Our series during Ordinary time will explore the revelation of God’s Kingdom through his Son. We will look specifically how the incarnation—the ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ—reveals the long-promised Kingdom of God breaking into human history demonstrating God’s love, destroying the powers that ravaged creation, and displaying the Messiah’s promise (to continue reading this essay, click on image above).
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YOUR KINGDOM COME
Pastoral Resources | 2025-26 Themes At-A-Glance
Week 12: Lent — Submit to the King, Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
The LORD’s call through Joel reveals that authentic repentance is never merely an outward performance of religious sorrow alone. At the start of this Lenten season, God desires within his people a deep rending of the heart—a wholehearted return to God in obedience and surrender. This inward turning is grounded not in fear alone but in the character of God himself, who is gracious, merciful, and abounding in steadfast love. To submit to the King is to bring our whole selves, both individually and as a community, before his throne in honest contrition, trusting that the God who warns in judgment also waits in compassion.
Our Focus Today
The Solemn Assembly of the Entire Covenant Community, Joel 2:15-17
The entire community of God’s people, elders, children, even nursing infants, must gather in solemn assembly as priests weep and plead to the Lord, “Spare your people, O LORD.”
Invocation
O LORD, as you summoned all your covenant people to solemn assembly, draw us together now to pray, none exempt, none excused. Show us together how to plead as one before your altar, saying as your priesthood, “Spare your people, O LORD.” Amen.
Gloria Patri
Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen, amen.
Chronological Scripture Readings for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the entire Bible in one year in chronological order.
Saturday: Josh. 10-11
Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Saturday: Psalm 21, 51, 81, 111, 141 and Proverbs 21
The Solemn Assembly of the Entire Covenant Community, Joel 2:15-17
The entire community of God’s people, elders, children, even nursing infants, must gather in solemn assembly as priests weep and plead to the Lord, “Spare your people, O LORD.”
Reflection
The command to gather every member of God’s covenant community (from the eldest to the nursing infant) shows us that repentance before God is a corporate act of the entire covenant people. The priests’ plea to the Lord, “Spare your people,” reveals where real mercy originates, in the LORD’s own faithfulness to his name and heritage. We are bound to one another before God, and interceding together on behalf of the whole body is our duty and among the highest callings of each of us as members of his people.
Engaging God’s Word Today
The LORD summons not just the devout or the guilty but every member of the community to solemn assembly and gathering. How seriously do you take your responsibility to intercede with others for the people of God? Where have you treated repentance as a private matter and not as his call to plead together with others for his presence and forgiveness?
Nicene Creed
We believe in one God, The Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God,
Begotten of the Father before all ages,
God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God,
Begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father,
through Whom all things were made.
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became human.
Who for us too, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried.
The third day He rose again according to the Scriptures, ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Who together with the Father and Son is worshiped and glorified.
Who spoke by the prophets.
We believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin,
and we look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the age to come. Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.
Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Benediction
Heavenly Father, lead us now bound to one another as your covenant people, carrying the weight of our duty to continually pray for your people everywhere. Holy Spirit, unite our hearts to seek you in corporate repentance this Lenten season, and embolden us as we plead together for your mercy. Amen.
Scripture Memory for this season
Matthew 11:2-6 (ESV): The Messiah’s Healing of the Sick: The Kingdom’s Compassion
2 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”
Scripture Engagement
As disciples of Jesus, the Churches of Christ the King strongly seek to engage the Scriptures to discover the centrality of Christ and his Kingdom in the prophetic and apostolic writings. You will find a rich treasure of resources on engaging Scripture at the Center for Scripture Engagement of Taylor University.
Books We Are Reading this Church Year, and When
• The Most Amazing Story Ever Told, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Advent)
• Get Your Pretense On, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Christmas)
• Destined for the Throne, Paul Billheimer (during seasons of Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, and Resurrection)
• The Presence of the Future, George Eldon Ladd (during seasons of Ascension and Coming of Holy Spirit)
• Kingdom, Church and World, Howard Snyder (during seasons of Headship and Harvest)
• The Gospel of the Kingdom, George Eldon Ladd (during the seasons of Hope and Remembering the Saints, Exalting the King)
Book Reading Reflection: Destined for the Throne
(Reading “Destined for the Throne” during season of Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, and Resurrection)
“The average historian has no clue to the meaning of history, because he ignores the only infallible sourcebook, the Bible. For most people, historians included, the center of history for any given age or period is the political entity or state which is the most populous, which occupies the greatest territory, represents supreme material resources, and boasts the largest and most invincible military might. To most of us, the stuff of history is the part played by the great empires of the past, including the leading political, military, and financial figures associated with them. So men like the Pharaohs, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon seem to be the authentic makers of history. These empire builders and their followers considered themselves to be the architects of fate and motors of destiny. They believed that they were the central forces of history and prime movers of its events.
But the world at large and its historians in particular have missed a point altogether. There is only one philosophy of history that makes sense, and that is the Biblical philosophy.
The center of history is not its great empires like Egypt, Babylon, Greece, or Rome, nor their modern counterparts such as Russia, China, United States of America, or any other which may yet appear. To locate the center of history, one must bypass all these vast empires and the glittering names associated with them and find his way to a tiny land called The Navel Of The Earth, the geographical center of the world. And in that tiny land is a tiny hill called Calvary where two thousand years ago a man named Jesus was lifted up to die. This writer submits that this tiny hill and that tiny land is the center of all history, not only of this world but of all the countless galaxies and island universes of outer space from eternity to eternity.”
~ Billheimer, Paul. Destined for the Throne: How Spiritual Warfare Prepares the Bride of Christ for Her Eternal Destiny. Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis: MN, 1975, 1996. Electronic Edition, location 21-22.
On Eagles Wings Prayer Focus: A Long Time Comin‘
The Messiah Provides Sight, John 9:1-41
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