What Is Lent?

is meant to commemorate the forty days Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness, so some Lenten traditions do include self-sacrifice and special acts of charity during this time. Most involve confession and repentance. But for all religious traditions, Lent is a time to prepare for Easter, a time to actively prepare ourselves through Scripture, prayer, and repentance. We know there is nothing we can do to earn God’s favor and His love, but I think the very idea that we can do nothing, that it was all the work of God, sometimes causes us to take it all for granted.

Because we were, through God’s grace, crucified and buried with Christ – with no pain and suffering on our part – it seems easy. And it is:

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.

Acts 16:31

But if we don’t remember what that gift cost, we can also forget its value. We perhaps forget what sinners we were, how desperate our need was, and how great a sacrifice Jesus made for us, not just in His death, but in His very life here on earth.

But the other part of the story, the reason why Lent has an end, is because we were not only crucified and buried with Jesus, forgiven and made righteous, but we were also resurrected with Him into eternal life.

I Can

Attending this new church forced me to think about Lent. Whatever it was in my mind before or maybe what it is for others, it did not have to be for me. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the most important events in the history of the world. Believers, hopefully, are always mindful of this, but it is not wrong to spend a little extra time focusing on Jesus, the cross, His love and sacrifice for us that allows us to experience the amazing unearned and unending joy of Easter morning.

By the time you read this, Lent this year will have already begun, but the number of days doesn’t matter. Use whatever time you can to reflect on what a selfless gift Jesus gave us. The reflection, meditation, and prayer of the days of Lent can lead us to appreciate and value even more Christ’s sacrificial death for us.

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“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

Philippians 4.8 NLT

Don’t Believe the Lies 

“It’s no secret that many of us are weighed down right now by chronic fears or worries- negative thoughts that can run away with you at night and you spiral. Anxious and toxic thinking. We even believe the lies of our enemy, Lucifer. ‘You’re not good enough. You’ll never change. You’ll never measure up.’ Flat out falsehoods that the devil designed to hold you hostage and keep you from the freedom and power that’s your birthright as a son or daughter of God. What we’ve discovered is that most of life’s battles are won or lost in your mind. Your mind is a battlefield. As a Christian, you have a choice: you can believe Satan’s lies to you, or you can believe God’s truth about you.” ~Tim Lucas

Talk Back

“The enemy always has some sort of tool or memory or situation he uses to terrify you, even though the good times are there. The dream is there, the blessing is there, and the goodness is there. There’s always this haunting, nagging defiance that says, ‘don’t you relax. You’re not worth it. You don’t deserve it and it’s not going to last. Everything else went away…maybe this will go away too.’ We talk about faith for bad times, but you also need faith in good times to actually believe the goodness of God is not going anywhere. To silence the voices that keep saying you’ll never make it- you’re about to lose everything. Fear gets in your heart. You can change your outcome, but you have to stop talking to yourself the way you do. If you continue to talk to yourself the way you do, you’ll always be where you’ve always been. It is what you say within yourself that heals you. You see, those voices that say what you can’t do, what you can’t have, what you can’t be, what’s not going to last, what’s not going to work, is how the enemy pulverizes the promises of God in your life. Talk back to those voices- shut the enemy down. The pressure I was going though was coming from the things I allowed to reverberate through my head. I was wondering if there are things echoing in your head right now that are stopping you from living your best life because you will not silence them by speaking back.” ~T.D. Jakes

You Are in Control of Your Thoughts

“Many times the problems we think we have with our lives are actually problems with our thoughts. Proverbs 4.23 says you’ve got to carefully guard your thoughts because they are the source of true life. You are the narrator of your life. So we have to fix our thoughts. Jesus wants to change your pattern of thinking and give you a new pattern. That’s why Romans 12.2 says, ‘do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind then you will learn to know God’s will for you which is good and pleasing and perfect.’ So it’s about the pattern: if you think negative thoughts, you’ll become a negative person. You will likely find whatever you fix your focus on. If you decide to look for what’s good in life, you’ll find the good. If you decide to always look for the bad in any given situation, you’ll find the bad. If you don’t decide in advance to fill your brain with Godly, positive thoughts, your human nature will be more than happy to revert to its default setting, which is looking for what’s negative. 2 Corinthians 10.5 says, ‘We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.’ Listen, your thoughts are not in control of you. You are in control of your thoughts.” ~Ryan Visconti

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