Lent got off to a great start with awesome worship on Ash Wednesday. Thank you to all of the servants who showed up early and stayed late. I am humbled by the number of you who show up week after week to do the nitty gritty hard work so that God’s people can assemble for worship.
Below is our acronym for the next forty days. Find an accountability partner, work the plan and allow God to do the rest.
L: Leave Behind Something
During the next 40 days, leave something behind. Leave a sin, a habit, a luxury that you have grown accustomed to in your life. Give up smoking, alcohol, caffeine, a favorite food or some other luxury addiction. Give up a video game, television show or a certain website that appeals to your appetite. You might choose to fast for a period of time, maybe even all day long. And if those have all been conquered by Christ in you already, maybe you will give up 30 minutes of sleep or a particular worry that has been nagging at your mind. Leave something behind
E: Eliminate Guilt
We eliminate guilt through repentance and receiving forgiveness. Repentance involves leaving behind some harmful life action or practice (sin) and asking God for forgiveness. We all have something to be forgiven for. Reflect upon some life action that brings harm to yourself or people around you and impedes your relationship with God. Walk away from the life action, walk towards God and ask for forgiveness.
It might help to reflect upon the price given for our Salvation. Salvation is free but it didn’t come cheap. Christ underwent tremendous suffering upon that cross for you and me. We are not called to be held hostage by the feelings of our guilt, but to ask and receive forgiveness when we fall short. Lent is a time we remember and reflect upon the power behind the forgiveness that comes through the blood that was shed through Jesus on the cross. Lent is a time to be strengthened by receiving and offering forgiveness. Don’t only eliminate guilt in your own life; help out others by forgiving them for wrongs done against you. Tell them.
N: New Habits
Lent is a time to develop a new desire to serve God and to be the person God created you to be. That occurs as we create new habits that eventually develop healthier subconscious life patterns. These new habits can also be called spiritual disciplines. As you remove a habit, an action, or a period of time, replace it with a spiritual habit. Replace it with something that will allow you and God to spend time together.
There are many spiritual disciplines and it is a good practice to combine one or more. Allow this incomplete list to prime your own creative juices and design a new habit plan that works especially for you.
Discipline of Solitude: Find a quite place and just be silent. Turn off all gadgets including your phone. Listen and consider recording whatever thoughts that traipse through your mind.
Discipline of Prayer: Consider combining the disciplines of solitude and prayer. Purchase a rosary and allow the five beads above the cross to be your guide to prayer. Tap into our church prayer line and pray for the requests received. Pray through one Psalm every day, allowing the verses to prompt your prayer. When stuck in traffic, instead of getting all bent of shape, pray for those around you. When you hear an emergency siren, pray for the emergency personnel and those whose lives have been turned upside down.
Discipline of Fasting: Fasting is where you deny your body some type of pleasure, physical, mental or emotional, even all three. Every time you fast, combine it with another spiritual discipline like worship, celebration, prayer, journaling or the reading of scripture. Instead of dwelling on the hunger pain, focus on or do something that impacts your relationship with God
Discipline of Fellowship: Join a Grace Group. Increase the time spent in the group you are already in. Join a bible study. Reserve a time to faithfully work the weekly Life Steps from the weekend message. For 40 days get connected to some form of small group.
Discipline of Simplicity: Consider combining with the discipline of fasting. When you feel hunger, do something that eliminates clutter. Clear your calendar from the “stuff” that drains you. Decide to not to buy more “stuff.” Attack an area of your life where procrastination rules.
For those who are younger, maybe you will give up your favorite desert or snack, video game or Television show and every time you think of that particular sweet, play that Game or watch that show, you will clean up your room so as to simplify your life.
Discipline of Service: Choose to serve somewhere in your church in the area of your giftedness. Email Jeff Gehle about setting up and tearing down the set up for worship in the ARC. Email Allan Mink about helping out with the building. Email Judy Madden about visiting people in the hospital. Email Melissa Hagler about getting involved in missions. Email Leslie Lummus or Kristen Walker about serving in our student ministries. Email Lisa Latham about helping out with our video/media needs. The list goes on and on. Serve somewhere. Call a friend each week and invite them to join you in worship. Work at the harvest house, rock babies at the hospital, visit a nursing home. Serve.
T: Today is the Day of New Life
Today is the day God will begin growing in you a brand new life, not tomorrow, not next week, today. No more waiting. Lent is here. It is time to release something and allow God to grow something.
Think of “leaving behind” as tilling the soil in your Spirit, an agitation to what is normal. “Eliminating guilt” is a reminder that there will be some growing pains in the process. The “New Habits,” new spiritual disciplines, are a new planting into your Spirit. Today is the day God will use to grow that New Life in these next 40 days as you journey towards Easter.
Some of you have never, or rarely, completed anything that you started. If you fail at your sacrifice of leaving behind after a few days, dust off your knees, get back up and try again. Try and go 40 days straight regardless how many times you have to start over. Your Easter might not be April 3rd. It might be July 4th, but that is okay. To those who believe in and follow Jesus, every day has the potential to be Easter.
May God give you the strength to resist temptation, grace to accept His forgiveness, and the discipline to practice new habits today, tomorrow and ……
Peace,
Rick
