No Chocolate and Fish on Fridays

Ash Wednesday (Feb 13) marks the beginning of Lent this year. Lent is a six week period of deliberate focus on the sufferings of Christ. It is a time to meditate on the great sacrifice that God made for us. Your average person in 2013 will probably tell you that Lent is a time to not eat chocolate, give up desserts, or comment on the fact that restaurants begin to have fish specials every Friday. These aspects of Lent have come about because the Church wants people to have a tiny, little taste of the suffering of Jesus and traditionally has asked its members to give up the extravagances of life. At its core, however, Lent is about focusing your attention on Jesus: who He is, what He has done for you, and what He is calling you to do for Him. Sometimes, giving up something that you will miss helps you to do this.

What we (Live Oak Church) want people to do is add or subtract one thing from your life that will help you to focus on Jesus. Give something up so that every time you want to do or eat that thing, you think about God. Add something to your daily routine that will re-focus your attention on Christ. It doesn’t have to be something drastic, but it needs to be something that will be important to you and remind you to re-focus your attention on Jesus not on what you are missing.

As a congregation we will be reading through the Gospel of Mark together. If you were not at church this past Sunday to pick up your copy of our devotional guide, make sure you grab it this week.

Starting on Feb 13, 2013 we will be having members of our congregation blog Tuesday through Saturday about their experience with this challenge to re-focus on God. (I'll still blog on Monday's.)

The next six weeks are going to be an amazing time with God for our congregation. Please check out Live Oak’s FB page, read the  posts and add your comments!

Chesney Szaniszlo