Still on the fence about whether to give something up? Here are 5 quick reasons you should go for it:<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0 Discipleship.\u00a0<\/strong>At its core, discipleship means following and becoming more like Jesus. Early in his ministry, Jesus fasted for 40 days (Matthew 4:1-11). He also assumed that his followers would fast (Matthew 6:16-18). Lent is a great opportunity to follow his example of fasting.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0Unity.<\/strong> It\u2019s easy for those of us in independent churches to forget that we\u2019re part of a movement stretching back two millennia, and spanning the far corners of the globe. Observing Lent is a way to broaden our vision and symbolically join hands with the larger Christian family.<\/p>\n 3. Empathy.\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s also easy for us to forget that, in many parts of the world, following Jesus is a costly decision (last weekend\u2019s horrific beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians was the most recent reminder). Depriving ourselves during Lent helps us to share, in some small way, the sacrifice of being a believer.<\/p>\n 4. Self-Control<\/strong>. \u201cEverything is permissible for me,\u201d wrote Paul, \u201cbut I will not be mastered by anything\u201d (1 Corinthians 6:12). Lenten fasting is a way of ensuring that we are not mastered by caffeine\u2026or Facebook\u2026or alcohol\u2026or clothes shopping\u2026or _____________.<\/p>\n 5. Joy.\u00a0<\/strong>To me, this is the best one. Consider two things Jesus said while fasting: \u201cMan does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God\u201d (Matthew 4:4). And \u201cI have food to eat that you know nothing about. My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish His work\u201d (John 4:32, 34). In other words: when we choose to not fill ourselves with food, we open ourselves up to the richness of being filled by God. That might sound overly mystical, but fasting has given me a small taste of that joy and I\u2019m looking for more. And speaking of joy, picture yourself on Easter Sunday: the feast will be all the sweeter when it\u2019s preceded by a fast!<\/p>\n Still on the fence about whether to give something up? Here are 5 quick reasons you should go for it: 1.\u00a0 Discipleship.\u00a0At its core, discipleship means following and becoming more like Jesus. Early in his ministry, Jesus fasted for 40 days (Matthew 4:1-11). He also assumed that his followers would fast (Matthew 6:16-18). Lent is … Continue reading “5 Reasons to Give up Something for Lent”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}