Category: Lent

Posted on

Lenten Quotes, Day 6

Lent is a season for taking stock and cleaning house, a time of self-examination, confession and repentance.  But we need to remind ourselves constantly what true repentance looks like.  “Giving up” something for Lent is fine, but you keep Lent best by making war on all the evil habits and sinful desires that prevent you from running the race with patience.

Lent is a season for joy also because it is a motif in a larger composition.  The rhythm of the church year follows the rhythm of the Lord’s day service.  Each week, we pass through a small “Lenten” moment in our liturgy, as we kneel for confession.  But we don’t kneel through the whole service, and in the same way we don’t observe the fast forever.

–Peter Leithart

 

Posted on

Lenten Prayer

Heavenly Father, help me not to be hardened through the deceitfulness of my sins but rather may I search them out and willingly receive Your rebuke. Reveal to me those hidden sinsthat lie buried in my heart and that do their insidious work to bring me low and to separate me from You. Give me new eyes to see and open up my ears to hear. Holy Spirit, continue Your work of sanctification in me, rooting out sin, that I might more and more be conformed to the image of the Son.

12 Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. 13Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, And I shall be innocent of great transgression.

―Psalm 19

{Prayers and Meditations by Randy Booth}

Posted on

Lenten Quotes, Day 5

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him tdeny himself and utake up his cross vdaily and follow me.  For uwhoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. — St. Luke

Repentance is a decision to follow Jesus Christ and become his pilgrim in the path of peace. —Eugene Peterson

Posted on

Sacred Violence; or, the Necessity of the Cross

The giving of the Son to receive the violence of man on the cross (John 3:16) is the necessary step before man can receive the love of God in Jesus Christ at the resurrection.

The re-birth of humanity in the resurrected Christ depends on the death of a suffering servant through the violence of the cross. There can be no glory with the cross.

Posted on

Lenten Quote, Day 3

Lent has become mere mockery because our fasting is a perversion and an institution of man. For although Christ did fast forty days, yet there is no word of his that he requires us to do the same and fast as he did. Indeed he did many other things, which he wishes us not to do; but whatever he calls us to do or leave undone, we should see to it that we have his Word to support our actions. –Martin Luther

 

Posted on

Lenten Meditation

Heavenly Father, I am grateful for the grace given to me through Your Son, Jesus Christ,which enables me to approach You in peace, having my sins washed away by His blood. As we joyfully and corporately celebrate the resurrection of our Savior on each Lord’s Day, and as we anticipate our annual celebration and feast on Easter Sunday, I also know that we need to remember Your great salvation and the darkness from which I have been delivered. As I reflect upon the sins that made the death of my Savior necessary, grant to me a clear perception of the depth of my sins and help me to loath them even as I praise You for my deliverance from them through Jesus my Lord. May I increasingly be repulsed by everythingthat is not from Him, through Him and to Him. For indeed, He came into the world to save sinners. He that knew no sin, became sin, that I might be the righteousness of God. AMEN

–Randy Booth

Posted on

Lenten Quotes, Day 2

The concept of a church calendar is certainly rooted in biblical principles (especially the fact that God gave Israel a calendar to commemorate his work on their behalf) and the pattern of the church’s calendar is drawn from the core of the biblical narrative, focused on the life of Jesus. But the way the calendar is observed is left to the prudence and practical needs of God’s people. Thus, when it comes to observance of the season of Lent, we are free to modify and customize the church’s traditions to better reflect the great truths of the Reformed faith. The traditional calendar  is always subject to reshaping in light of Scripture and local circumstances. –Rich Lusk

The only reason for fasting from anything in God’s good creation is to make us hunger for God himself more deeply. –Rich Lusk

Posted on

Lenten Quotes, Day 1

Perhaps that cross which you have so long and so anxiously asked God to lift from you, may be in itself a channel of mercy which you can not afford to lose. –Rev. T.M. Clarke

The Season of Lent gives time for meditation, for reading of God’s Word, for prayer, and for deeds of charity and love, and should be welcomed by every Christian heart as one of the dearest resting places of life. That which makes it dearer is that the Church is leading us along the footsteps of our Savior until, standing at the foot of the cross, we read the infinite testimony of the infinite love of God who “so loved the word that He gave His only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It is only by the cross that we realize the joy of Easter in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has brought life and immortality to light. –Rev. H.B. Whipple

A true Lent will help us to go forth in the gladness of Easter, living sons and daughters of our risen Master.

Lent is a period of fasting. Fasting in Scripture is not for the purpose of ascetic self-disciple. Fasting is associated with periods of penance, and there is an affliction of soul in fasting (Lev 16), a reminder of our sinfulness. Yet, we don’t fast because food is bad or the body is bad. We fast as a way of preparing for the feast to come, of making the way clear for a festival renewal. Fasting is also a means of reminding ourselves that we do not live by bread alone, but by the word and Spirit of God. Lenten fasting shows us that our life is in the Risen Son, and not in the bread and meat that we eat. Fasting is part of the baptismal renewal that is at the heart of Lent. –Rev. Peter Leithart