the lyrics here..

Questions for Reflection

1) In your experience, what does it mean to “lift your eyes to the hills?” What are ways that you have found God to be your help, and what aids you in keeping your eyes on that important truth?

2) The setting of Scripture to music is a wonderful gift to the church. Are there worship songs or hymns you can think of that include words of Scripture in a powerful way? If engaging with Scripture in this way is meaningful for you, how might you build it into your devotional walk with God?

3) Read and reflect on this verse. Let it lead you into prayerful worship and gratitude:

"Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be shaken but endures forever.
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore.”
—Psalm 125:1-2 (NIV)

Fifth Day of Lent (Monday, 23 February 2026)

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A lot of our focus during Lent is on the fact that we are walking with Jesus. It’s such a powerful image for these 40 days—heading to the cross with Christ, where he will sacrifice his life for us, and where the call to die to ourselves and take up our own cross comes to greater focus and clarity. But there is another truth about our journey that is worth spending time thinking about:

Not only are we walking with Jesus…he is also walking with us.

We are invited on this journey by the Lord himself. It is not forced on us, and it is not offered to us reluctantly. This is why he came: to extend the invitation, “Walk with me.” It is his delight to be our companion, to share our joys as we share in his, to share our sorrows as we share in his. He desires to be involved in every part of our lives, meaning there is no stretch of our journey he can’t transform with his presence if we allow him to.

But his transforming presence is not something to be taken for granted. He will never force himself into areas of our lives we don’t offer to him freely and without reserve. Jesus awaits our invitation. Just as it is all joy for him when we answer his call, “Walk with me,” it is also all joy when we ask him in return, “Walk with me,” offering all of our lives and every step of our daily walk into his care.

In Luke chapter 24, Jesus appears after his resurrection to two of his followers making their way to the village of Emmaus, but they are kept from recognizing him. The men are distraught, trying to make sense of the horrible things that had just taken place in Jerusalem and the news that Jesus’ body was no longer in the tomb. And what does Jesus do? He walks with them, he offers himself as their companion and proceeds to teach them (after a small admonishment) about the promises of Scripture that have been fulfilled. By the time they reach the village, they are encouraged and captivated by what he has said. Later they remark that their “hearts were burning within them” as he shared the story of Scripture, which was really a sharing of himself.

Luke doesn’t mention the look on Jesus’ face while he spent time on the road with them, but it wouldn’t be surprising if there was a small grin on his face as they began to understand. After all, he hasn’t come just to be a teacher or a leader, he has come to be a friend to those who follow him (John 15:15). As a friend, Jesus takes joy when those he loves find truth, comfort, and peace in the knowledge of who he is and what he as done for us. When the path is difficult and the spiritual terrain is rocky and unsteady, we know we are not alone. As the Psalmist says:

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”—Psalm 23:4 (NIV)

During Lent we say to Jesus, the friend for sinners, “Walk with me. Be my companion, my guide, my teacher, and my friend.” And he is glad to oblige.

Walk with me, Lord
Walk with me
Walk with me, Lord
Walk with me
While I'm on this tedious journey
I need You, Jesus, to walk with me

Read the rest of the lyrics here.

Questions for Reflection

1) Do you sense Jesus’ delight at being your friend and companion? If yes, how might you dwell in that delight even more deeply during Lent? If you struggle to embrace it, spend some time in prayer that the Spirit might stir in you a new level of openness to this beautiful truth.

2) Imagine you are walking along a path like the disciples in Luke 24, and Jesus were to appear by your side. What might he find you worried and confused about, and what word might he speak into that worry and confusion?

3) Read and reflect on this verse. Let it lead you into prayerful worship and gratitude:

“Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
—Psalm 23:6 (NIV)

First Sunday of Lent (Sunday, 22 February 2026)

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Sundays of Hope and Joy

Those who have been following this devotional through the years have probably figured out our “vibe”—acoustic and reflective. This is an intentional choice meant to echo the themes of self-reflection and examination during the Lenten season. Sundays during Lent, though, are different.

