Observing Lent isn’t about a denomination, or whether your church is liturgical or not. Lent helps us to put the Christian life into a biblical perspective. It’s a time to practice saying “no” to ourselves in little things so we can say a bigger “yes” to God in the bigger decisions of life. It can truly be a time for significant spiritual growth for the individuals in your church as well the church as a whole.
Following is motivation for celebrating Lent and descriptions of resources, including free handouts and a Lenten Devotional and Journal. If you are in a hurry and don’t want to bother listening to all, go to www.Bible805.com and the resource links will all be on the home page.
Text and resources for Lenten resources follow. You can listen to a podcast of the content below or read the text that follows it. The Resource links are at the end of the article.
We know the value of discipline to achieve our goals in every other area of life
Lent reminds us of the importance of discipline in the Christian life.
This year is an especially good one for Lenten motivation because of the recent inspiration we’ve been given by the Olympics.
We can remind our churches, groups, and ourselves that Olympic athletes don’t win a medal without years of discipline and practice. It takes training, practice, sweat, and tears to be worthy of the gold.
That training and discipline is true in many areas of life. Military leadership comes from years of progressing through the ranks. Combat experience is an essential requirement for the highest officers. A CEO isn’t selected from the latest hires in a company.
We’d judge an athlete, a soldier, or a corporate leader a cheat if that person tried to avoid the essential struggles necessary to reach a position worthy of admiration. Struggle before success is the expected pattern in almost every part of life, except, some assume, for the Christian life.
Somehow, there is the mistaken notion in some Christian circles that coming to Jesus means an endless supply of ease and freedom from all troubles in this life.
To be fair, the eternal destiny of those who trust Jesus as Savior is salvation from judgment and condemnation, and nothing is more freeing than that reality, but the ease and freedom from trials are for our future in Christ and not necessarily our present. If we are to be faithful in teaching our people, and to not lie to ourselves, we need to remind us all of the difficult realities of our faith. Lent is a helpful time to do this.
In addition to that, to face the trials that will inevitably come in the Christian faith–
Lent helps us develop the spiritual strength that only comes through self-discipline and self-denial
To help you grow in your Christian faith, I have a FREE Lenten devotional booklet you can download and share, plus some other resources I’ll tell you about in a minute. If you are listening to the podcast and impatient, just go to www.Bible805.com, and you’ll find links to the Lenten resources on the Home Page.
I realize I should have gotten these all out to you sooner. I apologize. I had many of them done earlier, but I had a huge technical problem with amazon.com and the publication of the Lenten Devotion and Journal I’d worked hard to update and totally redesign. I wanted to present this perfect package of beautifully redone resources, but that isn’t going to happen.
You can get the Lenten Devotion and Journal as a free download, but I also wanted to make it available as beautiful print book in full-color and I was very happy with the
result I worked to create….until I got an initial copy back from Amazon, and this odd little printing error was in the color version right on the Prayer of St. Francis that opens the book. I corrected it, tried to upload it, worked fine with the Black and White version and—all sorts of odd things happened with the color one. I kept thinking one more try and this will get resolved, but day after day nothing worked–the issue is still not resolved but I honestly cannot wait any longer to share at least my PDF of it for you.
Again, I really feel bad about this. I wanted to just ignore telling you about Lenten resources, but I realized that was a really dumb idea. This is a bit of a bad excuse, but Lent does go for 40 days, and you can really start and jump in any time and use any of the resources I’m sharing.
In addition to the free PDF of the Devotion that you can download, print out and use, the other resource I’m most excited about to go along with the Devotional booklet,
I’m also doing 5-10 minute podcasts on the quotes and challenges in the book for the Hobo Soul Podcast, a short podcast I started with daily Bible challenges and Advice. You can listen to the podcast on the Bible805 website, Youtube, iTunes, Spotify and many other podcast hosts. The Lenten-related podcasts will start on Febrary 18.
In addition to the lengthy booklet, I have a couple of Lenten handouts for you to remind your people and yourself that there are many ways to deny ourselves at Lent.
