Daily Devotion for 21 Day Fast
Day Twenty-One
Well, fellow travelers on this journey, we have reached day 21. We will now prepare to break our fast tomorrow. I pray these days have been days of insight for you and days of personal growth in your relationship with God and others. Remember, God is always doing more than you can see and He honors every sacrifice we have made because we wanted to know his heart more.
When Jesus summarized the two most important things about a believer’s life, he said 1) love God, and 2) love others. It all comes down to love so today I end these devotionals with this section of Scripture from 1 Corinthians 13. Read it prayerfully, slowly, listening and being sensitive for any way the Holy Spirit wants to speak to you.
Thanks for journeying with me. You can always check out my current writings at http://www.mikkiblogs.com
Even if I can speak in all the tongues of earth—and those of the angels, too—but do not have love, I am just a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophesy such that I can comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge, or if I have faith great enough to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own to feed those poorer than I, then hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind. Love is not jealous, it does not put on airs, and it is not snobbish; it is never rude or self-seeking; it is not prone to anger, nor does it brood over injuries. Love doesn’t rejoice in what is wrong, but rejoices in the truth. There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure.
~ I Corinthians 13:1-7
Day Twenty
In Psalm 133, David reflected on what it was like for God’s people to live together in unity.
1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brethren to dwell together in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil upon the head,
Running down on the beard,
The beard of Aaron,
Running down on the edge of his garments.
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
Descending upon the mountains of Zion;
For there the LORD commanded the blessing—
Life forevermore.
These are some of the principles we can draw out of this passage:
- It is good for God’s people to live together in unity.
- It is pleasant for God’s people to live together in unity.
- It is like the precious anointing oil that was used to anoint Aaron, the first high priest; unity is precious.
- It flows down from our high priest, Jesus.
- Its presence on our body is visible. It is tangible.
- It flows from one part of the body to another.
- It is fragrant like anointing oil.
- It is refreshing like the dew which fell on Mt. Hermon.
- The place where unity dwells is the place where God commands his blessing.
- The blessing of God is full of life.
As you can see, unity is highly valued by God and is highly desirable. It begins in our heart and affects everything around us. It draws others to it because it is irresistibly beautiful. Are you living in the place of unity?
Day Nineteen
Throughout the history of the early church, and sometimes very often, things happened that once again proved a challenge to the believers.
Acts 12 opens with James being killed, Peter in prison, and Herod triumphing. There was a very real danger that Peter would be the next to be killed, and perhaps many of them felt their own life and faith in danger. Acts 12:5 records for us that constant prayer was offered to God for Peter by the church.
At the end of chapter 12 we find Herod dead, Peter free, and "the word of God grew and multiplied". As the believers continued to mourn the loss of James, they rejoiced at God’s response to their prayers for Peter and they continued on in the mission of Acts 1:8.
Today, no matter what circumstances you find yourself in, remember that prayer is powerful and that according to James 5:16, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous person accomplishes much - and you are righteous because of your position in Christ.
A few days ago, I wrote about truth.
- Truth is still truth whether you acknowledge it or not.
- Jesus is truth.
- Jesus said that known truth would make us free.
David, in a conversation with God, said
Surely you desire truth in the inner parts ;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place (Psalm 51:6).
Other translations render inner parts as "innermost being". God desires us to know truth from the inside out.
Our message at church on Sunday was about denial. We talked about how we all revert to using denial at times. For example, we refuse to step onto the scales so we don’t have to face the number which represents our weight. Or we don’t balance our checkbook because we are afraid of or dread to see the balance. And we could go on and on.
David, a man after God’s own heart, spent a year in sin and disobedience after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband murdered before he finally came to truth inside himself and cried out to God for forgiveness. It was on this occasion that he acknowledged, "Surely, God, you desire truth in my innermost being."
There were still difficult days ahead for David but that moment was his turning point. God met him at his point of inner truth and began to restore his soul.
Inner truth, acknowledged and acted upon, brings wisdom. Wisdom, according to Proverbs, is our teacher and will guard our steps from destruction.
Is there an area of your life (and there always is) where you need to embrace inner truth? Sometimes that inner truth is not blatant sin as David’s was. Sometimes it is the acknowledgment of pain or disappointment in others or even in God Himself.
