Lent And 40 Days

The word LENT is derived from the Anglo- Saxon words LENCTEN, meaning SPRING and LENCTENID, which literally means SPRING TIME. This can be viewed as a spiritual spring cleaning. A time for taking spiritual inventory and then cleaning out those things which hinder our corporate and personal relationships with Jesus Christ and our services to Him. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends after 40 days(excluding Sundays), before Easter Sunday.

Significance of 40 Days in Bible

• God sent 40 days and nights of rain in the great flood of Noah (Genesis 7:4)
• Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai with God (Exodus 24:18)
• After Moses killed the Egyptian, he fled to Midian, where he spent 40 years in the desert tending flocks (Acts 7:30).
• Moses interceded on Israel’s behalf for 40 days and 40 nights (Deuteronomy 9:18, 25).
• Elijah spent 40 days and nights walking to Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:8)
• Hebrew people wandered 40 years in the desert while traveling to the Promised Land (Numbers 14:33)
• Jonah's prophecy of judgment gave 40 days to the city of Nineveh in which to repent or be destroyed (Jonah 3:4).
• The Israelite spies took 40 days to spy out Canaan (Numbers 13:25).
• The Israelites wandered for 40 years (Deuteronomy 8:2-5).
• When Israel disobeyed God, He gave them over to their enemies for forty years (Judges 13:1).
• King Saul reigned over Israel for forty years (Acts 13:21) as did David (2 Samuel 5:4, 1 Kings 2:11) and Solomon (1 Kings 11:42).
• The number forty represents the number of one generation as with the children of Israel who died in the Wilderness for their disobedience to the Lord.
Before Samson’s deliverance, Israel served the Philistines for 40 years (Judges 13:1).
• Goliath taunted Saul’s army for 40 days before David arrived to slay him (1 Samuel 17:16).
The holy place of the temple was forty cubits long (1 Kings 6:17).
• Isaac and Jacob were both forty years old when they married (Genesis 25:20, 26:34).
• Ezekiel bore the evil of the house of Judah for forty days (Ezk 4:6).
• The Law specified a maximum number of lashes a man could receive for a crime, setting the limit at 40 (Deuteronomy 25:3).
• Jesus was tempted for 40 days and 40 nights (Matthew 4:2).
• There were 40 days between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension (Acts 1:3).
• Jesus laid for 40 hours in the tomb

In Lent, many people commit to fasting, as well as "giving up" certain luxuries.LENT is the time to re-think, to rewind, to remind, to remember, to reflect, and to retrospect by remembering the past and rectify the future.

Let’s turn away from SIN, be prayerful and come close to GOD.

Image Source : clipart kid
References :Wikipedia, www.gotquestions.org