Intro to Fasting

We are starting a church-wide fast starting tomorrow Friday August 29th. The purpose of the fast is to draw closer to God. The early church fasted believing that they joined in Jesus’ suffering when they suffered. This is a way for us to make ourselves less and make more of Him in our life. 

 I mentioned three motivators for fasting on Sunday and I’ll reiterate those briefly here:

Fasting is about attentiveness to our greater desires. Hunger bugs us at least 3 times a day probably more, our greater desires, like God’s calling on our life, our health, taking our relationships deeper these things get put on the back burner. Fasting gives us a chance to lay down our lesser desires like what to eat, and focus on the greater ones God has for us.

Fasting is about freedom. There are things in our life including food that become like little gods to us. These little gods promise us freedom, by giving us temporary comfort or an escape but they end up holding us captive. So fasting is a way to lay down something that has ahold of us, and let’s us declare spiritual freedom as a greater desire.

Fasting is about compassion. By choosing to go without food for a time we join with the millions of people around the world who go without food not by choice. We join with the fatherless, the widows, the hungry, those who experience injustice or evil in this world.

Let me give you some guidelines for our fast tomorrow:

1. We are fasting from all food. Water is the only beverage allowed. If you can’t fast from food because of a medical condition then fast from something else meaningful to you that would be good for you to give up. If you can’t fast the whole time for whatever reason, join us in skipping a meal a little bit is better than nothing, because we want to be doing it together.

2. We are fasting from Friday after lunch until Sunday morning when we will break our fast together with communion and food during our worship gathering on Sunday. So we will skip one meal on Friday, and 3 on Saturday. 

3. Stay in a posture of prayer. Fasting and prayer go hand in hand. Every time our stomach growls it’s a reminder for us to pray, every time our head aches we go to the Lord in prayer. Denying ourselves is about experiencing more of God, so we have to stay close to Him in this time for it to have its full effect.

During Sundays gathering we will have a time of prayer together and we will have a prayer wall in the back of the room and I’m hoping you will write down your prayers on the prayer wall to remind you to continue to pray, and join with others who can be praying for you also.

 We are concentrating on 4 categories of prayer on Sunday:

1. Our community and church community - What are the needs we see around us, let’s pray for that and ask God how we can meet those needs. Also how would God have us join in on the church’s mission to inspire all people to become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

2. Intercede for others - pray for your family, friends, coworkers, others in your sphere of influence. For healing, or comfort, or whatever they need, pray especially for those who are far from Christ.

3. Greater Desires - Part of laying down our lesser desires is to be in tune with the greater ones. How can we be intentional about our greater desires. Ask God what he wants you to be intentional about and focus on in this next season. Also, what do you have to lay down in order to do that.

4. Gratitude - How has God provided for you, or moved in your life lately, let’s count the ways and give him thanks for what He has done.