Meaning of Lent

Lent is meant to be a time of repentance. That’s not a feeling of shame but an awareness that sin separates us from God and of what it costs Him to be reunited with us. “Shame has its place, but feeling shame over sin is not the same thing as repentance from sin” because “our tempter can take our obedience to God and turn it into a source of pride.”

Repentant sinners “seek cleansing from sin, but also freedom from shame.” True repentance leads” to a “180-degree change of […] direction,” which requires “true brokenness.” Still, repentance starts with “a regretful acknowledgment of sin with a commitment to change.” 

That is why conflating Lent with New Year’s resolutions is dangerous. This time of fasting should not add religious encouragement to a challenging goal: to lose weight, stop watching pornography, or give money to charity. “Lent is […] an opportunity to contemplate what our Lord really did for us on the Cross.”

Resolutions focus on meeting self-set, self-motivated goals rather than goals established by God and may even rebel against His purposes. Resolutions reflect a desire for autonomy from God instead of recognizing that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19) and the potter’s work, to be regarded as precious (Isaiah 64:8).

Resolutions focus on the “self,” not Christ. Lent is a good time to give up resolutions and listen to God’s leading. Where God leads might be more complex than any fast, and here, Christians realize that they cannot do anything in their own strength either: only the grace of God is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9).

1 Corinthians 3:16

King James Version

¹⁶ Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

1 Corinthians 6:19

¹⁹ What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

Isaiah 64:8

⁸ But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.