What are you giving up for Lent?

As today is Ash Wednesday, this is a common question — “what are you giving up for Lent?”

I’ve heard a variety of answers — from the sublime to the ridiculous (but mostly ridiculous) — cole slaw, eye-liner, premarital sex with a fiancé, running yellow lights among them. Even giving up Lent. Hmmm.

I am no expert of liturgical faith that emphasizes a significant personal sacrifice in order to prepare for Easter — and ostensibly to merit the favor of God.

But as I think about righteousness and the relationship between faith in Christ and works, the connection between what we do and what we have from God, two Biblical passages come to mind:

If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use) — in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. [Col. 2:20-23; NASB]

He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit… [Titus 3:5; NASB]

In the former, God says that while there are those who suggest that there is merit to be found in self-denial, in fact, such things are headed for an eternal deterioration and dissolution. They have the appearance of wisdom and commendation from God, but they will not survive, nor are they any help in producing righteousness or the mortification of the flesh (Col. 3:5; Rom. 8:13). Jesus said that the force of the Law was to bring people to the place that they understood that they could not be as perfect as God (Mt. 5:48) — nothing they could do would produce an ability to stand before the One with whom we all have to do (Heb. 4:13).

And the latter verse also affirms that there is no deed — nor any amount of deeds — done even as an act of our very greatest righteousness which will produce eternal righteousness, new birth, or regeneration before God. We cannot change ourselves. We can only be — we must only be — changed by Christ. [Piper makes this point exceedingly well in this week’s sermon, “Through the Washing of Regeneration.”]

Giving up eye-liner — or even pre-marital sex— for 6 weeks — or even for a lifetime, is not enough to assuage the wrath of God against the sin our hearts. For our affront against God is not a single sin that a single external act for a brief amount of time can warrant His decree of “RIGHTEOUS” over our lives. Our sin against Him is massive, not minor, and internal, not external (Mk. 7:20-23) — such that nothing we do will ever atone for our own sin. In fact our very attempts to achieve righteousness apart from the only One who is righteous is further sin against Him and leaves us in even greater debt to Him and in further merit of His wrath.

This is not to say, “Don’t worry about sin in your life,” but it is to say, “Address (attack! kill!) sin in your life by the means God has provided:”

…make sure that you attack the flesh with God’s weapons and not your own. You’ll find lots of teachers in churches who offer remedies that don’t come from God. When we try to offer them to God he says to us, ‘Who has asked this of you?’ (Isaiah 1:12). The Pharisees, for example, were notorious for piling high the works and duties that would win God’s pleasure, yet few of those works came from God. And the church has added its share of fastings, pilgrimages, abstinence, prayers, and rituals that have little or no basis in God’s Word.…

But what does God require of us for our spiritual recovery? Simple: renewed obedience in his means of killing the flesh. His means are those outlined throughout his Word and they’re familiar: constantly reading his Word, hearing it preached, and reflecting on it; fervent prayer; careful watching against temptation; and fixing the mind always on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.…

And when we attach the flesh in our own strength, the worst thing that can happen is anything that might smell of success — because our pride will jump to make a merit badge out of it. We’ll begin to justify ourselves before God, and that will lead us away from sincere faith, away from the gospel, away from Christ. But faith clings to Chris tin everything and won’t move an inch without his help. Faith won’t read a chapter, sing a hymn, say a prayer, or offer a gift, without calling on the strength of Christ by the Spirit. This is what it means to live by faith in the Son of God (Galatians 2:20). And when we live this way, God always revives us. [Lundgaard, Through the Looking Glass]

What are you giving up for Lent? Maybe the better question to ask is, What are you taking up and who are you following?

Answer? I am taking up my cross to follow Christ and ask for His righteousness to be both given to me and formed in me.