What is Lent?
You are warmly welcome!
Lent is a solemn religious observance in the church year or liturgical calendar. “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near” (Isaiah 55:6). It is time to seek the Lord; it is time to return to the Lord with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. This season of Lent, which began on Ash Wednesday 05 Mar 2014, lasts forty days and culminates in the Passion Week and subsequently Easter. In this season you should earnestly seek to be reconciled to God and to one another – receive your pardon, to be prepared for faithful ministry – rekindle your passion, and to possess our promised inheritance – recover your promise. Seven Biblical instances involving 40 days and 40 nights are helpful to expound these matters:
Receive your Pardon: Reconciliation
1) The 40-day ultimatum for Nineveh’s destruction was cancelled when they turned to God with prayer, fasting and repentance (Jonah 3:4-10). When he finally arrived in Nineveh, Prophet Jonah announced doom – ‘forty days more and Nineveh will be overturned.’ The people of Nineveh led by their king turned to God wholeheartedly in fasting and prayer; ‘When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.’ They were reconciled to God. You too can take this season to turn from whatever evil you may have strayed into and receive your pardon.
Rekindle your Passion: Revival
Great prophets spent forty days of fasting and seeking God before clearly determining God’s purpose, and reaching their ministry peaks;
2) Moses received the Ten Commandments after 40 days of fasting and devotion – alone with God – at Mount Horeb (also called Sinai) (Ex 34:28).
3) Elijah received instructions at Mount Horeb about his final phase of ministry and his successor after 40 days of fasting and seeking God (1Kings 19:7-8).
4) Jesus launched his ministry after 40 days of prayer and fasting and defeating the devil in the Judean wilderness (Matt 4:1-2, 17).
Do your need to rekindle your passion and be a part of a Spirit-led revival? Lent is an opportunity.
Recover your Promise: Rest
5) The 40-day rainfall that caused a great flood was escaped by Noah and his people through faithful obedience to God and His providence (Gen 7:17-18).
6) It took Moses’ spies 40 days to survey the Promised Land and report. Joshua and Caleb’s account was their ticket into land (Num 13:25, 30).
7) The 40-day tormenting confrontation of Israel by the Philistine Goliath was cut short by David in the name of the Lord God Almighty (17:16, 45-50).
The opportunity of this 40-day Lent period can indeed bring you reconciliation, revival and rest, if you observe it with meaning and purpose.
God bless you.