Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Matthew 6:25
“Christians must always live this way, without any wish to come down from their cross – otherwise they will sink beneath the world’s mire. But if we have to do so all our lives, we must make even a greater effort during the days of Lent. It is not a simple matter of living through forty days. Lent is the epitome of our whole life.”
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in Sermon 205.
I am preparing the fourth and final zoom for the Journey through Lent with GTP. I am calling it “Life after Lent” because, as Augustine rightly put it, “Lent is the epitome of our whole life.”
This explains why Jesus gave us instructions in the Sermon on the Mount about giving, prayer, and fasting, and why God’s people have observed Lent since the days of the early church.
These disciplines are not formulaic or magical but formational. They transform us as we practice them. Without them we become overcome by worry and sink beneath the world’s mire.
Determine one aspect of Lent you want to continue after Easter. Tell one person to hold you accountable. And remember, Lent is like Spring Training for baseball. The regular season starts on Easter Monday.