Lent: An Intentional Journey Toward the Resurrection
You may not have grown up in a church tradition that observes Lent. Maybe this is the first time you’re even hearing the word. Or maybe you come from a Catholic background and Lent feels very familiar to you.
While the Bible does not specifically use the word Lent, there is real value for our faith and for growing in biblical wisdom by observing a tradition the church has practiced for centuries. Scripture does often point to intentional seasons of repentance, reflection, and returning to God (Joel 2:12–13; James 4:8).
We see this same pattern of scripture of taking intentional time to reflect on Christ, to grieve our sin and to anchor ourselves in the hope of the gospel.
If you’re familiar with Lent, you know it marks the 40 days leading up to Easter, Sundays excepted. Like Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, it has often been reduced to giving up chocolate or other comforts to show devotion. But Lent is far deeper than proving you can give something up. Jesus modeled a different pattern, spending forty days fasting and preparing for ministry (Matt. 4:1–2), living in dependence on the Father.
Lent begins this year on Ash Wednesday, 2/18/26, a day that may seem unimportant or confusing to many. If you went to a Catholic school or church, someone may have smeared ashes on your forehead. In Scripture, ashes represent grief over sin. In the book of Job, we see Job sitting in dust and ashes as a clear sign of repentance (Job 42:6). The rich meaning of Ash Wednesday is meant to remind us of our brokenness and our humanity, that we are dust and will return to dust (Gen. 3:19; Ps. 103:14).
In modern Christian culture where the self can easily become the focus, Lent redirects us to the cross. It invites us to contemplate our sinfulness and our frailty. We say alongside Job; “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Yet Scripture reminds us that “godly grief produces a repentance which leads to salvation without regret” (2 Cor. 7:10). The good news is that the story does not end in ashes. We don’t stay in the ashes or in our sin, Jesus rises us out of the ashes into newness of life.
As we ask how to live more consistently in the new life Jesus has secured for us, the season of Lent invites us to move from brokenness toward hope and wholeness. It reorients our hearts as we look from the cross to the empty tomb, remembering that “He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).
Here are two reasons to participate in Lent this year, and how.
1. Lent gives us an intentional season of preparing for Easter.
Much like Advent prepares us for Christmas, Lent prepares us for the resurrection.
The resurrection is not merely an event. It is coming alive to the promises God makes that, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5). Too often we don’t think deeply about the resurrection in our daily lives, and we miss how Jesus rising from the dead should shape everything about us. As it’s been said before, “without the empty tomb, our faith would be empty” (1 Cor. 15:14).
Lent also gives us intentional time to reconsider the resurrection and its daily implications. It invites us to die to ourselves, to our desires, cravings, and passions that keep us from the life God has for us (Luke 9:23; Gal. 5:24). It invites us to consider what it means for those cravings to die so that joy and peace in Christ might rise on the other side (Rom. 6:4).
Lent reminds us that we live in the tension of the already and the not yet, and that tension is filled with hope. We still experience brokenness now, yet the resurrection has already sealed eternity for us (1 Pet. 1:3–4). Because of that, resurrection hope presses into our suffering and tells us that evil and pain are not our final destination (Rom. 8:18). During Lent, we learn to stand where the disciples once stood, caught between grief and wonder, moving toward the joy of that shocking and glorious morning when the empty tomb changed everything (Matt. 28:8; Mark 16:8; Luke 24:12).
2. Lent gives us the opportunity to remember how hungry for God we really are.
After Jesus fasted and prayed in the wilderness for forty days, He began His earthly ministry (Matt. 4:1–4). In those weeks in the desert, Jesus experienced hunger, loneliness, and temptation, yet He remained sinless and faithful to the Father (Heb. 4:15).
Observing Lent is not easy. Giving something up for a season exposes how attached we can be to comfort or routine. We may even feel “withdrawal symptoms” from whatever our normal fix may be. He reminds us, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).
Why give something up? Fasting is more than simply giving something up for God. It is meant to grow in us a deeper hunger for God. Probably the best book on fasting I have ever read is by John Piper called A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer. He writes this on fasting:
“The final answer is that God rewards fasting because fasting expresses the cry of the heart that nothing on the earth can satisfy our souls besides God. God must reward this cry because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”
“...fasting, for Ezra, was not only an expression of humility and desperation; it was an expression of desiring God with life-and-death seriousness. ‘So we fasted and implored our God.’ Fasting comes in alongside prayer with all its hunger for God and says, ‘We are not able in ourselves to win this battle. We are not able to change hearts or minds. We are not able to change worldviews and transform culture and save 1.6 million children. We are not able to reform the judiciary or embolden the legislature or mobilize the slumbering population. We are not able to heal the endless wounds of godless ideologies and their bloody deeds. But, O God, you are able!’”
