Take it up a Notch

We have spent 5 weeks talking about seeking God through prayer. Hopefully we have been doing more than talking. Hopefully we have been talking to God himself and listening for His voice.

One way I think we seek God with our whole heart is to seek him with our whole gut. I am talking about a time of fasting. One of the simplest definitions for fasting is: A fast is a conscious, intentional decision to abstain for a time from the pleasure of eating in order to gain vital spiritual benefits.

In essence by sacrificing food (or some other pleasure) for a time you are saying to God that he is more important to you than the very food you need to sustain yourself. It’s a pretty powerful statement to make.

Just after Jesus teaches about the Lords Prayer he says, “When you fast, stop looking sad like hypocrites. They put on sad faces to make it obvious that they’re fasting. I can guarantee this truth: That will be their only reward. When you fast, wash your face and comb your hair. Then your fasting won’t be obvious. Instead, it will be obvious to your Father who is with you in private. Your Father sees what you do in private. He will reward you.” - Matthew 6:16-18

A couple things to notice here is Jesus didn’t say if you fast, he said, “When you fast”. We also know that Jesus himself fasted for forty days before beginning his ministry.

My advice to you is to definitely fast. Just start simply.

• Maybe skip lunch one day a week and spend the time privately praying.
• Maybe as a small group you could agree to fast a meal and pray together wherever you might be.
• God might call you to longer fast as issues arise in your life or in the ministry of the church.
• The most common fast is twenty-four hours. After eating dinner you don’t eat again until dinner the next night. I have done this many times and there is no doubt it helps me focus and hunger for God.
• One suggestion could be that every first Wednesday you could fast all day until first Wednesday prayer. Then you could come and pray or if you need to be home you can pray together with those of us here while you are at home.

Think about the power of coming together before the Lord and seeking him as a body through prayer and fasting. What a statement of our love and need for God.

Ask any questions about fasting and I’ll get back to you.

Griff

Just Imagine...

I felt excited about the response from people this weekend after being so challeged by what scripture has to say about the need for us to pray together and "seek God's face". We have about 1500 adults attend most weekends. Every year we have 156 weekend services. Do the math. Just imagine if every adult committed to praying over just one of those services a year. We would have roughly 10 people at every weekend service gathering to seek God's face and ask his power and presence upon our people. That is about as small a comitment as we could make. Even so, how do you think God might respond? It's about 10 times what we are doing now as far as gathering for intentional committed prayer over the weekend. JUST IMAGINE...

Griff