So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13, ESV)
In 2014 I wrote a blog post called the 20 Things to Give up for Lent. It was part of the weekly email I sent to our church. I would have never guessed the response that post would receive. In the days leading up to Ash Wednesday, our church website recorded more than 1 million hits according to Google Analytics. The traffic was more than our cheap web hosting account could handle. It was a crazy few days working with web hosting companies to keep our site running. I also heard from people all over the world who were touched by that original article. I seen other people copy this list on the internet, but this was the original.
What made this list different was that it was not the typical things that people give up like chocolate, coffee, or soda. This list was a list of things that were truly worth giving up like fear, bitterness, and impatience. It clearly connected with people in a way that I could not have imagined.
God was blessing this effort in 2014. So I took the list and added to it. I doubled the list to make it 40 Things to Give up for Lent. This would make one thing to give up for each of the 40 days of Lent. I then created an email sign-up list for people to receive a daily devotion that would focus on each one of those 40 things. We had more than 10,000 people sign up for that mailing list.
The following year I compiled all of the devotions into a book called the 40 Things to Give up for Lent and Beyond. The book went on to become a #1 Amazon best seller in the category of Christian devotions. All this came from that single post that took me less than 15 minutes to write.
This year I’m creating another 40-day devotion. But this will not be the 40 Things to Give up for Lent. It is the 40 Things NOT to Give up for Lent. The original list was not so much about what we were giving up, but ultimately it was about what we were gaining. It was about setting aside certain habits, traits, mindsets, and disciplines for something greater. That’s where I got the name for the website greaterthings.today. We are exchanging lesser things for greater things.
The 40 Things NOT to Give up for Lent begins with 1 Corinthians 13:13. This is our Verse of the Week. Here it says three things remain. These are faith, hope, and love. If God is telling us to hold on to these things, they would seem like three great things to start the 40 Things NOT to Give up for Lent list.
So that is the beginning of the list. Tomorrow, I will share with you the full list of all 40 Things NOT to Give up for Lent. If you are not on my mailing list you can sign up at greaterthings.today/mailing-list. Beginning on Wednesday we will start the 40 Things NOT to Give up for Lent Devotion Series. Each devotion will be based on one item on that list.
God’s blessings on your observance of Lent in 2017.
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