Why Fast for Lent?

Many Christians give up certain habits, foods or luxuries for Lent. Why do they do this?

Lent is 40 days, excluding Sundays, before Easter, in which the Christian Church remembers the suffering and death of Christ, ending with Easter where Christians acknowledge Christ's conquering of death so that our sins may be washed clean.

In remembering Lent, many Christians seek to identify with Christ's sacrifice by giving up luxuries such as chocolate or red meat. Surely, these sacrifices are not in any way comparable to the sacrifice that Christ made for us by suffering through a corrupt trial, flogging, embarrassment and jeering...finally ending with the ultimate sacrifice, His life.

We give things up to remember Christ's sacrifice that He made for us and to remind us that through this sacrifice and the conquering of death, we are saved and may join Him one day in heaven.