Faith,
Welcome to Lent! This season is truly one of my favorite times of year. For centuries, the Church worldwide has used the days from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday (the day before Easter) as a journey of preparation, walking with Jesus toward the resurrection.
Over the years, I know some have struggled with Lent because they didn’t grow up with it; it can feel a bit too “traditional” or “Catholic.” But let me help you reimagine it for a moment. If I invited our church to go on a 40-day journey where we fasted from things that aren’t healthy, said “yes” to a deeper walk with God in prayer, and kept our eyes open for ways to give to the poor, my guess is you’d say, “I’m in!” Those are the three core invitations of Lent: fasting, prayer, and giving.
Whether you embrace Lent or choose not to, God doesn’t love you any more or less. His love for you is everlasting and filled with grace. However, just as we grow closer to the people we choose to know more deeply, God calls us to fall more in love with the One who loved us first.
Another way Lent has been described is “40 Days of Decrease.” Isn’t that a powerful thought? God is inviting us to say “no” to what is unhelpful and “yes” to what is life-giving. This Sunday, as we rejoin Moses and the Israelites in Exodus 18, we’ll see God inviting Moses—and us—to say “no” to burnout so we can say “yes” to His abundant life. It is one of the most practical chapters in Exodus, and I know we will all walk away with steps to make life a little lighter.
I pray you will join us and bring a friend this Sunday as we seek the way of Christ together at Faith Covenant Church!
In Christ alone,
Pastor Brad
*Message Notes are here.
And here are some deeper dive videos for this week’s journey:
Exodus 18 Explained (6:00)
The Repeating Pattern from The Exodus You May Not Have Noticed (5:34)