" One Nation Under God"
Praying for Revival Amongs our Churches in America!
His Name Shall Be Great on All of the Earth ( Malachi 1:11)
Day 1
January 10, 2012
There are hundreds and even thousands of live and vibrant churches all across America that begin each new year with 21 days to 40 days of Prayer and Fasting.
The hearts of Christians are crying out all across this world knowing that there must be more! Satisfied with the status quo is not a term that many are familiar with in this world – especially the young people that God is raising up.
As I begin a 40 day fast today we must ask the question? “Why Fast?” As many would say “fasting without prayer is nothing more than a good healthy diet”.
There are many reasons to fast and pray and I personally probably have tried them all. Health professionals tell us that fasting cleanses the body and fasting removes toxins from our body when time is set apart for fasting. But all throughout Bible history along with Jesus himself, speaks of the need to pray and to fast so that we might be able to obtain the perfect plan in our lives that God has already so freely set before us to live out. I have always fasted over issues that I was facing in my life; I have prayed and fasted for health improvement and I have even prayed and fasted simply because I felt that this was what God was telling me to do. I have been successful in prayer and fasting at times while at other times I have utterly and miserably failed only after a day or two. By just praying and skipping lunch at then to be followed by succumbing and eating a large pizza at night, giving into hunger, was probably not what Jesus meant, when he spoke of fasting and prayer.
Many of us have all read the new book by Jentezen Franklin – “The Fasting Edge”. We realize that the church today is very different than the original New Testament church as shown to us in the Book of Acts. The modern church is also very different than the early American church which built and established this nation as “One Nation Under God”.
Today when we as Christians search for a local church we search for the one with the best church programs. We look for the best music and we obviously want the best worship for our Sunday morning worship experience. We look for the best facilities that will provide for the total needs of our personal lives and provide the needs for our family. And of course we look for the most comfortable place of worship that will fit into our comfortable lifestyle as we look for a church that can also maximize the time spent in that place so that church can comfortably fit into a part of our busy daily life. However we realize that none of these goals were the goals of the early church; in fact the early Christians might be appalled to think that this is our view of Christianity. Jesus himself may even be appalled to think that he gave so much for us, but yet we sacrifice so little for him.
All of the amenities that we experience today in the modern church are wonderful; we shouldn’t change a thing but we have to ask ourselves – are we really experiencing Jesus Christ in the way that he intended us to know him or is Christianity only a comfortable attempt to fill a spiritual void in our lives without ever really experiencing and identifying with the real life of Jesus himself?
When we choose to pray and to fast – What is the end result?
When we pray and fast we fine tune ourselves to the place where our love and our passion for God is more important than food itself. We are saying to God the very same thing that David said to God in Psalm 63:3 as he was fasting – “Your love is better than life”. David says “my soul thirsts for you and my body longs for you”. Does our soul thirst for God in the way that our body thirsts for food and water?
As we begin this 40 day fast most of our fasting will be identifying with Jesus as he spent those long isolated 40 days fasting in the desert. Because Jesus overcame in the desert, thru his victory thru temptation, we are able to identify with him along with him in his incredible love for his Father and his love for us. We are showing to God that our spiritual keenness and sensitivity to him is more important than the food itself that provides our daily nourishment for our body. Fasting is a time to put away everything from the world and focus on our spirituality and focus on our love for God.
It is amazing how sensitive we become to God and how his voice becomes so much more real and alive to us when we put everything away for a period of time. Fasting and praying will make us more sensitive and aware to the God that resides within us and to the one that is already around us and surrounding us in every way.
Short term discipline yields long term results – Jentezen Franklin
Every Christian is blessed in every way possible ( Ephesians 1:3 ) but yet at times we need more.
There is only one reason to fast and to pray and that is to be closer and more sensitive to God.
As we fast and pray – Yes! - He will break the chains that bind us and he will restore our families. He will release evangelism and break bondage from our cities and he will release our communities and universities from the stronghold of humanism. He will restore jobs with finances and he will rebuild the old waste places along with raising up foundations of many generations ahead, just as spoke in Isaiah 58:12
Prayer and fasting makes areas more clear in our lives that were previously cloudy until that time.
Prayer and fasting allows us to refocus and to feel and hear the heart of God in new ways that we never dreamed possible for us to understand.
As we go through these 40 days together you are welcome to read our daily blog. www.EveryDaySomethingNew.com
Even in these last few days as we have already begun the fast, God has already spoken to us so many things. He has spoken so much that it is impossible to put everything in print.
Also there are many things that we will be attempting and doing in these next 40 days and we will attempt to keep you updated on this blog.
God is moving like we have never seen him move in decades past. God is stirring the hearts of men and women in churches all across America.
Join us as we pray.
God Bless
Ron Brumbaugh
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