Lent

We are now arrived at that time of year again, the time when people people give something up. It interesting the origins of Lent are from when Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days. When we read this story we find out how Satan tried to tempt Jesus. Lent is about a time of giving something up for God, to focus and serve him. This is a fantastic way of focusing on your relationship with God, and bringing our Lord glory, honor and praise.

Religious
The first concern with lent is that it becomes a religious, legalistic event which is about doing lent for the sake of it. We actually become like the pharisees in that we are doing it because we think we have to, so we can earn respect, and people will notice what we are doing. One easy way to tell if we are doing this, is that our lent is very public and that we are always telling people about how religious and good we are finding it. It becomes about how lent makes us feel good about ourselves and how we are doing this so much better than anyone else. Have you ever met that person who says well I am doing lent why aren't you. Lent does not need a set day we can give something up for Christ anytime of the year.

Sin
The Second concern is that we give up a sin in our life. You might say well this is a good thing surely. The two main problems often with this is that we try and do this in our own power and do a deal with God. I will not lust or not swear we tell God and actually as sinful fallen people we cannot make that promise with God. The only way we can go about this is going back to God and asking him to transform our hearts. The second problem with this is we so often try to give things up for lent we should not be doing full stop. Some of our principles we bring in for lent should be part of our everyday lives. We cannot use lent as an excuse to be so called good Christians, part of our everyday lives is about living and serving Christ. Lets not use lent to serve and obey God for only certain periods in the year but everyday.

Giving up
The third concern is that we focus the whole of lent on what we are giving up. It can become very self focused or works focused. We end up looking inward so much because we are trying to better ourself as a person. That in itself is not a bad thing but the purpose of lent is to give something up so we can focus and bring glory to our Saviour and Lord. We become one those people who are so determined not to eat chocolate it becomes all about the chocolate and not at all about Christ. It can so easily become about what we are giving up and actually it not about that at all.

What to do
How do we change this well look at your Saviour and Lord, remember giving something up is so we can honor and praise him, not so we can win holy points. Look at the cross again and realise without Christ we are hopeless sinners. We need God to transform us and we can only go about lent effectively if we are truly living and allowing God to work through us. Lent remember is not about us it is about serving our Father who loved us and sent Jesus to die for us. Lets continue to serve him daily and remember what lent is truly about.