Browsed by
Category: lent

Lenten Fasting

Lenten Fasting

How do you feel about fasting during the Lenten season? I’ve always been interested in fasting and have tried many different kinds of fasts. Last year I fasted from fasting and even that was a good thing. Fasting itself is not the end goal and fasting won’t get you into heaven. Instead, the purpose of fasting is to ready you to the Easter joy. If our lives are very cacophonic and chaotic, the holiness and awesomeness of Easter might elude…

Read More Read More

Following Jesus, Putting God First

Following Jesus, Putting God First

What can we learn from the temptations of Jesus? Or are they inapplicable in today’s world? But it is not just about big temptations, it’s about our daily choices. It’s about putting God first in everything. My thoughts on Matthew 4: 1-11 were inspired by Eugene H. Peterson’s sermon notes found in Conversations – the Message with its translator. The core of the temptations is to put something else first in our lives and God second. The things can be…

Read More Read More

Is Lent Biblical?

Is Lent Biblical?

What do you think? Is Lent biblical? Let’s see what we can find out! Job repented in dust and ashes (Job 42: 6) but there is more to Lent than just imitating that. Jesus himself spent 40 days in desert fasting: Next Jesus was taken into the wild by the Spirit for the Test. The Devil was ready to give it. Jesus prepared for the Test by fasting forty days and forty nights. (Matt 4.1-2, MSG) The number 40 is…

Read More Read More

Don’t Accept Substitutes for Grace!

Don’t Accept Substitutes for Grace!

Are you a friend of grace or a stranger to grace? I don’t know anything more liberating, more exhilarating and more exuberant than God’s abundant grace. In grace the whole salvation story comes together and starts to bloom. Grace is so wonderful, amazing, powerful, wild but gentle that it tames me over and over again. It embraces me and woes me for God time after time. It surprises me, it encourages me, it corrects me, it renews me, it treats…

Read More Read More

Stockipile Tresure in Heaven!

Stockipile Tresure in Heaven!

The news from Japan have left the whole world in a stupor. The news are devastating and almost surreal. Our hearts and minds go out there and we pray unceasingly. Life is fragile. God, have mercy on us! This Lent I’ve been reading the gospel of Matthew. Somehow I think that the whole idea of Lent is about living out the sermon on the Mount. Meditating, pondering, reflecting, praying and then applying it to our own lives for good. Life…

Read More Read More

Knock, knock! Who’s there?

Knock, knock! Who’s there?

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” (Rev. 3:20 NIV) Jesus is knocking. Can you hear him? Or is your life too noisy? Jesus is knocking. Will you open the door? Or are you too busy? Lent is a perfect time to get an annual spiritual check-up. How is your hearing? How is your vision? How…

Read More Read More

Change Your Life, Not Just Your Clothes!

Change Your Life, Not Just Your Clothes!

(Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885),”Ash Wednesday“) Lent is a blessed time: we can slow down and actively reflect on our spiritual journey. But there’s also this, it’s not too late— God’s personal Message!— “Come back to me and really mean it! Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!” (Joel 2:12, MSG) Lent is a blessed opportunity: we are called to turn back to God and intertwine faith into our lives. Change your life, not just your clothes. Come back to God,…

Read More Read More

RSS
Follow by Email