Almost two years ago I reached a point of acknowledging my present inner truth and I cried out to God, feeling He had forsaken me and abandoned me. I was angry and depressed. It began a gradual shift. Slowly I began my wrestling match with God which I would leave, as Jacob did, with a limp. God is not offended when we honestly wrestle with him in a journey to know truth. He already knows what is in our hearts. When we acknowledge it and face our inner truth, then we have reached the beginning point of a deeper journey to know God.
Let’s all continue to open our hearts unto the Holy Spirit who will lead us into all truth, remembering that his ministry is not condemnation which pushes us away from the heart of God, but conviction which draws us to God to find "mercy and grace to help us in our time of need."
If David had stayed bound in his guilt and shame (which he had even though he had not truly acknowledged his sin), he would never had been able to accept God’s love and go on to know God in even deeper ways and become known as the "man after God’s own heart."
Will you pray this prayer along with me?
"Lord, give us grace to acknowledge truth in our innermost being believing that known truth will bring true freedom in our lives."
Day Seventeen
The Unforced Rhythms of Grace
In this busy world in which we live, Jesus offers a beautiful gift - rest. In Matthew 11:28-30, we find these words of Jesus:
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (NKJV)
I also want to include that section of Scripture from The Message:
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly." (The Message)
We all long for true rest, the kind that Adam and Eve had before their fall when they walked and talked with God easily and did the work that He directed them to do. Notice what Jesus said about true rest:
• If we want true rest, we must come to Jesus.
• His offer is for all who are tired, worn out, and burned out.
• Rest is a gift from Jesus.
• Rest and work are not opposites. Jesus invited us to take a yoke which is an instrument used to harness an animal’s strength so it can be purposefully used for work.
• True rest is when we have rest in our souls. This rest comes from the deepest part of us and affects our mind, will, and emotions.
• Jesus is gentle and humble in heart. Again, notice this place of rest is a place of living from your heart.
• Jesus yoke is useful, gracious, not pressing or hard.
I love the way Eugene Peterson paraphrased this verse. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
Today my prayer is that we all learn to live in the unforced rhythms of the grace of Jesus. That is the place of true rest and satisfies our soul as nothing else can.
Day Sixteen
The Scripture tells us that "Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." Then it says that Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights.
We know as we look back to this occasion that Jesus was about to begin his earthly ministry. Can we draw the conclusion that we might also face seasons of temptation before we are released into new levels of ministry?
The final temptation was a temptation for Jesus to receive power and glory if he would fall down and worship the devil. It came right on the heels of two other powerful temptations. Yes, temptations. Hebrews records for us that Jesus was tempted in all points as we are, yet he never succumbed to the temptations. He never sinned.
So imagine Jesus after forty days and forty nights of fasting. Tired. Lonely. Hungry. And here comes a third temptation.
Power and glory belong to Jesus. They are rightfully his. Yet Satan tried to get Jesus to receive what was rightfully his by short cutting God’s plan. "Just do it the easy way. You can have the glory and power now. Just worship me."
This wasn’t a new song and dance for Satan. He was kicked out of heaven for the same issue.
Jesus answered the temptation by saying "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve."
If Jesus needed to use the Word to face temptation successfully, we also must know and use the Word of God in order to pass the tests that come our way.
Notice that he didn’t command Satan to leave him after the first two temptations. But now, he knew it was time. He spoke in authority. He knew this season of temptation was over.
"Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him." Be encouraged if you are in a season of temptation. There is a designated end to the season and when it comes, the forces of evil will leave - for a while- and God will minister to you.
Day Fifteen
Tomorrow I will continue on the temptations of Jesus. Today I want to talk about how the truth brings freedom.
Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free."
There is such warfare over knowing truth. We are often not willing to know truth. We sense that we are wrong about a matter or we have an inner knowing that we are denying truth by not acknowledging it, but we are not willing to experience the discomfort and/or pain that comes by stepping fully into the realm of truth.
Truth is costly. Knowing truth and then acting on truth will cost us. It will cost us convenience and our comfortable paradigms. It will cost us because it requires change.
We all have areas where we need more freedom. Truth is the catalyst which births the freedom. Freedom comes in many ways. Sometimes it is instantaneous. Sometimes it comes like peeling the layers of an onion. Usually both processes are working at the same time.
