{"id":782,"date":"2017-03-06T21:24:17","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T02:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/charis.calvarylogos.ca\/site\/?p=782"},"modified":"2017-03-09T22:38:33","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T03:38:33","slug":"this-year-we-are-observing-lent-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/charis.calvarylogos.ca\/site\/this-year-we-are-observing-lent-together\/","title":{"rendered":"This year, we are observing Lent together."},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><p>You might be wondering why we are doing it.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The obvious reason is that Lent is a way to prepare for Easter. The essence of Easter is the suffering and resurrection of Jesus Christ that made salvation possible for us; it made the path to return to God accessible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How sweet is this grace given to us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet our world is so noisy today that when we think of Easter, Christ\u2019s suffering and resurrection is probably the last that comes to mind.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Colossians 3:2 tells us to <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lent helps you <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">set your minds on things above<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The immense love Jesus has for all of us despite our sinfulness, the pervasive peace that no one can take away, the invitation into eternal life with God. All of which requires minds of faith to grasp.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do you believe that by setting your minds on things above you will be able to focus on what truly matters in life?<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>So what do we prepare?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We prepare ourselves by honestly looking at our lives for signs of waywardness so seek forgiveness through repentance<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We prepare our hearts to be responsive to God\u2019s saving grace.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We prepare our eyes to look to Jesus Christ, his life, his character, and his obedience to the Father God, even death on the cross.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Join a community group<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you want to take part this year, I invite you to join a community group. If you are already part of a group, then you\u2019re all set. Stay tuned for more details.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lent begins March 1.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You might be wondering why we are doing it. The obvious reason is that Lent is a way to prepare for Easter. The essence of Easter is the suffering and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8e1fr-cC","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/charis.calvarylogos.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/charis.calvarylogos.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/charis.calvarylogos.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charis.calvarylogos.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charis.calvarylogos.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/charis.calvarylogos.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":792,"href":"https:\/\/charis.calvarylogos.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions\/792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/charis.calvarylogos.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charis.calvarylogos.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/charis.calvarylogos.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}