This has to do with the way the Sundays of Lent are viewed by those who follow the liturgical seasons. In fact, if you do the math of Lent you find that Sundays literally don’t “count.” Lent is a 40-day journey, but if you look at a calendar and count from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday before Easter, you find that there are actually 46 days—and six of those days are Sundays.

The Sundays of Lent, while they are part of the Lenten season, are not considered to be part of the Lenten fast. In church tradition, these Sundays are traditionally thought of as “feast days.” Some refer to them as “mini-Easters,” and that’s a very apt phrase. They are the day the church gathers in worship and celebrates the saving grace of God in the proclamation of the Word, the lifting of praise, and the communal sharing in a remembrance of what Christ has done for us. On Sundays we all dwell richly in the story of God’s amazing love, and the joy of the resurrection cannot be completely ignored or else the story would be incomplete.

Still, the celebration of these “mini-Easters” is cast in a somewhat different light because of our journey. The themes of Lent are still there. The difference is that Sundays remind us where this journey is going. They help us remember that God is unfolding a much bigger plan. They offer us hope and joy.

That is our approach here during the Lenten Song Reflections—Sundays are all about hope and joy. On these days the “vibe” changes. May our hearts rejoice as we celebrate God’s promises!

Song: His Glory and My Good (lyrics here)

Questions for Reflection

1) What are some ways during this Lenten journey that you can mark Sundays as different, as days set apart to dwell in the hope of God shown in the cross and the empty tomb? Are there some Scriptures, prayers, songs, or other intentional practices you can build into these “mini-Easters” as a way of celebrating?

2) The first verse of this song features lot of visual language: seeing, revealing, beholding, gazing, and lifting our eyes upward. In our very “performance-oriented” society, how can we be sure not to miss the simple, quiet times of gazing upon the One who loves us with an everlasting love?

3) Read and reflect on these verses. Let them lead you into prayerful worship and gratitude:

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
    How unsearchable his judgments,
    and his paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
    Or who has been his counselor?
Who has ever given to God,
    that God should repay them?
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
    To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
—Romans 11:33-36 (NIV)

Fourth Day of Lent (Saturday, 21 February 2026)

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Saturday Reflections

On Saturdays during our Lenten Devotional time we sill simply sit with an instrumental version of a well-known hymn or worship song. Our weeks are so full, so busy, so noisy…use these Saturdays to prepare your hearts for gathered worship by reflecting on lyrics and Scripture in a space of stillness and simplicity.

Today’s hymn was born out of a dramatic encounter with the love and grace of God. As a teenager, Samuel Taylor Francis struggled deeply with depression, and one night while walking on a bridge over the River Thames in London he thought for a moment of how the dark waters of the river could end his sorrows. At that moment he felt the presence of God, and he heard in his spirit the words of Jesus from John chapter 3: “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” He met Christ on that bridge and experienced in that encounter the truth of Jesus’ words.

How appropriate that during the season of Lent, which is rooted and grounded in the message of God’s love and saving grace, that we pause to read words that Samuel Taylor Francis would later write about the deep, deep love of God he met that night.


Scripture for Meditation:

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 1may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
—Ephesians 3:17-19 (NIV)


Song: O The Deep Deep Love of Jesus (lyrics after video)

Lyrics for Reflection

Read through the lyrics of this hymn slowly and prayerfully. Read them more than once, and pay attention to the movement of your soul as you pray. What words or phrases grab your attention? Why? As you finish, sit in prayerful silence before God and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you something of your need and God’s provision that emerges from these words.

O the deep deep love of Jesus
Vast unmeasured boundless free
Rolling as a mighty ocean
In its fullness over me
Underneath me all around me
Is the current of His love
Leading onward leading homeward
To my glorious rest above

O the deep deep love of Jesus
Spread His praise from shore to shore
How He loves us ever loves us
Changes never nevermore
Watches over all His loved ones
Whom He died to call His own
Ever for them interceding
At His heavenly Father's throne

O the deep deep love of Jesus
Love of every love the best
Vast the ocean of His blessing
Sweet the haven of His rest
O the deep deep love of Jesus
Very heaven of heavens to me
And it lifts me up to glory
Evermore His face to see

Samuel Trevor Francis
Public Domain

Third Day of Lent (Friday, 20 February 2026)

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A word which we often associate with Lent is the word “consecrate.” It’s a word that can mean various things, llike sanctify, anoint, bless, or purify. But perhaps the most accurate translation of how it’s used in the Bible would be the phrase “set apart.” When something is consecrated, it is dedicated entirely to God, set apart from common use so that it belongs completely to the Lord.

