Lent highlights sanctification, the lifelong process of maturation in holiness and godlikeness. Theologians often distinguish two aspects of sanctification: Mortification and vivification.

We’re called to put our sins to death; that’s mortification. We also cultivate habits of godly living; that’s vivification.

Don’t steal, Paul says (mortification); rather labor, so you have something to share (vivification). Don’t lie; rather, speak the truth in love.

Lent is a primarily season of mortification, a forty-day “wilderness” trek when we examine our lives and seek to stamp out sins and evil habits.

During Lent, we’re like the Israelites searching out and removing the leaven of Egypt (Exod 12). We follow our new Joshua on a search and destroy mission to demolish every idolatrous altar in the land of our lives (Deut 12:2-3).

We’re priests inspecting a leprous house and scraping off the impurity (Lev 14:33-53). We’re kings like Hezekiah and Josiah who purified the temple and the land to prepare for a great Passover (2 Chr 29:16; 2 Kgs 23:4-20).

We’re prophets like Ezekiel searching for creeping things and detestable idols carved on the walls of our heart (Ezek 8).

Our flesh is murderous. Your anger, your envy, your porn habit, your idols, your laziness, your lies: They want to kill you.

Don’t negotiate with your sin. Don’t try to manage it. Don’t think you’ve won when you confine your sin to the attic of your soul. Root it out. Give no quarter. Show no mercy.

 “If you live according to the flesh,” Paul says, “you will die.” If you want to live, you need to put to death the deeds of the flesh, relying on the power of the Spirit (Rom 8:13).

Every one of us is in a life-and-death battle. Kill your sin so it won’t kill you. This is what Lent is for. It’s a season of house-cleaning. Lent trains us to be killers.

Blessings,
Pastor Leithart