Even though truth is costly, it carries the fragrance of Christ because Christ is the truth.
Day Fourteen
The second temptation of Jesus in the wilderness was, in part, one of identity.
Matthew 4:5-6
Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, sat Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If you are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written,
"He shall give His angels charge over you." and
"In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone."
Jesus had completed forty days of fasting. He was physically weak. He was hungry. He went head on with the Devil, passing the first test and boom, here comes test two. Ever noticed how when one temptation or struggle passes, there is often another one right on its heels?
Satan again tempted Jesus in the area of his identity. He taunted Jesus just as in the first temptation, "IF you are the Son of God…" He even quoted the Scripture this time answering Jesus method of passing the first temptation.
Knowing who we are is a struggle we can all have at times. Fasting helps to clarify that. As we deny our flesh in pursuit of God, our ability to hear and know gets sharper.
Jesus once again uses the Word of God to rebuff the enemy. And there is yet one more test before God will send the angels to minister to Jesus. Hang on, dear child of God, when the testing seems relentless. God will send help. You can end the season of testing with God’s strength for your weakness. You can grow in your understanding of who God has created you to be.
Remember that Jesus passed these tests as a man full of the Spirit of God. The same Spirit dwells inside you as a believer. "I can do all things through Christ who is my strength." Philippians 4:13
And at just the right time, God will minister to you, just as He ministered to Jesus.
Day Thirteen
Well, much of course. But for today let’s just look at how Jesus faced the first temptation.
The first temptation that Satan approached him with was the temptation to turn stones into bread. Jesus certainly could have provided bread for himself right in the midst of the wilderness. All the Father had was his. It wouldn’t have been anything new for God to provide bread in the wilderness; He had done so for the children of Israel. Jesus had the power and the right to do so. But he was in a season of fasting. His physical body was weak when Satan came to him. He was hungry. Yet we find Jesus refusing to allow the desires and even needs of his physical body to control him. He faced the temptation by using the Word of God, a very specific Word that fit the situation.
We, too, need to be able to use God’s Word when we face temptation. Jesus answered Satan and quoted Deuteronomy saying, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that precedes from the mouth of God." He did not deny that he was hungry, but he depended upon the truth of the Word. He drew his sword, his weapon of choice, the Word of God.
As you continue in this season of fasting, feast upon the Word for it will strengthen you. Read the words of Jesus. Ask the Holy Spirit to apply the Word to your life. Look at it as bread.
When we fast, we are often exsasberated by our weakness. We don’t bat 1000; sometimes we don’t even bat .200. Instead of allowing that to condemn us and frustrate us, let’s allow it to remind us how we must depend upon God. We can allow it to remind us of the beauty of His strength. Remember that "In our weakness, He is shown strong." Allow it to be a reminder of the awesome strength of God.
As our awareness of the weakness of our flesh increases, our dependence upon the Spirit must increase. Jesus said, "The words I speak to you are spirit and life." As you spend time in the Word of God, be sure you do it from a perspective of life, not obligation. Allow the Word to be life to you. The living Word of God, which Jesus referred to as the proceeding Word, will strengthen you and provide a place of victory in your temptations.
Day Twelve
Yesterday I shared with you about how fasting ups our awareness. Today I want to take that a step further.
Life is an inward, outward, and upward journey. Fasting touches all three of those areas.
The inward journey is the one in which we allow God to go inside our hearts and show us what is not pure. He also gives us revelation as to why certain issues are a struggle for us. Maybe he reveals an issue we have with rejection and then takes us even deeper to look at a significant life relationship that this struggle stems from.
In our outward journey, fasting causes us to see others with new eyes. Isaiah 58 is clear about the fact that our fasting ought to result in tangible care for others, whether that care be helping someone with groceries, encouraging someone, ministering to the about Christ’s love, or fixing their car.
The upward journey is the one in which we are taken deeper into the experiential knowledge of the love of God.
I pointed out yesterday that we are triune beings; our body, soul, and spirit are all interconnected and affect one another. In the same way, these three journeys are interconnected and affect one another.
As we allow God to change our hearts, we suddenly find that we care more for others and know God’s heart in new ways. When we reach out to care more for others, God goes inside our hearts and softens them, making us more aware of the needs of humanity. As our upward journey changes what we know and believe about God, we are taken deeper into His truth, resulting in revelation of our own hearts and eyes to see the needs of others.