When God commanded Moses to consecrate Aaron and his sons as priests in Exodus 29, they were washed, clothed, anointed, and set apart for sacred service. The tabernacle furnishings were consecrated. The altar was consecrated. Even days were consecrated - the Sabbath was made holy. Consecration meant that ordinary time, ordinary objects, ordinary people were claimed by the presence and purpose of God.

During this season of Lent we set apart these 40 days, claiming them as a sacred time for seeking God and preparing our hearts for Holy Week. But it is not just numbers on a calendar we claim for prayer and fasting. It is not just a season we consecrate. During this time we also seek ourselves to be set apart as God’s people, dedicated to his purposes and claimed by his holy and perfect love.

Very few hymns in history have captured the idea of our being consecrated better than Frances Ridley Havergal’s “Take My Life and Let It Be” (even one of the popular tunes to which it’s set is called “Consecration”). In her deeply poetic words we are reminded what it means to be claimed by God’s mercy and set apart for his Kingdom work. In that way, the hymn becomes an echo of Paul’s famous invitation from Romans 12:

“So brothers and sisters, since God has shown us great mercy, I beg you to offer your lives as a living sacrifice to him.”—Romans 12:1 (NCV)

As we enter the first weekend of Lent, with our first Sunday worship of Lent, may we be open to the new ways God is calling us to be “living sacrifices” in response to his great mercy. May this beginning of Lent call us deeper into into his invitation to be “set apart” for praise, honor, and service.

Take my will, and make it Thine;
It shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart; it is Thine own;
It shall be Thy royal throne.

Read the rest of the lyrics here.

Questions for Reflection

1) How do you sense God calling to to both “set apart” and “be set apart” during this Lenten season? Do you embrace that call openly and willingly? What resistance or barriers do you sense to that work?

2) You could spend days meditating on just these five words from today’s hymn: “Ever only all for Thee.” Break them down one by one and pray with each word. How do you sense the Spirit stirring you with each step of that prayer?

3) Read and reflect on this verse. Let it lead you into prayerful worship and gratitude:

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
—1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)

Second Day of Lent (Thursday, 19 February 2026)

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Lent is a season where we acknowledge our need, plain and simple. Confronted with the reality of our mortality and the truth of our sin, Lent strips away the false securities upon which we lean and forces us to admit that they aren’t enough. Nothing this world offers is enough to address the depth of our brokenness. Every step towards Jerusalem is a reality check about our need for something beyond ourselves.

It is very humbling to journey to the cross, but that’s a good thing. It’s good because it provides us an opportunity to identify with the One who first made that journey for us. The entire story of Jesus on earth is one of humility, of laying down his life, and our Lenten journey invites us to embrace that very same posture. Paul reminds us of this invitation in Philippians, where he tells us to emulate Christ:

“Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!”—Philippians 2:6-8 (NIV)

During Lent we, too, seek to “make ourselves nothing.” We take up our own cross and seek to be “obedient to death,” in this case death to ourselves. As we journey over these 40 days we’re invited to embrace brutal honesty about our sin and our need for Jesus. But remember—this is not about rehashing our failures and drowning in shame. It’s about rehearsing the faithfulness of God and dwelling in His provision and mercy. God does not call us to the cross to punish us. He calls us to come and be made whole. To be humble before God is a worshipful act rooted in gratitude and wonder at how the One who made us has now redeemed us.

All I can say is I need You
All I can do
Is fall down on my knees
All I can offer is praise upon praise
For the grace upon grace
I've received

Read the rest of the lyrics here.

