Lent

Here in North Georgia we have run the gamut with weather. Snow flurries so pretty and swirling the bus driver at our school said it was like being inside a snow globe. Then we had a harsh freeze and temps in the low teens with bad wind chills. Yet today things bounced back with sunny and warm air and the forsythia is popping out. I love the early spring here in the south (early compared to my previous abode in Maine). Once last week in a warm spell, I heard peepers.

Peepers are tiny frogs, which according to Wikipedia,

is a small chorus frog widespread throughout the eastern USA and Canada. They are so called because of their chirping call that marks the beginning of spring.

Spring means Easter and Easter means to Lent or not to Lent. The Lenten season began yesterday.

Lent, yes or no? By 9Marks
Five reasons not to observe Lent by Entreating Favor
Origins of Lent at Grace To You

In this day and age of apostasy, hatred, and brutality- and I’m speaking of inside the church- a bitterness grows in the wounded Christian heart. Bitterness is a killer, Eric Davis says, we have to be on guard against it. Here are some ways to combat it as outlined in Davis’ essay The Normal Battle with Bitterness

Seven years ago Dr Al Mohler wrote against a novel that was sweeping the church, The Shack. Tomorrow I am doing a retrospective on the book and digging deeper into the discernment realm by jumping off from this article from Dr Mohler, but until then, here is his article, The Shack — The Missing Art of Evangelical Discernment

Need encouragement? Sinclair Ferguson provides, in his essay A deeper lineage than our genes

Here is Lil, a pastor’s wife at Embracing the Lovely on Why I won’t be finishing Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

I’m 9 days into the New Year and 10 days into reading “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young. It’s been one of the best selling devotionals for the past 10 years, so I decided to pick up a copy on New Year’s Day. … I’m on Day 10 and I just can’t bring myself to read any more. I. Just. Can’t.

We in America have been blessed with the opportunity for unfettered freedom of speech. The internet has been a boon for those wishing to use it for a Christian witness. However, Twitter is making some troubling moves. Read more at the Daily Signal

The ever gently discerning Mrs Sharon Lareau has completed her second part of reviewing Beth Moore’s Audacious simulcast, here.

One side note. In the satanic effort to get feminism into the faith and into women’s hearts, I keep reading about having audacious faith, praying audacious prayers, of discipling an entire generation, of stepping into leadership roles, of being a brave girl.

Yet I am living a little life in an out of the way place and the only thing I’m stepping on is a juicebox or cheerios at snack time in kindergarten. I am not brave or audacious or leading. I don’t have “crazy strong risky dreamer kids” and I am not running a multi-million dollar ~~corporation~~ ministry or globetrotting to empower local women. I don’t really rather be doing this in my living room over coffee with you. No. Please don’t come over for coffee. If you do, my table won’t be artfully arranged with perfect flowers and I won’t be artfully arranged with a Bohemian scarf draped over my shoulders and I really do not believe laundry is a holy experience.

Brave, audacious, leaders, empowered… Whatever happened to submissive, meek, quiet, and sober? Out of fashion I guess. I am simply a para-professional working in a public school who grocery shops at a local Mom & Pop store and goes home and reads the Bible and repents and asks Jesus to help me be a better witness for His name tomorrow than I was today. The Christian life is wondrous and hard. It’s at home and at work, not necessarily at a huge conference I’ve founded or in Africa where I go when I leave my two toddlers behind to do some more important work or discipling an entire generation (an entire generation? and anyway, doesn’t the Bible already tell us to disciple generationally? Duh). These younger women really have to get a grip on themselves by getting over themselves.

Next, a lot of great photos of satisfying perfection at work. For the OCD in you or the person who just exults in symmetry and order, here you go. You’re welcome.

I’m not for Lent. It has a pagan foundation and is perpetuated by the false Catholic religion. It’s associated with golden calf-Mardi Gras and Pharisaical rituals. In addition it is contrary to the Gospel. I know some say that Lent for them is just a personal time of preparation for the upcoming Resurrection Sunday AKA Easter. But personal preparation is also called for in advance of the Lord’s Table (1 Corinthians 11:28) and to some extent every time we prepare for Sunday worship. (Ezra 7:10, Romans 12:1). Actually we’re supposed to pick up our cross daily, so why set aside a special time once a year for self-examination, obedience, and repentance? Why do we make a display of preparing for just as sacred as an event so publicly? Why smear our faces with ashes and mourn when we have overcome the world, have His peace and have been given His joy?