In the moments that has defined history and eternity, we see Jesus reflecting all three of these. We see these three overlapping at times. If we look at Jesus on the cross, we see:
Inward: “I thirst.” He was aware of his physical needs.
Inward and upward: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He was in touch with the inward and upward journey.
Outward: “This day you’ll be with me in paradise.” Reaching out, even in his most difficult moments to care for others.”
Outward and upward:” Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.”
Outward: “John, behold your mother. Mother, behold your son.”
Inward and upward: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
“It is finished.” The declaration that we all could truly be reconciled with God, could truly be reconciled with one another and love others as we should, and have peace with our own hearts. We can be whole in every way because of what Jesus did, whether in our relationship to our own heart and life, our relationship with others, and/or our relationship with God.
Jesus said, “I am come that you might have life and have it in abundance."
So as your fasting during these 21 days does the work it is intended to, look for the evidence in your inward, outward, and upward journey. Living life in fullness means being aware of what’s going on in us, around us, and in our relationship with God. What is happening in your inward, outward, and upward journey this week?
Day Eleven
When we fast, we get hungry. Ravenously hungry. Our flesh screams at us – EAT! Our mind and emotions kick in to tell us why we should break the fast. In fact, it is just plain funny how much hungrier we get if we are fasting than if we just skip a meal because we are busy.
And we become aware. Awareness is one of the purposes of fasting. When we fast, we quickly become aware of the power our flesh has. That is a good reminder for us. Flesh is powerful. Seasons of denying the flesh are profitable for us for many reasons.
Awareness is important for us to live a life in tune with God. As God made us body, soul, and spirit, He created us to be aware of our physical needs, our emotional needs, and our spiritual needs. We have many enemies of that awareness, including busyness which is chief for most of us. We learn to ignore the signals our body sends. We learn to ignore the signals our emotions send, and even more sadly we learn to ignore the signals our spirit sends.
Fasting ups our awareness. Jesus said that those who hungered and thirsted after righteousness would be filled. So my prayer for us all today is that our hunger and thirst would make us aware of our need to depend upon God and of the need for our flesh to be crucified. I pray that our hunger and thirst would increase our desire for righteousness for that desire leads to being filled. And nothing can satisfy us like God for we were created to be filled with Him. Allow your fasting to remind you that there is someone who can fill your deepest hunger and quench your deepest thirst.
Day Ten
The Life of Faith
More than once Jesus told his disciples to follow him. For the disciples to follow Jesus, they had to embrace a lot of change. Change in their everyday lifestyle. Vocational change. Change in family relationships. Change in religious beliefs. But those changes were a really just a reflection of deep inner change.
Signing up to follow Jesus means signing up for a lifetime of change. Change of heart. Jesus spoke so often about the heart because it is central to everything. What we do and say and believe and teach and model all flow from our hearts.
On one occasion, Jesus got into a boat and his disciples followed him. Sounds fun, huh? A day at sea or a journey to the other side. A huge storm suddenly appeared and the disciples found themselves in a boat which was literally becoming covered with waves. I would be afraid, wouldn’t you? They naturally looked to their leader. He was asleep. I don’t think they hesitated to wake him up. They said, “Lord, don’t you care that we are dying?” Makes sense to me. They have committed their lives to following Jesus. They followed him into this boat. A storm has arisen. Jesus must be unaware. After all, he is asleep.
The response of Jesus is challenging for us if we are honest. “Why are you afraid, you who have so little faith?” Ouch. How do we interpret Jesus response to his disciples? His response was one which went straight to their hearts. Straight to the issue of fear and faith. Polar opposites in the Christian life. But if we are honest, we know it is not always easy to live from a place of faith. Especially during a storm.
Looking back to the question the disciples asked Jesus, we come to the issue of their present crisis. “Jesus, don’t you care?” This is the point of honest wrestling with faith. Does Jesus care about us personally? Is his mission more than a world wide cause; is it personal?
The writer of Hebrews describes faith in Hebrews 11: 6 by saying that it is impossible to please God without it, because the person who comes to Jesus must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. He then goes on to list individual men and women who discovered what it meant to live a life of faith. This section of scripture is such a gift of God to us for it describes men and women who were very imperfect. Men and women who struggled at times. Men and women who failed, but men and women who at their heart, at their core, believed God. Men and women who were involved in a progressive, life-long journey of what it means to have faith and follow God.