I have ready to print PDFs available for you as well as the text you can use however you want.
Let me read them to you.
By the way, you can use this content to create your own publications to print out or use online or in any social media, no attribution or credit needed.
Lent for all of us–Self-denial Options for Lent
The less obvious and sometimes more costly forms of self-denial to consider during Lent
Self-denial is a slippery discipline, especially at Lent, when Christians traditionally give up something they like to eat.
Ages ago when believers gave up meat, eggs, and milk, they were suffering genuine hardship because they didn’t have many other options in their diet.
Today, giving up a certain food is easy—there is always more to replace it. No meat, no problem. We’ve got fish and soy products, blender drinks, and protein bars. In addition, there is always the thought lurking in the back of my mind that if I cut back on food a bit, I might lose a few pounds.
There are other options for self-denial as we commemorate our Lord’s 40 days in the desert as He began His earthly ministry. To add to your commemoration of Lent, or to begin now or anytime, consider these disciplines that may not be as obvious as food, but can be quite difficult:
We can give up our time. We can give up our free time and spend more time with Jesus, in His word, or serving others. This can be a genuine sacrifice, because for many today there is little free time.
We can give up control of our words to Jesus. This is hard for us because we want to speak first, to give our opinion. For Lent we can give up our words so we can listen carefully to others.
We can give up feelings of resentment. Living the Christian life is hard and few appreciate how hard we try but no matter how difficult our day, remember Jesus sees your efforts and loves you.
Spend time alone with Jesus, as He did with His Father in the desert. Ask Him what He wants you to give up. Obey Him faithfully, in secret, and your Easter reward won’t only be a few lost pounds, but a closer walk with your Savior.
The next one has a more sports oriented them.
Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. 1 Cor.9:24-27
How easy it is to admire discipline in athletes, but how hard it is to practice it ourselves.
Lent is traditionally the time when we commemorate our Lord’s 40 days in the desert as He began His earthly ministry. Throughout the ages, Christians have used this time for self-denial to train their bodies and spirits in godliness. Here are a few suggestions on how we might do that.
We can give up our time. We can give up our free time and spend more time with Jesus, in His word, or serving others. This can be a genuine sacrifice, because for many today there is little free time.
We can give up control of our words to Jesus. This is hard for us because we want to speak first, to give our opinion. For Lent we can give up our words so we can listen carefully to others.
We can give up feelings of resentment. Living the Christian life is hard and few appreciate how hard we try but no matter how difficult our day, remember Jesus sees your efforts and loves you.
For Lent, ask the Lord to be your personal trainer, to show you what is keeping you from being the spiritual athlete he wants you to be. Age, abilities, don’t matter—obedience does. Listen to his voice; practice the spiritual training habits in the Bible, and use Lent as a time to become more effective in serving Jesus.
Run in such a way as to get the prize.
Run in such a way as to get the prize.
That’s great closing advice for us all–
We need to remember we are in a race, in spiritual warfare.
Lent gives us an opportunity to to strengthen our spiritual inner resources. I’ve got lots of free materials for you on Bible805.com. I pray you’ll take advantage of them, use them with intention and run your race to get the prize of the life you’ll been called to in Jesus.
RESOURCES for Lent to grow your church and your people
CLICK HERE
to go to the HOBO SOUL PODCAST, where I’ll do podcasts related to the devotions starting February 18, 2026
CLICK HERE or the image to download the PDF of the Lenten Devotional Booklet, In dying, we are reborn
CLICK HERE to go to the Amazon Black and White, grey scale print book of the Lenten Devotional Booklet, In dying, we are reborn
Note, the color version, is near it, but the printing mistake is still in it. I’ll let you know when it is corrected. Please pray for protection against the crazy computer tech issues I’ve been having.
CLICK HERE
or the image to download the Lenten Flyers for general and athletic challenges for Lent.
CLICK HERE to sign up for the Lions’s Voice, the Bible805 Newsletter to keep informed of resources to help you know, trust, apply, and teach the Bible.