On Lent
From www.sacredspaces.ie,
We are at the start of Lent, the time of the year when the church invites us to test our freedom, and to question the notion: I can take it or leave it alone. Try that with grumbling, drunkenness, talking about yourself, stealing, gambling, or other habits that diminish our freedom. What habits make you hard to live with? Lent is about regaining control of our own lives, especially in those areas that damage other people. We don't admire those whose appetites or habits lead them by the nose. Nearly all of us have habits, or even addictions, that keep us from God, and harm both ourselves and others. These seven weeks before Easter help us to focus our energy on improving.
We are at the start of Lent, the time of the year when the church invites us to test our freedom, and to question the notion: I can take it or leave it alone. Try that with grumbling, drunkenness, talking about yourself, stealing, gambling, or other habits that diminish our freedom. What habits make you hard to live with? Lent is about regaining control of our own lives, especially in those areas that damage other people. We don't admire those whose appetites or habits lead them by the nose. Nearly all of us have habits, or even addictions, that keep us from God, and harm both ourselves and others. These seven weeks before Easter help us to focus our energy on improving.
Labels: Lent
posted by David at 1:19 PM
1 Comments:
The Purpose of Fasting
[From Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, pp. 54-56]
The Primary Purpose:
"Fasting must forever center on God. It must be God-initiated and God-ordained. Like the prophetess Anna, we need to be ‘worshiping with fasting’ (Luke 2:37). Every other purpose must be subservient to God."
Secondary Purposes:
"fasting reveals the things that control us."
"Fasting reminds us that we are sustained ‘by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’(Matthew 4:4)."
"Fasting helps us keep our balance in life."
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