Lent 2025 Resources

Lent is a Christian word that refers to the 40 weekdays leading up to Easter.  It is a period of reflecting on the awesome gift of grace God extended to us at the cross, and the determination to live our lives in response to that gift.  

As such Christians from around the world have given themselves to fasting in different ways with the desire of growing to look more like the Saviour who saved us.  Fasting is not a means of impressing God with our holiness (works salvation), instead it is something we do in response to Jesus' incredible gift of salvation that He has freely given us.  

Jesus would often retreat from the world and spend time with His Father.  He knew connecting with the Father was the most important thing He did.  And Jesus used times of fasting and praying as tools to help maintain and build that connection.  

Fasting is abstaining from something we normally enjoy as a way of saying "God, You are what I want more than anything else."  

Some options for fasting during Lent:

-Food - some people will choose not to eat for one meal a week, or one day a week.  Experienced fasters may choose longer periods of time.  When we fast from food we get hungry.  And when we hunger it is an opportunity for us to say, "Jesus, I want to hunger for You like I hunger for food.  You are what I need and what I want."  

-A regular food/drink item you enjoy like coffee, alcohol, screen time or chocolate.  Often "comfort food" becomes something we look to for solace during the day.  Often these comforts become very important to us (A person might say something like "I'm not human until I've had my coffee").  So, during lent people often choose to abstain from these things.  And then when we crave them it is an opportunity for us to say, "Jesus, I choose to look to You for my comfort rather than looking to these other things.  You are what I need and what I want."

Once a week during lent (usually, but not always on a Sunday) people who are practicing lent will break their fast.  When you eat again after being hungry (or enjoy whatever you have been fasting from) the food tastes particularly good!  These moments become intentional times to enjoy the blessings Jesus has given us and celebrate some of the things we have been learning during our fasting periods. 

At Fort George we are encouraging people to break their fast together with their family or with their small groups on a weekly basis.  The day you do this doesn't matter, but the hope is that it will be an enjoyable time of celebrating the goodness of God together.

1.) What have you been fasting from?  Has it been easy or hard to abstain?  Why or why not?

2.) Think about how much Jesus endured to give His gift of grace to you.  In this context what has fasting meant to you this week?

3.)  What has Jesus been speaking to you through this season?  

*Click the link below to download a Daily Devotional from NAB head office about Lent.