Give Up!

I have to confess to all of you, I am a blog junkie. For those of you who are wondering, a blog is not an illegal narcotic. Rather, it is a web based publishing format. Blog is short for "Web Log." In fact, all of the articles I have written here over the past year are available on a blog. You can visit it at "http://in-spirit-and-truth.blogspot.com."
This past week I was reading the blog of a friend, and he brought up the difficulty of keeping the Lenten fast. He said,
The things that I choose to give up are proving much more challenging than I anticipated. I actually considered breaking my vow, because I didn't see the point anymore. I don't think I'm abstaining out of a love or remembrance of Christ, I think I'm just keeping my word because it makes me feel noble to make a difficult vow and keep it.
I thought about what he said for a while, and would like to share with you my response. We don't give things up for Lent because we love Jesus so much. We give things up for Lent to, in a miniscule way, identify with Christ's suffering. He "gave up" His freedom, His life, and His breath. We give up things, exactly because it's hard to do. In denying ourselves these little things we get a glimpse of how hard it was for the “fully human” element of the “fully divine” Son of God to give up something much more significant than chocolate.
God, who breathed the breath of life into the lungs of humanity submitted not only to death, but death on a cross. He could have been stabbed, beaten, crushed, stoned, etc. He could have bled to death, but he didn't. He died of asphyxiation. The God who breathed life into us, allowed us to deprive him of that breath.
Loving God more doesn’t make it easier to give things up. Giving things up helps you love God more. It is all about identifying with the difficulty. At the end of it, you will find a deeper love, and a deeper appreciation of what Jesus gave up for you.

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