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1)

labeled for reuse. Cardinal Dolan on Ash Wednesday speaking to reporters

“But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:17-18). [underline mine]

Further, the activity of placing a mark on our forehead looked at thorough a biblical lens… The bible shows that the false prophet places a mark on the hand or forehead of those who follow the antichrist. (Revelation 13:16). These will be doomed forever. The Whore of Babylon has a secret name written on her forehead. (Revelation 17:5). Who wants to be associated with THAT?

On the positive side, during the Tribulation, angels mark the foreheads of those who serve Jesus (Revelation 7:3, Revelation 14:1). Finally, gloriously, “They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.” (Revelation 22:4). The name of Christ will be upon our foreheads, placed there by angels at the behest of God, or by God Himself, so why do I want man to put any mark on my forehead? Can somebody explain that to me? Anyone? Anyone?? No thanks. I’ll wait for God to do it.

Wikipedia CC

I know the pride of my heart. I know that participating in public displays of external worship activities will only go to my head and I’ll end up promoting my own sanctity done on my own steam. No thanks, I don’t need any help in substituting works for grace. Maybe others can withstand the temptation. I know I can’t and I don’t even want to tread one inch over there. Here are some people who feel the same but have expressed it much more eloquently. The first one is by a woman named Amanda-

Counting it all Joy: A Vent About Lent
“And here’s where I may be upsetting to the more theologically-minded, but it really isn’t first and foremost about a principle for me. Or a confession. It’s about me thinking this is contrary to the GOSPEL.“

John MacArthur on Lent’s beginnings and how it is nowadays an abuse for sinning as much as possible-
Another vent about Lent:
“Some even more religious souls feel that you sort of have to work your way up to resurrection Sunday, and so they celebrate what has become known as Lent. Forty days of eating no meat and, supposedly, expressing penitence for sin. I suppose its, in most cases, hypocritical, since penitence for sin is not accomplished by some self-directed abstinence or some self-motivated plea toward God, and its hypocrisy is also seen, I think, in the fact that before Lent, people tend to really pile up the sinning since they have to do without for a while…

In fact, there are two words that come to mind when you think of the pre-Lenten season. One is the term Mardi Gras, and the other is carnival. In our country, we’re familiar with Mardi Gras. In other parts of the world, they celebrate carnival. It is a time of unbridled sinning, of drunkenness, rioting, sexual misbehavior, getting ready for penitence…in view of Easter. In fact, Mardi Gras comes from two French words. If you know French, you know that the French word Mardi means Tuesday, and gras means fat. Fat Tuesday is the last day before Lent, and you better get fat now, because you’re gonna go without for a while. Carnival comes from words that we’re familiar with. Carne, we know from chili con carne, means meat. Val, we know from high school days when somebody was the valedictorian and gave a farewell speech, means farewell. Carnival means farewell to meat. So you have a big party before you get spiritual just to make sure you don’t miss anything; and then you hope against hope that it’ll all turn out in the end if you’re penitent enough and abstain from enough, maybe someday God will raise you up.

By the way, as a footnote, Lent is not from the Bible. There is no such thing in the Bible. It comes from the mystery religions of the cults of Babylon and was connected with the supposed killing of Baal by a wild boar; and for forty days and forty nights, the priestesses and the followers of Baal mourned his death until, supposedly, he rose from the dead on the 40th day, and that is where Lent came from, and it has been superimposed on Christianity…“

Annnnd, this too, from Jeremy Walker,

This Lent I am giving up….reticence
Whether or not it is a vestige of the Emerging/Emergent appetite for a range of ‘spiritualities’ or an enthusiasm for an over-ripe liturgical renewal, I cannot say, but I wonder if it is in part a matter of distance both of time and space. This alleged ‘recovery’ of Lent and Easter is not actually a matter of historical sensitivity and an inheritance regained but of historical unawareness and an inheritance lost. Whether or not it is the high-grade muppetry of entire churches being urged to tattoo one of the stations of the cross on some part of their anatomy, or some gore-drenched re-enactment of the unrepeatable sacrifice, or some spotlit image-fest in which a total insensitivity to physical representations of the Christ – the image of the invisible God – is displayed, or some be-robed priest-figure half a step away from incense and obeisance, it does not come from Scripture and it does not belong in Christ’s church.

So that is my thought on Lent. Why is it making a comeback into Protestant churches? Here are two essays discussing Lent.

What is the meaning of Lent?

What is Lent?

Category: Lent

Prata’s Potpourri: Discernment, Lent, Sinclair Ferguson, Jesus Calling, battling bitterness, more

Why do I want man to put ashes on my forehead when God will mark my forehead later? No Lent for me!