Today is the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday. Lent is the season on the Christian calendar when we commemorate the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness. 

Shortly after He was baptized by John the Baptist and anointed by the Holy Spirit in the River Jordan, Jesus was led into the wilderness by the same Spirit to be tempted by the devil.

Luke 4:13, as it is written,
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days He was tempted by the devil.”

Jesus was tempted to the utmost regarding each one of the instinctual needs of humanity “yet did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15). It was a period of extreme testing – a spiritual battle between His divinity and His humanity.

Lent represents our own battle with the same temptations. Like our Lord Jesus, we must remain steadfast in our resolve to not yield to the devil’s enticements. We must hold fast to the Word of God, recite it aloud when necessary and fill the atmosphere with praise and prayer.

Lent also represents a time of sacrifice. We often give up indulging in the things we most enjoy, as our sacrifice for Lent but the sacrifice we should offer is that of our very selves. Paul exhorts us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1); to “put to death the deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13) by complete submission to the Holy Spirit of God. Paul is speaking about the spiritual sacrifice God desires, the true Lenten sacrifice.

In this season of Lent, let us focus on higher things rather than our comforts and pleasures; let us follow Jesus; let us “present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service”, for this is what we are called to do.

Our Lenten Sacrifice ©2013 Shelley Johnson 13-Feb-13