22 February 2026

22 February 2026 - First Sunday of Lent

Transcript

Thank you for your prayers this week. The flu really had me messed up. I guess they are right: the older you get the harder it is to recover. But enough about that. I want to start this message in a lighthearted way. Ready?

Reading:  

Matthew 4:1

Write:  

At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.

Reflect:   

That line is not very lighthearted, but this is: The devil wants you to give up chocolate for Lent – or sweets – or whatever simple thing you have chosen to give up. You see, with chocolate or sweets or TV, it’s very easy to do these things without taking it more seriously than it needs to be.

That does not mean that giving up chocolate for Lent is wrong. But… That is really a surface level issue in our lives. God wants us to go deeper. If all we do is stay on the surface, the devil is happy to let us do that. The challenge comes when we all of a sudden realize there are deeper issues involved in our lives that really do need to be solved. Now, giving up chocolate, or sweets, or TV, or whatever it is you’ve chosen to do can be something that is deeply spiritual. But it unfortunately can also be something very shallow.

Remember, the devil approached Jesus after – AFTER – his forty days of fasting. His challenge was something very timely. The human body cannot go much more than forty days without any food. And the devil knows that. He knew how to manipulate the circumstance that Jesus was in to what he thought was his best advantage. Ha. He miscalculated the strength of our Lord. And… He mis-calculates us also if we are struggling to follow Jesus. I have an image on my office wall that says: “the devil saw me with my head down and he thought he had won until I said ‘amen’.” This is why something as simple as giving up chocolate for Lent can be a great blessing. But we need to attach to it something that we know needs our prayers from Jesus to overcome.

Let’s stay with the idea of chocolate or sweets. Do you need to be sweeter to other people around you? I know that sounds like a silly response, but it can be a source of needed healing in our lives for the sake of our witness to Jesus.

The last point I would like to add is that God can use anything to help us to overcome the foolishness of our lives – the sin in our lives. And trying to “give up something for Lent” can be something very powerful if it is tied to prayer. (I told you this was going to be light hearted.) Or it can be something very weak if it is just something we are doing because it’s Lent.

The devil doesn’t care if what we give up for Lent does not impact our lives very deeply. That is why I said at the start the devil wants you to give up chocolate for Lent. He does care if we go deeper in our self-searching.

Don’t let what you choose to do be wasted. I am convinced that Jesus knew these temptations were going to be coming at him. And he was armed and ready with lines from Scripture – the Old Testament (the New Testament wasn’t written yet) – as a way to battle directly with the devil. We may not have the facility that Jesus had with His Scriptures. But we definitely have weapons that we can use. To my way of thinking one of the best is the simplest thing: the Sign of the Cross, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I hope you will excuse me for being shorter than usual today. But I am not quite on top of my game yet. Stupid flu bugs, anyway!

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