These men and women wrestled with the issue of faith, just as we do. They wrestled with God because faith must be personal to be effective. The very wrestling is the testing and proving ground of our faith. God is not offended by that. In fact, I believe that He often initiates the wrestling match just as He did for Jacob because He knows that if we wrestle with Him to test and prove our faith, we, like Jacob and many, many others, will be permanently touched by His hands. We will leave our wrestling match with a limp which humbly begs for us to remember that our God is real and powerful and is personally involved with us.
Wrestle on, fellow pilgrim for God says that if we seek Him, we will find Him, if we search for Him with all our hearts (Jeremiah 29:13).
Many times I find myself reading in the Psalms, and many times I find “myself” in the Psalms. Their beauty leads me to do what they themselves often recommend. Selah. Pause and think about it. Layers and layers of truth and richness. The entire range of human emotions. The entirety of the Psalms including the Psalms of David express a true picture of humanness. Love and hate. Joy and grief. Praise and cursing. Ah, David, a man after God’s own heart, unafraid to feel and express his heart.
One of my favorites is Psalm 42, a Psalm written to describe one’s yearning for God in the middle of distress. The depth and truth of the Psalmist’s longing resonates within my heart.
As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
The picture is of a mature deer, not a Bambi, a powerfully beautiful animal thirsting, longing for running, moving, living water. And then the Psalmist declares, “God, that is how I long for you! My soul, my inner being, my emotions, long for an encounter with a living God.”
Maybe there are two ways we learn about thirst. One is by natural processes of our humanness. We need water to live and thrive. Secondly, once we experience the power of having our thirst satisfied, we are forevermore dissatisfied with any other experience.
Paralleling that human experience with our spiritual thirst, we are created to know God in an intimate way. We were made to run our spiritual fuel tanks on God-a-nol. Secondly, once we have tasted what it means to have God quench our inner thirst, we can no longer be satisfied with any thing or any experience that falls short of encountering the true living God.
Today may we recognize our spiritual thirst as God opens our eyes and may our longing for encountering the living God result in our submitting in even greater ways to the work He longs to do inside our inner landscape.
Mikki
Day Eight
In the late fifties, a group called the Monotones wrote and recorded a song called “Who Wrote the Book of Love?” I woke up singing that old song this morning which led me to thinking about who really wrote the book of love. Of course, you know that I am referring to God. But I wonder sometimes if we really understand that the Bible is the book of love. Yes, we may give mental ascent to that. God is love. But knowing the love of God is totally different than having a head knowledge that says that God is love.
Knowing the love of God has changed my life more times than one. For me, the knowledge of God’s love has come bit by bit, piece by piece. When I committed my life to Christ as a very young girl, I distinctly remember wanting to avoid hell. And of course that is important. But my journey to knowing the love of God has been a life-long one. In my early twenties, I was overtaken by the love of God when I first knew that God had called me into ministry. I was so overwhelmed by the fact that God wanted me. I became consumed with knowing Him. I read the Word for hours and hours. However, in a few short years, I became drained by religion. I had somehow equated knowing God with keeping a list of rules (i.e., read five chapters of Psalms every day, 1 chapter of Proverbs, and part of the New Testament; keep a prayer journal which covered all the needs of the world and everyone else I knew, etc.) Now the rules represent important principles but living for the rules replaced living for God and I found myself hopeless. You can be sure that God doesn’t lead us into hopelessness.
Another season of encountering religious rules in my late 30’s almost took my spiritual life. And through the pain of these encounters, I increasingly learned the difference between religion and relationship. But I confess, I am very much still on that journey.
Encountering the Holy Spirit in a dramatic way in 1999 plunged me into another realm of knowing God’s love. I remember describing it as going from loving God to being IN LOVE with God. Again, I was overwhelmed with His love for ME. You see, the love of God is very personal.
In the last two years, I have known the love of God through the love of God’s people in practical, tangible ways as so many have walked with my family through a terrible storm and believed in us, ministered to us by their words and their actions, giving words of encouragement, hugs, prayers, and all sorts of practical gifts, and again, that love has changed me. I know more about unconditional love than I have ever known before.
