As I began reading from Soundtrack (JD Walt) this morning, this reminder and emphasis directly precedes the first chapter … and it couldn’t be more beautiful!
The big idea of the forty days of Lent is not first and foremost about fasting. It’s about focus. We must covenant not to talk about our fasting, but about our focus. Focus on what? Jesus Christ, God’s Son, the Savior, the Lord. Why? Because He is:
- the Word made flesh (John 1:14)
- the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15)
- the exact representation of God’s being (Heb. 1:3)
- the One Who created all things and for Whom all things were created (Col. 1:16 and Rev. 4:11)
- He Who is before all things and in Whom all things hold together (Col. 1:17)
- the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2 NASB)
- He Who was, and is, and is to come (Rev. 1:4, 8; 4:8)
- He Who reconciled all things to Himself by making peace through His blood shed on the cross (Col. 1:20)
- the light of the world (John 8:12)
- the bread of life (John 6:35)
- the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6)
- the gate (John 10:7, 9)
- the door (John 10:9 NASB)
- the resurrection and the life (John 11:25)
- the true vine (John 15:1)
- the One Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage, but made Himself nothing (Phil. 2:6–7)
- the King Who humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8)
- He Whom God highly exalted and gave the name that is above every name (Phil. 2:9)
- the One before Whom every knee will bow and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10–11)
- the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End (Rev. 22:13)
- He Who is making all things new (Rev. 21:5 NASB)