Sanctified Lent?

[Henoch]

Guys do you think fasting during Lent can ever be done in a sanctified manner
Like I mean reducing food /extremely extravagant food to spend more time on Scripture meditation and prayer without being influenced by Papist asceticism?

 

[ArminianOnceWas]

Prepare for battle brother. Hardly can a post like this be made without the critiques of extra-biblical holy days overriding the useful responses that some may give. It is quite arbitrary in this group which are the acceptable posts to be hijacked compared to the ones that are moderated to focus on serving the actual question at hand. Best wishes.

 

[No Other Name]

Guys do you think fasting during Lent can ever be done in a sanctified manner
Like I mean reducing food /extremely extravagant food to spend more time on Scripture meditation and prayer without being influenced by Papist asceticism?

Fasting is not a human institution but an ordinance of God. If this particular season of Lent comes around and you find yourself thinking about reducing food or extra life items and want to do more meditation and prayer and spiritual disciplines, that's great!

Examine yourself and ask "What have I been doing (not doing) that this popped up in my mind?" Because the answer cannot be a papist ordinance is validated simply due to a timing issue that happens to line up in your life.

The true fountain is God's Word and his Holy Spirit working in your life; not the poisoned stream of a pope in history that had a bright idea in 461 to try and play God and ordain it for THIS time for THIS long for everyone. God forbid.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

Moved to church calendar and pretended holy days forum.

 

[Henoch]

Moved to church calendar and pretended holy days forum.

Thanks!
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Th

It is of papist origin, so is "influenced" thereby by default. Will-worship. Doctrine of devils. Run, do not walk, to the nearest exit. Fasting is not intended be a regular practice, certainly not calendared (in that repetitive sense). Fasting is typically a responsive duty, seeking direction, humility, forgiveness, repentance, and is an acknowledgment to the LORD that He is provider, sustainer, more than our "necessary" food. Lent, as it were, is a proverbial spreading abroad of one's phylacteries, a voluntary humility, seeking to bend the arm of God by way of human merit. We might ask the same question in the spirit of that great Gospel-preacher Isaiah, "Is this such a fast as I have chosen?" May the LORD deliver us, every one, from our hypocrisies, our fig-leaved righteousness, and cause us to hold fast the Head, the LORD Jesus Christ, in Whom alone any man is complete.

In [Christ] are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.... Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.... Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using, after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.​

Thanks so much brother! I really needed that exhortation!
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Fasting is not a human institution but an ordinance of God. If this particular season of Lent comes around and you find yourself thinking about reducing food or extra life items and want to do more meditation and prayer and spiritual disciplines, that's great!

Examine yourself and ask "What have I been doing (not doing) that this popped up in my mind?" Because the answer cannot be a papist ordinance is validated simply due to a timing issue that happens to line up in your life.

The true fountain is God's Word and his Holy Spirit working in your life; not the poisoned stream of a pope in history that had a bright idea in 461 to try and play God and ordain it for THIS time for THIS long for everyone. God forbid.

Amen brother! I think I was being lazy in my prayer and Bible routine for quite a while and I want to be kindled in the Spirit again and go back to the first love I had towards my redeemer.
I agree that fasting just for the sake of fasting is useless!
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Why do these reply posts "automatically merge" :/

 

[NaphtaliPress]

I don't know why the merges of different replies. It would make sense if replies to the same person. Rich? @Semper Fidelis

 

[pgwolv]

Thanks!
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Th

Thanks so much brother! I really needed that exhortation!
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Amen brother! I think I was being lazy in my prayer and Bible routine for quite a while and I want to be kindled in the Spirit again and go back to the first love I had towards my redeemer.
I agree that fasting just for the sake of fasting is useless!
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Why do these reply posts "automatically merge" :/

I assume it is to avoid 5 short posts by the same user all under each other; I like the merging.

 

[No Other Name]

I don't know why the merges of different replies. It would make sense if replies to the same person. Rich? @Semper Fidelis

I have no clue what thread Rich announced it, but I recall Rich said that it does reduce clutter and that the time limit for merging is 5 minutes, ie. if someone posts and then posts again, it will be merged if the next post is under 5minutes and no one else has posted while the next post is being written.
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5 minute test

 

[No Other Name]

So 6 minutes and if a merge occurs, then it has to be 6 from the time of merge and not simply 6 minutes since the initial post, or else it will merge again. Informative.