Questions for Reflection

1) What does it mean for you to embrace humility during this Lenten season? As you seek to do so, how might you allow God’s mercy and truth sit at the center of that journey?

2) The lyrics of today’s song encourage us to “offer praise upon praise for the grace upon grace” we’ve received. Spend some time remembering specific ways God has shown you “grace upon grace,” and let those remembrances stir your heart to praise.

3) Read and reflect on these verses. Let them lead you into prayerful worship and gratitude:

“Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.”
—Psalm 25:8-9 (NIV)

Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026)

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During this Lenten devotional we sit with worship songs both old and new that invite us into the themes of Lent: self-examination, humility, and repentance. There are so many good hymns and songs that reflect these themes, but each year we begin our journey with songs that remind us Lent is, first and foremost, an invitation. Some may view it as an obligation. Others may dismiss it as an empty ritual. But at its heart, Lent is all about God’s invitation to us.

On Ash Wednesday we begin a journey to the cross. Not because we deserve it. Not because we’ve earned it. Simply because we’re invited. God’s astounding grace calls to us in the midst of our brokenness and says, “Come home.”

This is not a season of self-improvement or habit-crushing. It’s not a time when we try to “do better” and somehow inch a bit more towards perfection. Lent is a season of brutal honesty about the state of our souls. It’s a journey to the cross of Christ, where all pretense and posturing fail. Lent is a time when we acknowledge our deepest, most profound need: forgiveness. We are fallen, broken people who need a Saviour, and during Lent we embrace the invitation to repentance.

What a beautiful truth it is that God does not expect us to “clean up our act” before coming to him. He is already aware of what we need. He knows what burdens us, what binds us, what imprisons us. The freedom we so desperately seek is available to us if we will simply acknowledge the truths about ourselves he already knows completely. His call to us is not shame. His call is rest for the weary, hope for the fearful, and pardon for the broken.

As we begin our trek to Jerusalem, close your eyes and hear the invitation of the One who died for you: “Come home.”

Come home, come home all who are weary
Come home, come home Jesus is calling
Come home, come home all who are weary
Come home

Read the rest of the lyrics here.

Questions for Reflection

1) As Lent begins, what are ways you can mark the beginning of this journey? Is there a meaningful way you can visually or devotionally remind yourself of this daily invitation to walk with Jesus to Jerusalem and Calvary?

2) Ponder this additonal verse from today’s hymn:

Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading
Pleading for you and for me?
Why should we linger and heed not His mercies
Mercies for you and for me?

Is there anything within you that tarries and lingers instead of embracing God’s invitation to you this Lenten season? What resistance in you needs to be offered to the tender mercies of Jesus?

3) Read and reflect on this verse. Let it lead you into prayerful worship and gratitude:

“Now return to the Eternal, your True God.
You already know He is gracious and compassionate.
He does not anger easily and maintains faithful love.”
—Joel 2:13 (VOICE)

Lenten Song Reflections 2026

Music and Thoughts for Your Lenten Journey

Welcome to Lenten Song Reflections, a daily resource for your Lenten Journey from Abiding Way Ministries. Each day during Lent you will find a short reflection here based on a worship song, hymn, or other piece of music that echoes the themes of this season. It is our prayer that this resource will draw you into deep appreciation and worshipful gratitude for the sacrifice of Jesus as you reflect on the meaning of the cross over these 40 days.

Lent is a time of self-examination, humility, and repentance. Each of the songs offered will center on these invitations, and will be accompanied by a few thoughts and questions for refection. Use these in your personal devotions, or perhaps listen together with family members or friends, spending time in conversation afterwards.

Each song will be linked to an online opportunity to listen, and will be embedded in the post if possible. Due to the policies of some streaming sites, the song may be preceded by an advertisement, which is unfortunately out of our control. You may wish to mute the advertisement and sit in silence until the song begins.

You can also find the songs in our Lenten Song Reflections 2026 playlist on Spotify by clicking here. The songs will be added each day as the devotional continues. (Please note—due to song availability limitations the versions of songs used in the Spotify playlist may differ from those used in the devotionals)

God bless you as you draw near to him during this important season.