"The Intent of Lent" by Win Johnson

[Zeke]

From a very old Gospel tract that I forgot I had...

Better to only have lint in the pocket than a worldly ID there Midway Actor.

 

[musterion]

This question's from the other thread and hasn't been answered.

The believer in Christ is seated in Christ, as perfect before the Father as the Son is. This is a fact, according to the apostle Paul.

So what can your temporary self-denial during Lent do for you that Christ didn't already do for you?

What approval from God can your selective self-abnegation purchase beyond that which Christ purchased for you: perfected righteousness in Himself as a member of His Body?

What lacked on His part that your Lent observance makes up for?

 

[bybee]

This question's from the other thread and hasn't been answered.

The believer in Christ is seated in Christ, as perfect before the Father as the Son is.

So what can your temporary self-denial during Lent do for you before God that Christ didn't already do for you, and which you do not already possess in Him? What lacks on His part that your Lent observance makes up for?

It makes me aware of my place.

 

[musterion]

It makes me aware of my place.

Lent does that?

 

[brewmama]

This question's from the other thread and hasn't been answered.

The believer in Christ is seated in Christ, as perfect before the Father as the Son is. This is a fact, according to the apostle Paul.

So what can your temporary self-denial during Lent do for you that Christ didn't already do for you?

What approval from God can your selective self-abnegation purchase beyond that which Christ purchased for you: perfected righteousness in Himself as a member of His Body?

What lacked on His part that your Lent observance makes up for?

It has been answered. You just ignore the answer.

It helps lessen the hold this world has on our desires, passions and mindfulness. It helps us redeem the time, which we are instructed to do. It helps us turn our minds toward God. It helps us prepare for the celebration of Pascha. It has nothing to do with what you, in your arrogant condemnation, continue to insist it means.

 

[musterion]

It helps lessen the hold this world has on our desires, passions and mindfulness. It helps us redeem the time, which we are instructed to do. It helps us turn our minds toward God. It helps us prepare for the celebration of Pascha. It has nothing to do with what you, in your arrogant condemnation, continue to insist it means.

Everything you just described boils down to flesh overcoming flesh and influencing spirit in order to please God. Flesh cannot influence spirit; it can only war against it. Flesh cannot even overcome itself. In no case can flesh please God (Rom 8:8).

Lent is all about flesh influencing spirit and, by influencing spirit, pleasing God. That is the whole point (at least for those who take it seriously). It is a form of law but if one is led by the Spirit, one is not under law. You seek to perfect the spirit and please God by imposing law to control the flesh.

It never, ever works because that's not His way.

As NickM correctly pointed out on the first Lent thread, the goals you describe are what walking in the Spirit is for.

Galatians 5

1Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. 3 And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. 4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.



I wonder if people really understand this or are applying their preconceived notions from "church" teachings. Walking in the Spirit is to ignore the law. Walking in the Spirit is usually defined wrong on this forum and with many Christians. Paul is very clear.

Earlier in the letter Paul said this;

2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?


And fake "Pentecostals" say that is only circumcision. Wrong. Paul is very clear. Under circumcision, you are indebted to keep the whole law. It isn't just about cutting of the flesh, which was foreshadowing.

 

[bybee]

Do you believe God displeased with Christians who never observe Lent or do any kind of fast for religious/spiritual reasons?

God knows the heart. I don't.

 

[musterion]

God knows the heart. I don't.

I asked him.

 

[brewmama]

Everything you just described boils down to flesh overcoming flesh in order to please God. Flesh cannot overcome flesh. Flesh cannot please God (Rom 8:8).

Lent is all about flesh influencing spirit and, by influencing spirit, pleasing God.

But as NickM correctly pointed out on the first Lent thread, the goals you describe are what walking in the Spirit is for.

You just don't give up. You are wrong in your interpretation. You ignore the wisdom of 2000 years of Christian history, and a Church that has produced infinitely more saints and holy people than your sad little following has ever dreamed of. Restraining the flesh is an essentially divine work, though we also must act. And what do we do? We simply refuse natural desires the right to direct our life. We decide that we shall not live for them to be satisfied. Living to satisfy natural desires is, as Jesus pointed out, how "Gentiles," those who don’t know God, live (Matt. 6:32). We make a general surrender of the right to get what we want in favor of the call to do what is good under God. This is the right and healthy understanding of "death to self."

Following upon this general surrender is the practicing of specific disciplines, such as solitude, silence, fasting, study, worship, service, and so forth, to quell our desires that have been running our life and embed the will of Christ into our body in its social setting, making his will our embodied will. That is what Paul has in mind with "I bruise my body and make it my slave" (I Cor. 9:27). The radical disciplines of abstinence, solitude, silence, and fasting, are especially useful and necessary to re-train our body, along with the other active components of the self. "Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child rests against his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me" (Ps. 131:2). That is our new reality. The chaos and turmoil of the self-life is now quieted, and I can stand firmly and effectively for what is good and right in the strength of the Lord. I am walking by the Spirit.


If what you say is true, why does St. Paul spend SO much time, energy and words on beseeching Christian people on how to live rightly? Surely the very fact of this negates your argument. And you also throw out free will entirely, which is the very basis of our salvation.

 

[musterion]

Do you believe God displeased with Christians who never observe Lent or do any kind of fast for religious/spiritual reasons?

 

[brewmama]

Do you believe God displeased with Christians who never observe Lent or do any kind of fast for religious/spiritual reasons?

I wouldn't say that. And I CERTAINLY wouldn't say that He is displeased with those who do.

 

[Bradley D]

Jesus had no problem with fasting.

"But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast" (Mark 2:20).

Jesus gave instructions for fasting.

“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (Matthew 6:16-18).

 

[musterion]

I wouldn't say that. And I CERTAINLY wouldn't say that He is displeased with those who do.

It all depends on one's motive for doing it.

But if one has believed a false gospel, no amount of fasting or anything else matters.

 

[musterion]

Jesus had no problem with fasting.

"But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast" (Mark 2:20).

Jesus gave instructions for fasting.

“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (Matthew 6:16-18).

There is no command to fast from Him there or when He spoke from Heaven. But Rome commands it and it's sin if a Catholic doesn't do Lent.

 

[Nihilo]

if one has believed a false gospel, no amount of fasting or anything else matters.

We all agree on this. Why be so contentious. Why not just come out and say this in the OP.

And you don't have to refute a straw man fallacy. You just call it. It's your job to prove it's not a straw man, which is easy.

If it's not a straw man fallacy.