A Radiant Light

-Heather Weismiller 

Is there something you desire so much that you pray it every day?  It may be about an unsaved family member or friend, about your marriage, health issues, your children, etc.  But what do you pray God will do to change you for His glory?

Here is what John Piper says his life prayer is (from desiringgod.org

 

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"Make my life a means of people coming to reverence Your name and love Your name and praise and honor and cherish and treasure and glorify Your name."

Here is one from John Piper on George Mueller:

"Help me to choose a strategy of ministry and style of life that puts the reality and trustworthiness and beauty of God on display.  Let me be visible proof of the unchangeable faithfulness of the Lord."

I pray every day, among other things, "Help us (my family and me) to be a joy and a blessing to You and to everyone around us.  Begin a new work of love in me and help my love to overflow more and more!"

In Exodus 33:16, Moses says, "For how then can it be known that I have found favor in Thy sight, I and Thy people?  Is it not by Thy going with us, so that we, I and Thy people, may be distinguished from all the other peole who are upon the face of the earth?"  God never meant us to blend in with the world, in fact we should stick out.  Do people sense the peace of Christ ruling in our hearts?  See the joy of the Lord in our countenance?  Do they see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven?

Pray earnestly and unceasingly for the change you desire for God to make in you and trust Him to answer.  Be the radiant light you were meant to be in this world!

May your light increase more and more...

Fasting-- The Italics of Spiritual Formation

 -Pastor Bob Klecan

I have found Douglas Rumford’s perspective in Soul Shaping to be very helpful in understanding the role of fasting in the Christian life.  He writes:

Fasting could be called the italics of the spiritual life; it adds emphasis to other activities we may already be pursuing, such as prayer or repentance or discerning God’s purpose for us.  It brings a sense of urgency and earnestness to anything else we are undertaking.[i]

Think about what Jesus said in Matthew chapter six. He was very clear that fasting was to be done not as a show before other men, but as a way to increase our fellowship with our heavenly Father and seek His reward (Matthew 6:16-18).  For over twenty years now one of the central messages I have been seeking to help God’s people realize is the reality of who they are as Children of God in Christ (i.e. 1 John 3:1; Romans 8:15-16).  I often wonder why it doesn’t always “take.”  Could it be that this type of breakthrough comes by prayer and fasting?  Not as a magic formula, but simply as a way to bring spiritual truth to life, to putting it into Technicolor for the discoverer! 

Think about why the Antioch church fasted before sending out Paul and Barnabas as missionaries (Acts 13:3).  Think about why Paul and Silas fasted and prayed as they  appointed elders in every church they were planting (Acts 14:23).  The reason is not that fasting is a magic wand that moves God’s hand.  The reason is that fasting brings earnestness and urgency to prayer.  If we need a time of concentrated and focused prayer fasting is in order! 

I certainly have experienced this.  When I used to fast every Thursday to pray for our church’s weekly evangelistic service my passion for the Lord, to reach the lost, and for prayer was intensified and focused like few other times I can remember.  This is why I look forward to seeing how the Father is going to form us as practice prayer and fasting!  Let’s be sure not to leave out the italics! 

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[i] Douglas Rumford, Soulshaping, pg. 287

Waiting to Be Found

-Heather Weismiller


Jentezen Franklin said in his book, The Fasting Edge, "People may think those who fast, pray and seek God's face are fanatics but it's not nutty to go without food for a set portion of time to know God better.  What's nutty is settling instead for a mediocre, lukewarm relationship with Jesus."

You may not have a very good Christian walk right now or you may think it is going really well, but from experience I can tell you it will be even better if you fast.  When you fast you are choosing God over food for a set period of time.  The whole time you are fasting is like a time of worship to God even though you may not be "worshipping" every minute.  Also, you should try to choose God over other free time activities.  Every time you choose Him, it honors Him.  "Them that honour Me I will honour," said God once to a priest of Israel.  And then Jesus said in the New Testament, "If any man serve Me, him will My Father honour."  And thus He tied in the old with the new and reavealed the essential unity of His ways with men. (Tozer)

If there is even a fluttering of interest in your heart to fast, I am praying that you will do it.  Don't let the fear of being seen as "nutty" turn you away.  Seek Him again, and again, and again.  He is waiting to be found by you.

Accelerate Your Destiny

-Heather Weismiller

In his book, The Fasting Edge, Jentezen Franklin says, "When you fast, pray for God to define His plans and direction for your life. God can do more in one moment than you or I can do in a lifetime...I truly believe that fasting often accelerates your destiny."

When I was reading that for the first time, I thought, "Yeah right."  But then when I thought back to what God has accomplished in me in the last year I thought, "Wow".  I would have never thought about it as God accelerating my destiny, but I guess that is what He has been doing. I have learned more about God and the Christian walk in the last year that I have in the last ten years!  And He has given me a whole new direction for my life.  Pray that He will empty you of all that is not pleasing to Him and humbly ask Him to fill you with the desires He has for you.  I can't wait to hear what He is accomplishing in your life!

Seek Me and Find Me

-Dave Montgomery


I have never been successful at fasting.  I think it’s because in the past, for me, it’s been all about giving up food, not about seeking God.  This time I think it will be different.  I want to be continually drawing closer to God and understanding His will for me.

In Jeremiah 29:13, God says, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."  What an encouraging promise this is.  If we truly seek Him he will hear us and reveal Himself to us. God is incomprehensible, that is we have nothing on earth to compare Him to.

A.W. Tozser writes, in The Knowledge of the Holy, "The yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the Incomprehensible, to touch and taste the Unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man.  Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its Source.  How can this be realized? The answer of the Bible is simply “through Jesus Christ our Lord”. In Christ and by Christ, God effects complete self-disclosure, although He shows Himself not to reason but to faith and love.  Faith is an organ of knowledge, and love an organ of experience.  God came to us in the incarnation; in atonement He reconciled us to Himself, and by faith and love we enter and lay hold on Him."

Praise God that He sent Jesus Christ to redeem us and help us understand more about Him.  I hope that we will all individually and corporately grow in our understanding of God and His will for our lives through this week of fasting and prayer.