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| Source: (in)courage Blog - http://www.incourage.me/category/easter-2 |
Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lent Season. I don't know about you but I have often struggled with bringing myself to give up things for Lent and probably have too quickly moved past the meaning and wealth in sacrificing, fasting, suffering a small percentage of what Christ suffered on the cross for me . . . imperfect, ungrateful and selfish-at-times me. I am guilty of categorizing Lent as just another "nice" thing to do but without any real meaning or impact. However, we are called to be like Christ and this includes suffering and sacrificing so who am I to think I am above THIS no matter how small or how big my suffering or sacrificing is. Could our sacrificing result in a resurrection in our life like we have never seen before, making us alive in new ways. Would you agree there is goodness in decluttering our homes, playrooms, cars, etc but what about decluttering our souls? Would God really show up? Could it turn into a life-style change?
First of all I think it helps if we look at the meaning of Lent and what some other well-known sources have to say about it. In the next couple weeks we will cover additional Lenten practices that you can use with your families to help prepare all your hearts for the sacredness and celebration of Easter or what I like to call Resurrection Sunday.
Focus on the Family:
"Lent (from an Old English word meaning "spring") is a period of forty days, beginning with Ash Wednesday and ending with Easter Sunday, during which Christians prepare themselves spiritually to celebrate the miracle of Christ's Resurrection. In many church traditions this time of preparation involves participation in spiritual disciplines such as fasting, solitude, quiet reflection, and special times of prayer and Bible study." (Focus on the Family)
Ann VosKamp:
“Okay… Lent. It’s the preparing the heart for Easter. Like going with Jesus into the wilderness for forty days, that we might come face to ugly face with our enemy. Our sacrificing that we might become more like Christ in His sacrifice. . . Lent isn’t about forfeiting as much as it’s about formation. We renounce to be reborn; we let go to become ‘little Christs’. It’s about this: We break away to become. . . It is an irrefutable law: one needs to be dispossessed of the possessions that possess — before one can be possessed of God. Let the things of this world fall away so the soul can fall in love with God. God only comes to fill the empty places and kenosis is necessary — to empty the soul to know the filling of God. ” (Click HERE to read entire blog post from "A Holy Experience" Blog by Ann VosKamp)
The Bible on suffering and saving:
7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
From the NIV Bible, Phillipians 3:7-14
Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving.
From the MSG Bible, Eph. 2:8-9
Lent Resource:
This book by Dean Lambert Smith contains great devotions for kids and for adults. You can even make ornaments to go with each story and create a Lenten Tree similar to a Jesse Tree that some of you may have made for the Christmas season. Here are some photos that Liz S. shared with us last year.
~Tara Gaz