In other words, giving something up for Lent is not a way to try to get something from God. It teaches us how desperate we are for God and for him to do what only He can. Learning to depend on Him is the sweet spot of the Christian life (John 15:5).
Two Ways to Observe Lent
1. Fast.
The goal of fasting is not simply giving something up. The aim is to fast in a way that turns your heart toward God whenever you feel absence of food (Isa. 58:6–9). Fasting reminds us that our deepest need is not comfort, distraction, or control, but Christ Himself. It is not about shaking off a bad habit or avoiding something you should not eat like ice cream. It is about reordering desire and sacrifice.
That is the heart behind biblical fasting. Not proving devotion, but cultivating greater dependence.
In Scripture, fasting is primarily connected to food. While there may be wise ways to deny ourselves other comforts, food remains central because it exposes how deeply we rely on daily provision. Hunger becomes a teacher. It reminds us of Jesus’ words in the wilderness: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” God’s Word, His promises, and His presence are our true sustenance, and fasting brings that reality into focus.
Biblically, fasting is tied to specific purposes:
The common thread in each example is dependence. Fasting is a visible confession that we need God more than what sustains us physically. Or as John Piper often describes it, fasting is a hunger for God.
2. Focus.
Lent gives us intentional time to fix our hearts and minds on the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus (Heb. 12:2; Col. 3:1–2). Reading a devotional with a Lent focus can stir our affections for Christ and remind us how much we need Him. We recommend this free online devotional written by Tim Keller before he passed and provided by Gospel in Life. Click below to begin reading.
Daily Lent Devotional
“The supremacy of God in all things is the great reward we long for in fasting. His supremacy in our own affections and in all our life-choices. His supremacy in the purity of the church. His supremacy in the salvation of the lost. His supremacy in the establishing of righteousness and justice. And his supremacy for the joy of all peoples in the evangelization of the world.”
― John Piper
While the Bible does not specifically use the word Lent, there is real value for our faith and for growing in biblical wisdom by observing a tradition the church has practiced for centuries. Scripture does often point to intentional seasons of repentance, reflection, and returning to God (Joel 2:12–13; James 4:8).
We see this same pattern of scripture of taking intentional time to reflect on Christ, to grieve our sin and to anchor ourselves in the hope of the gospel.
Psalm 139:23–24
“Search me, O God, and know my heart… see if there be any grievous way in me.”
Joel 2:12–13
“Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”
2 Corinthians 7:10
“Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret.”
Psalm 51:10–12
“Create in me a clean heart, O God.”
Matthew 4:1–4
Jesus fasting in the wilderness, trusting the Word over physical hunger. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Lent begins this year on Ash Wednesday, 2/18/26, a day that may seem unimportant or confusing to many. If you went to a Catholic school or church, someone may have smeared ashes on your forehead. In Scripture, ashes represent grief over sin. In the book of Job, we see Job sitting in dust and ashes as a clear sign of repentance (Job 42:6). The rich meaning of Ash Wednesday is meant to remind us of our brokenness and our humanity, that we are dust and will return to dust (Gen. 3:19; Ps. 103:14).
In modern Christian culture where the self can easily become the focus, Lent redirects us to the cross. It invites us to contemplate our sinfulness and our frailty. We say alongside Job; “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Yet Scripture reminds us that “godly grief produces a repentance which leads to salvation without regret” (2 Cor. 7:10). The good news is that the story does not end in ashes. We don’t stay in the ashes or in our sin, Jesus rises us out of the ashes into newness of life.
As we ask how to live more consistently in the new life Jesus has secured for us, the season of Lent invites us to move from brokenness toward hope and wholeness. It reorients our hearts as we look from the cross to the empty tomb, remembering that “He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).
Here are two reasons to participate in Lent this year, and how.
1. Lent gives us an intentional season of preparing for Easter.
Much like Advent prepares us for Christmas, Lent prepares us for the resurrection.
The resurrection is not merely an event. It is coming alive to the promises God makes that, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5). Too often we don’t think deeply about the resurrection in our daily lives, and we miss how Jesus rising from the dead should shape everything about us. As it’s been said before, “without the empty tomb, our faith would be empty” (1 Cor. 15:14).
Lent also gives us intentional time to reconsider the resurrection and its daily implications. It invites us to die to ourselves, to our desires, cravings, and passions that keep us from the life God has for us (Luke 9:23; Gal. 5:24). It invites us to consider what it means for those cravings to die so that joy and peace in Christ might rise on the other side (Rom. 6:4).
