Episode 1077: Lent is About Distraction

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1077 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Travis Rosser,

[00:00:08] Travis Rosser: the author of you Inc. The step-by-step guide for finding the business within you. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your call.

[00:00:24] Having the ability to really find your gifts and calling is a key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast by my friend, Scott.

[00:00:35] Scott Maderer: we use this time nowadays to focus on having a relationship with God, to grow our discipleship, to extend ourselves. And so we often choose to give something up, not because we're giving it away. But because we're trying to eliminate distraction. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the [00:01:00] inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:01:02] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world

[00:01:23] And today's spiritual foundation episode about investing in yourself. I talk with you about second Corinthians chapter five, verses 20 through chapter six, verse 10. I talk about the season of life. I also share how lint isn't about giving things up for deprivation, but rather to eliminate distractions.

[00:01:45] Second Corinthians chapter five, starting in verse 20, says we entreat you on behalf of Christ. Be reconciled to God for our sake. He made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him, we [00:02:00] might become the righteous of. As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain for, he says at an acceptable time, I've listened to you.

[00:02:11] And on a day of salvation, I have helped. See now is the acceptable time. See now is the day of salvation. We are putting no obstacles in anyone's way so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God, we have commended ourselves in every way through great endurance and inflections hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger by purity by not.

[00:02:40] Patience kindness. Holiness of spirit. Genuine love. Truthful speech and the power of God with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left in honor, and dishonor in ill repute and good repute, we are treated as imposters and yet are [00:03:00] true as unknown and yet are well-known as dying and see, we are alive as punished and yet not killed as sorrowful yet.

[00:03:10] Always rejoicing as poor yet making many rich. As having nothing and yet possessing everything. Now, this passage makes me think about lint we're beginning this week, the 40 days of lent when, on all of the days, except Sunday. He began to go into what traditionally is seen in the Christian circles as a time of giving things up.

[00:03:41] It's seen as a time of getting rid or fasting or setting something aside. The truth is that the lent season begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on holy Saturday of the Easter weekend. [00:04:00] Lint actually comes from a word that means to LinkedIn, as in the days are getting longer. We're coming into the season. Of spring.

[00:04:11] And the fact that it's 40 days represents the time that Jesus spent in the wilderness in, during the temptation of Satan and beginning and preparing to begin his ministry. It, or also corresponds to the 40 years that Moses and the Israelites spent wandering. And the fact is that I'm glad that Lindt is only 40 days, not the 40 years, because lent is a time of repentance, meaning to turn away from something, to submit yourself to something.

[00:04:48] We often use fasting as an indicator of that. It's a time of preparation. It's meant to be a time of self-reflection and [00:05:00] self-examination and self awareness. It Rez historically it does involve fasting and preparation for the baptism time of new converts as well, because, and in that moment of baptism, remember.

[00:05:15] Everyone the congregation, as well as the person being baptized as acknowledging their time of turning away from sin. We use this time nowadays to focus on having a relationship with God, to grow our discipleship, to extend ourselves. And so we often choose to give something up, not because we're giving it up, but because we're trying.

[00:05:44] To eliminate distraction. We're trying to get back in touch with that relationship between ourselves and God in a more pure way. It's not about deprivation. It's not about [00:06:00] giving up something. That is particularly meaningful to you, though. It might involve that it, it doesn't mean that you have to starve yourself or give up other things.

[00:06:11] In fact, you may actually find something that is an internal thing or something that you're doing or saying or acting in some way. It may have nothing to do with giving up an external. Though, I would say in today's world, it often does involve finding something that is causing a distraction in your life.

[00:06:33] Something that's getting between you and the relationship that you need to have with others. That's why it involves self awareness. That's why it involves self-examination because the first step of identifying what is a distraction. It's to look at yourself and see, what is it that is pulling you away from that relationship.

[00:06:58] And then when you find [00:07:00] that thing, it's about doing something to get that out of your life temporarily, or even permanently I've often used, lent as a time to fast from social media. I've used it as a time to fast from certain behaviors and actions that were perhaps no longer serving me well, in my relationship and my walk with God.

[00:07:23] And I've discovered over the years that sometimes when I give it up and really managed to do that for those 40 days at the end of it, I look up and I realized that I no longer needed in my life. I've let go of it permanently. So I challenge you to examine yourself and your relationship. With God and find something that you can set aside for these 40 days, not as deprivation or punishment, but to eliminate that distraction and help you build your relationship with God.

[00:07:56] Thanks for listening.

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