What will you give up for Lent this year? This question will become common language over the next several days leading up to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. The Mardi Gras festivities are in full swing as we witness people ramping up to Fat Tuesday prior to the fast of Lent. The question of what to give up for Lent is met with a variety of responses from habit-breaking to making healthier choices to a self-challenge to show our ability to tough it out to not eat a certain food or indulge in a certain behavior. The common view of “giving up something” for Lent is too often based on my power and the countdown to the day when I can pick it back up.
In last week’s devotion, I mentioned our need to prepare for Lent. We need to allow the refiner’s fire and the washer’s soap to purify and cleanse us. The passage in Malachi goes on, “Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years” (Malachi 3:3b-4).
The gifts we offer to God go beyond our financial resources to the intricacies of our whole lives. When we limit our offerings to what we place in the offering plate on Sunday or what we give to the missionary overseas or the non-profit organization operating in our community, we miss out on the invitation for us to surrender our lives to Jesus as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:2). Our lives become the offering of righteousness.
The invitation to the Lenten Adventure goes beyond what we give up to a place of what shall we take up and what we do with our lives during the time of fasting. What do we offer to God? The financial resources freed up from not purchasing the soda or coffee? The time we normally spent on our phones playing games or checking social media? The small group attendance on the night when we normally watched our favorite show? The Lord accepts our offering, and we receive the blessing of coming closer to God.
In Derek Prince’s book How to Fast Successfully he shares seven reasons to fast:
As we offer our lives to God in Lent through an experience of fasting, I pray we will seek the Lord to guide us to what we need to give up, while giving us clarity on what we should take up for the days ahead. I pray that we will each grow in our relationship with Jesus as we move toward and through the Lenten Adventure.
Prayer: Lord, I want my life to be an offering to you. Not only the finances you have given to me to steward, but each part of my life. Forgive me when I held back my offering from you. Let this Lenten Adventure be a time of transformation and new life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.