There has been a lot of discussion on this journey that our church will be taking with other churches around the world. For 21 days, we will join the movement of God’s people fasting and praying together. As we start off this new year, we are reminded that we need to depend on God for everything. Without God’s help we will not be able to accomplish everything that God has in store for us. This new year, we want to experience more of God’s blessings and breakthroughs in our lives.
Yesterday, as the staff and I were talking about the Awakening Movement, we realized that it will be easy for people to make this into a legalistic spiritual exercise that is devoid of God’s anointing. There have been many questions about what we can eat (or not eat).
I understand that some people in our church have never done an extended fast before, let alone a fast with just vegetables, fruits and liquid. Therefore, we sat down and came up with some basic teachings on what we are trying to do and it will be posted on our website with some guidelines. The pastoral staff and I believe that God is going to do some extraordinary things in our time of fasting and prayer.
As we prepare for this fast, we have to remember to avoid the self-righteous legalism that always wants to exalt the self rather than Christ. This fast should cause us to love Christ more, exalt Christ more and love people more. If not, then we go through this journey satisfying our own desires rather than God’s desires.
This came to my mind the other day, when Christina and I were talking about how we were going to do the fast. As we were talking about what we can and cannot eat, our second son said something that made me laugh.
He said, “I want to fast too and I think I can be a vegetarian, but not on Thursday’s.” So I asked why not on Thursdays. He then responded (without blinking an eye) by saying, “Because on Thursday our school serves hotdogs and I love hotdogs!”
Oh you gotta love a child’s heart.