The Preparation

Well, it's the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday; the first of forty days of fasting, reflection, daily meditation, sacrifice, and prayer before our celebration in the resurrection of our Lord, Easter. As I enter into this lenten season, it's so easy to lose sight of what I need to be focusing on during these forty days, but it can also be easy to get back on the right track if I simply choose to do so.

Forty days can be a long time and it can seem irrelevant so I look into scripture and see that forty days is a significant number in preparation. Noah and his family spent forty days on the ark in preparation for a new world, Moses spent forty days on Mount Sinai in preparation of a new covenant between God and man and the laws that would govern His people, Jonah gives the people of Ninevah forty days of repentance to prepare them for reconciliation with God, and in the New Testament we see that Jesus spent forty days in the desert filled with prayer and fasting to prepare the start of His ministry. 

I read a beginning meditation in the Lenten Magnificat (a forty day devotional written particularly for the season of lent) that posed a rhetorical question to which it answers, "How does Jesus resist the temptations of the devil? He is not relying on moral strength or trying hard to adhere to a code of ethics. It is Jesus' unwavering love, trust, and affection for his Father which renders the devil and his temptations powerless."

I want to spend the next forty days reconciling myself to our Father, preparing myself for a great celebration of Christ conquering sin and death and giving me eternal life through His body and His blood. I want that same unwavering love, trust, and affection for our Father God. I want my sacrifices to please God and my fasting to keep me focused on His great mercies in my life, the sacrifice made for me through His Son, Jesus. I want my Easter celebration to be truly a celebration of victory over sin and not a vain gathering or an excuse to eat a bunch of food, without realizing why we're rejoicing in the first place. Christ suffered and died to redeem us all...to give us an everlasting life with him!

I pray that during this season of lent I will maintain focus while fasting from the things in my life that distract me from God's love and teaching, I pray that I may be strengthened in my sacrifices and that I can enter into the celebration of Easter with a stronger knowledge of the love God has for me, despite my shortcomings, and I pray that my fasting will help lead me to shedding the sin in my life that hinders my relationship with Jesus Christ.

I will be posting daily devotions from the Magnificat so that all of us who read and fast together may grow stronger together as Christians, so that we may be one as the Father and Christ are one!

Thanks for reading and as always, pray for me as I pray for you!