 

[alexanderjames]

Guys do you think fasting during Lent can ever be done in a sanctified manner
Like I mean reducing food /extremely extravagant food to spend more time on Scripture meditation and prayer without being influenced by Papist asceticism?

With the above warnings in place, I think yes, not because it is "Lent". And this is coming from someone who is part of the Church of England (which still observes Lent in some capacity).

My church is having an increased focus on prayer meetings for the next 6 weeks, not as something that is standardised in the annual calendar but nevertheless according with the "Lent period", and I personally welcome it as an opportunity to seek the living God and humble ourselves under His mighty hand.

 

[Phil D.]

Prepare for battle brother. Hardly can a post like this be made without the critiques of extra-biblical holy days overriding the useful responses that some may give. It is quite arbitrary in this group which are the acceptable posts to be hijacked compared to the ones that are moderated to focus on serving the actual question at hand. Best wishes.

These statements seem a bit slanted and unfair. The OP specifically asks, "do you think fasting during Lent can ever be done in a sanctified manner," so if some respond with a "no," that isn't unuseful to answering the question, or comparably hijacking the thread.

 

[Deleted member 6112]

Guys do you think fasting during Lent can ever be done in a sanctified manner
Like I mean reducing food /extremely extravagant food to spend more time on Scripture meditation and prayer without being influenced by Papist asceticism?

Fasting is a profitable exercise any time of year. However, fasting because of pretended holy day/season is superstition.

Can you observe lent "without being influenced by Papist ascetisism?" Maybe. Can you observe it without being influenced by Papist superstition? No. the observance is inherently superstitious.

 

[Pomopu]

This is an imaginary conversation I just had: "There is no Lent, Mr. Evangelical---but there is Christ to be found in the Bible, and devils to be rooted out of your closet, and God will not refuse to bring out those devils, and God will not refuse to bring you, Mr Evangelical, Christ--just because you, Mr. Evangelical, seek Christ during Lent. And you say, 'but there is Lent!' Well, there is not. But 'do Lent,' if in 'doing Lent' you bruise your knees with prayer, and parch your mouth with shouts, and empty your eyes of tears. Do Lent, if that's what it is, and Christ will be there. And Mr. Evangelical, the irony of your situation is that in doing Lent you will do yourself out of Lent, by having found Christ in Lent, and in finding Christ in Lent you'll have found you don't need Lent to find Christ at all."

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I don't know why the merges of different replies. It would make sense if replies to the same person. Rich? @Semper Fidelis

The merging was because the same author posted in succession on the same thread one after another.

There is a reason why the quote feature exists. The merged post in question demonstrates that the author could have quoted one person at a time and posted all his responses in a single post, and it all makes sense.

 

[Northern Crofter]

Guys do you think fasting during Lent can ever be done in a sanctified manner

Yes, but it must be according to Christ's directives in Matthew 6:16-18: "Moreover, when ye fast, look not sour as the hypocrites: for they disfigure their faces, that they might seem unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you that they have their reward. But when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou seem not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret, will reward thee openly." (I like my Geneva Bible comment on such hypocrites: "such as hunt after a name of holiness, by fasting"). I think it's important to recognize that the underlined portion seems to be saying that drawing attention to one's fasting spiritually negates the activity. Given the connections between prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:21, Luke 2:37, Luke 5:33, Acts 10:30, Acts 13:3, Acts 14:23, 1 Corinthians 7:5) and the secret nature these are to be done in (see the repeated use of "in secret" in Matt.6 regarding acts such as alms, prayer, and fasting), I take the reference to disfiguring the face as a broad prohibition of any outward public action revealing that one is fasting.

Fast away any time you want (though I would question why one would fast only during so-called Lent - that is not Christ's example as He fasted throughout the year), but let it be done in secret. I think this is especially true during so-called Lent. I regularly fast throughout the year, but, apart from my wife, no one else usually knows (occasionally in certain circumstances someone notices and asks directly why I'm not eating). I would consider it harmful to my public testimony particularly to my Romanist friends and co-workers if I let them know I was fasting - I think they would be confused and, while it might lead to a profitable discussion, I find more often than not there is no discussion of "religious" matters beyond "that's nice for you!" If/when one of them specifically asked, I discuss it as much as they want, but, again, it usually ends quickly with a bit of raised eyebrow, "you-do-you" type of response.

So, if you decide to fast during the so-called Lenten period, don't tell us!