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Fast Night 5: Rewarding
“Fast so that your fasting will not be noticed by others but only by your Father who is unseen. Your Father, who sees you in private, will reward you.” Matthew 6: 16-17 When I started this blog, this was an area of great concern for me. I have needed God’s encouragement and wisdom to present…
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Fast Day 5: Don’t Fast Like This
Isaiah 58 outlines the kind of fast or response that God wants from us. He doesn’t want what the Israelites had been giving Him: a stolid, pious, self-righteous, cold, calculating, look-at-me, tit-for-tat, complaining, religious attitude. You say, “Why have we fasted and You have not been impressed? Why have we been hard on ourselves and…
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Fast Night 4: Lying Down
Jesus said to him, “Do you want to get well? Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man became well and picked up his pallet and began to walk. John 5: 6, 8 God has transformed me and He transforms my whole day when I fast. When I say No! to the…
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Fast Day 4: Pick It Up
Learning to cope with our circumstances sounds like the thing we should do. So we often rely on coping mechanisms to face the chains we feel because we CAN rely on them. Our favorite coping strategies feel constant, consistent and familiar. We always call our mom and she makes us feel good about whatever stumped…
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Fast Night 3: Drenched
Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty, it will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” The woman said, “Give me this water so that I will not be thirsty.” (from John 4: 14-15) Today was a day to fast food from sunup…
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Fast Day 3: True Thirst
When we fast, we want to pay less attention to what we are giving up and more attention to God. We want our hunger and thirst for something physical to be replaced with a renewed hunger and thirst for something spiritual. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me…
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Fast Night 2: Evening Hunger
Jesus said, “It is written: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.” Matthew 4: 4 I am always hungry in the morning, but after I have had my coffee (which isn’t food, ha!), I can usually delay eating according to the fasting plan…
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Fast Day 2: True Hunger
Fasting is a spiritual discipline that you might not have tried before. I have done a forty day sugar fast every January for three years. I can’t say it’s easy, but it does get easier. In this fast I still eat meat, fish, vegetables, fruit and nuts. I still eat. Whatever you decide to fast,…
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Fast Night 1: Evening Prayer
I humbled my soul with fasting, and prayer was constantly on my mind. Psalms 35: 13 Dearest Father, For this first day of fasting, I come to you with humility and confession. I thought about food more than You. Even though I have fasted many times, I know it is hard to convert my hunger…
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Fast Day 1: Fasting and Prayer
Because the Bible consistently connects spiritual fasting with prayer, we must, too. If we fast without praying, there is, of course, not really a spiritual element. Fasting without prayer is just a diet. Fasting is a discipline that people from many places have practiced over many generations and is connected to many different faiths. You…
happy hunger
FIVE MARKS OF A DISCIPLE: OCTOBER 5 – NOVEMBER 2
Posts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: Fasting builds intimacy with God, and encourages you to grow inwardly, upwardly, and outwardly. Explore five marks of a transformed disciple of Jesus and determine five actions that will allow God to change you. An action that applies to each mark is focus. Fasting and prayer is God’s way for us to find the kind of focus that builds intimacy within and actions without. Be with Him. Be like Him. Do what He wants.
COMING NEXT! MAKING SPACE: NOVEMBER 4 – NOVEMBER 27
Reflect on how to use fasting to make more space for God in your life. Make space in the moment and better reflect God to others. Make space in the morning and enjoy intimacy with Him. Make space in your conversations with others and learn how to listen like He does. Make space in your schedule to breathe and be refreshed by Him. Make space in your commitments so that you can say Yes! to the things He wants you to do. God made a space in this world for us. Let’s return the favor!