Lent reminds us that we live in the tension of the already and the not yet, and that tension is filled with hope. We still experience brokenness now, yet the resurrection has already sealed eternity for us (1 Pet. 1:3–4). Because of that, resurrection hope presses into our suffering and tells us that evil and pain are not our final destination (Rom. 8:18). During Lent, we learn to stand where the disciples once stood, caught between grief and wonder, moving toward the joy of that shocking and glorious morning when the empty tomb changed everything (Matt. 28:8; Mark 16:8; Luke 24:12).
2. Lent gives us the opportunity to remember how hungry for God we really are.
After Jesus fasted and prayed in the wilderness for forty days, He began His earthly ministry (Matt. 4:1–4). In those weeks in the desert, Jesus experienced hunger, loneliness, and temptation, yet He remained sinless and faithful to the Father (Heb. 4:15).
Observing Lent is not easy. Giving something up for a season exposes how attached we can be to comfort or routine. We may even feel “withdrawal symptoms” from whatever our normal fix may be. He reminds us, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).
Why give something up? Fasting is more than simply giving something up for God. It is meant to grow in us a deeper hunger for God. Probably the best book on fasting I have ever read is by John Piper called A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer. He writes this on fasting:
“The final answer is that God rewards fasting because fasting expresses the cry of the heart that nothing on the earth can satisfy our souls besides God. God must reward this cry because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”
“...fasting, for Ezra, was not only an expression of humility and desperation; it was an expression of desiring God with life-and-death seriousness. ‘So we fasted and implored our God.’ Fasting comes in alongside prayer with all its hunger for God and says, ‘We are not able in ourselves to win this battle. We are not able to change hearts or minds. We are not able to change worldviews and transform culture and save 1.6 million children. We are not able to reform the judiciary or embolden the legislature or mobilize the slumbering population. We are not able to heal the endless wounds of godless ideologies and their bloody deeds. But, O God, you are able!’”
In other words, giving something up for Lent is not a way to try to get something from God. It teaches us how desperate we are for God and for him to do what only He can. Learning to depend on Him is the sweet spot of the Christian life (John 15:5).
Two Ways to Observe Lent
1. Fast.
The goal of fasting is not simply giving something up. The aim is to fast in a way that turns your heart toward God whenever you feel absence of food (Isa. 58:6–9). Fasting reminds us that our deepest need is not comfort, distraction, or control, but Christ Himself. It is not about shaking off a bad habit or avoiding something you should not eat like ice cream. It is about reordering desire and sacrifice.
That is the heart behind biblical fasting. Not proving devotion, but cultivating greater dependence.
In Scripture, fasting is primarily connected to food. While there may be wise ways to deny ourselves other comforts, food remains central because it exposes how deeply we rely on daily provision. Hunger becomes a teacher. It reminds us of Jesus’ words in the wilderness: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” God’s Word, His promises, and His presence are our true sustenance, and fasting brings that reality into focus.
Biblically, fasting is tied to specific purposes:
- Repentance and Lament
Nehemiah 9:1–3 – Israel fasts while confessing sin and returning to the Law.
1 Samuel 7:5–6 – Fasting connected to repentance
Jonah 3:5–10 – Nineveh fasts in response to God’s warning.
- Grief and Mourning
1 Samuel 31:13 – Israel fasts after Saul’s death.
2 Samuel 1:12 – David and his men fast in mourning.
Psalm 35:13 – David describes fasting in sorrow for others.
- Petition and Preparation
Ezra 8:21–23 – Fasting for God’s protection and guidance.
Acts 13:2–3 – The church fasts before sending out missionaries.
Acts 14:23 – Prayer and fasting before installing elders.
The common thread in each example is dependence. Fasting is a visible confession that we need God more than what sustains us physically. Or as John Piper often describes it, fasting is a hunger for God.
2. Focus.
Lent gives us intentional time to fix our hearts and minds on the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus (Heb. 12:2; Col. 3:1–2). Reading a devotional with a Lent focus can stir our affections for Christ and remind us how much we need Him. We recommend this free online devotional written by Tim Keller before he passed and provided by Gospel in Life. Click below to begin reading.
Daily Lent Devotional
“The supremacy of God in all things is the great reward we long for in fasting. His supremacy in our own affections and in all our life-choices. His supremacy in the purity of the church. His supremacy in the salvation of the lost. His supremacy in the establishing of righteousness and justice. And his supremacy for the joy of all peoples in the evangelization of the world.”
― John Piper
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