Before we needlessly go down the road of “Lent is pagan, Easter is pagan etc.” I encourage you to memorize these three facts: (1) God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are supreme over any pagan god, (2) everything – including days – belong to God and (3) paganism is not the only association that one must have with a particular day.
In Daniel 9:3-5 we read of Daniel turning to the Lord:
“3 So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.
4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed: “Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments,
5 we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws.”
This text should cause you to reflect on where it is that you currently stand and importantly, it challenges you to appropriately respond. God is, after all, pleased when we repent of sinful habits and conduct. You too should be pleased. So repent.
Actually, repenting is a strong theme during Lent, in fact, the origins of Lent is in reminding people of the value of repentance and devoting oneself to God. At the same time, Lent helps us to prepare for Easter.
In this time, some prayerfully fast, while others use this time to “wean” themselves off of bad or sinful habits. Since a habit is learned through repetition, an undesirable habit can be “unlearned” in the same way, whilst the new can also be learned in the same way: repetition. I have heard that it takes 14 to 21 days to learn a new habit, some research says that it takes quite a bit longer. I think that there are too many variables at play to pin down an exact number. But here is what matters most: if you can break from bad or sinful habits during Lent, then you can do it for 365 days of the year – it becomes a God honouring lifestyle.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with setting aside time to focus on Jesus’ death and resurrection as well as the spiritual, emotional and practical outworking of the cross in our lives as we build up toward Easter. However, at the same time, it is also true that repenting of sin is something we should be doing every day of the year.The focus of Lent must always be on God. Lent is not about God drawing closer to us, it’s about us drawing closer to God! Lent is six weeks of self-discipline.