What Is Lent About?



Some are familiar with choosing to give something up for 40 days prior to Easter.  The 40 days comes from the 40 days that Jesus fasted while He was led into the Wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by Satan.

 The Holy Spirit led Jesus to be tempted by Satan?!

Yes. A lot of people think that God won’t work in that way, but He does allow temptations to come in order to strengthen us in our resolve of loving God more than ourselves and the complete peace and joy that is found in that. A newfound strength in a closer relationship with Him comes in enduring trials. The  angels were sent to tend to Jesus and help restore Him following that time. God restores us too following those times.

 God appears to use times of trial and testing prior to a big move of His to produce major influence for His kingdom. Jesus was tempted just before He began His public three year ministry which led to His redemptive death and resurrection.

Forty is often the waiting and renewing and growing time. Human gestation time in the womb is 40 weeks. The rains of Noah’s time were 40 days and 40 nights. The Israelites were in the wilderness 40 years and then led to the Promised Land. Those times of 40 are not times of ease, but they repeatedly lead to some sort of new life. For our 40 day observance of Lent, we are led to the resurrection celebration.

The three types of temptation that Jesus overcame were a letting go of His human desires for the purer relationship to God and Holiness. These three insights I have highlighted are a good reflecting place that are noted by John Paul Jackson. (He is currently in need of prayer for some serious health conditions and in his own trial for breath and enough oxygen to reach his organs. If you would, say a prayer for him. You may be like a ministering angel tending in prayer.) I added the corresponding scripture that I believe he was associating these temptations to.

1.      Tempted to think too highly of ourselves.  Matthew 4:5-7  Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ 7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

 

2.      Tempted to promote ourselves to gain authority and favor with others. Matthew 4:8-10   Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ⁹ “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”  Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’

3.     Tempted to use our gifts/talent to satisfy our own desires  Mark 4:3-4  The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”⁴ Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 

God’s gifts to us are good and the talents given, His authority in us as His child is a blessing and a covering of protection in His love, and God is who lifts us as He wills. In all these things, Jesus showed that He remained humble to the Holiness of God over any ego or worldly desires. In exhaustion of the trial and the giving up of Himself in physical satisfaction of food for those 40 days, He was immediately tended to by angels.

He held out and Satan left.

When He was to be tempted again later by Satan through Peter’s words, He could stand up to it. Matthew 16:21-23   21From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. 22Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You. But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's."  See how He has overcome His own desires as a man’s and kept it on God’s interests?  He had endured a trial.
His next one would be the greatest one to the point of sweating blood by the pressure of the weight of the world’s sins about to come upon Him at the cross. He didn’t run. He asked that the cup be passed from Him, but He said in the form of man and God in Luke 22:42 saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

These 40 days are a time to think more of God and less of ourselves.  It isn’t only about the giving up of the things, but it is the choice of devoting more of ourselves to God and not letting  things take precedence over Him or letting ourselves take precedence over Him. Not even in what we think is an act of our own  sacrifice, but seeing His sacrifice and desiring to be humble to Him in what He has done in giving us all the things that He has and Who He is. How can we live more fully in Him? Stand more firmly on His Holiness. Our sacrifice cannot make us Holy, but we live to be in His holiness through trials and temptations.

Living for Him is not limited for 40 days, but through all of life’s trials, knowing that His ways are best and that there is no greater thing than living for Him and His Kingdom come. 

(To my great sorrow, something just happened as I was about to press publish on my blog. I was texted that John Paul Jackson just passed away. I'm in shock and sorrow, but I know He has endured to God's glory; living unselfishly for Him. The timing is heart-wrenching, and I will not remove what I wrote. We all need to know that this life is temporal. The desires we let go of here for what is of God is of the greatest thing we can do for all of eternity. What matters is the LORD, always and forever and in Him we have been saved.)  Lent is for Life.