Knowing the love of God in a personal way changes more than just my perceptions and understandings; it changes me. I become more like Him. I not only experience His love for me, but I find I am passionate about sharing His love with others. And of such is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:8 You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witness…
My prayer for you today is that you know the love of God in increasing ways and that as His love changes you, you will be a witness to that love.
Mikki
Day Seven
As we end our first week of this season of fasting, it is a good time to reexamine why we are fasting and what happens during a fast.
We are fasting because we feel led to by the Holy Spirit.
We are fasting as a voluntary means of submitting ourselves to the purifying work of God through his Holy Spirit believing that fasting can bring to light matters of the heart that need addressing.
Many of us are fasting food or drink. Others are fasting something else such as TV, shopping, etc.
What can we expect from God? Well, we can expect God to be who He always is. Faithful, holy, loving, patient, kind, gentle.
And we can expect that He will do as He always does, respond to our hearts.
It’s not about Him responding to our actions, but about His response to our hearts.
*Our hearts which say we realize that the things of life often have unhealthy holds on our soul.
*It is about His response to our hearts as we say, “Lord, I don’t know my own heart as well as You know it. Please purify my heart.”
And as our hearts are purified, we can see God; we can hear God. We can move in the world with God’s heart, and “The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.” Isaiah 58:11
Mikki
Day Six
We know the story. When we read through John 13-17, we can feel the transition happening. Jesus is trying to prepare his disciples for what is before them. He tells them repeatedly that he is going away and they can’t come. They are totally confused. Their mission has been to follow Jesus; that was his first words to most of them, “Follow me”. And now, what is this he is saying? They can’t follow anymore?
In the midst of all his instructions, Jesus begins to tell them about his new commandment. “Love one another.” They don’t even really hear it at this point. They don’t seem to even respond to this new word from Jesus. They keep asking about what Jesus means about leaving them. Peter says, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now?”
Jesus cares about their hearts and responds to their distress by telling them not to be worried. And he continues to bring up this love thing. Over and over. “You gotta love each other; this is how people will know you are mine.”
Why do you suppose that love would be challenging for them in the days ahead? They were about to be thrust into a storm such as they’d never seen before. Accusations would escalate. Tempers would flair. Fear would tear their hearts apart. They would watch Jesus be taken from them and crucified.
Although we would all hope that rough times would bring out the best of us, sometimes it does just the opposite. It brings out the weakest parts just as was about to happen to the disciples. But Jesus kept hammering the nail into the truth of love.
“If you will love one another, you won’t lose your way. You won’t lose the focus of what I have called you to. I have been and am about to become your greatest example of love. I COMMAND you to love one another.”
Sometimes as we choose to enter into a fast, all the yucky stuff comes up out of our hearts. We become short tempered (especially those who are fasting their coffee!) All of our weakest parts get together and have a party. I might call it spiritual dredging. God allows the Holy Spirit to dredge up stuff that needs to be dealt with. So what are we to do? Give up the fast? No, we are to remember that God is perfecting our ability to love. When those struggles jump up out of what we thought were their graves, we humbly present them again to the Father and ask for His help. And we must remember that our journey is never just about us. It is about each other. It is a relational journey. It is never just about we as individuals making it through life; it is about us LOVING each other through life.
Hmmm, seems like Jesus said something about that. “A new commandment I give you; Love one another. This is the way all men will be able to identify you as my disciples. And if I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.”
~Mikki
Day Five
…love one another fervently with a pure heart. 1 Peter 1:22
Let brotherly love continue. Hebrews 13:1
If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4: 11
By this will all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:35
The fruit of the Spirit is love… Galatians 5:22
Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:8
If love were always easy, then perhaps the Word wouldn’t give us so many admonitions about it. Over and over again we are told to love. Love God. Love one another. Love ourselves.
The war over love is really a war over our hearts. Many things can fill our hearts. Strife, hatred, anger, lust, greed, bitterness. The Word teaches us that whatever is in our hearts will come forward in our words and in our actions.
Romans 5:5 says that the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and then goes on to remind us that God demonstrated His love for us in that WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS, Christ died for us.
We can add fuel to the fire of love in our hearts by humbly reflecting on how Christ gave his all to show us God’s love for us. The realization that God loved us while we were completely lost in our sins, when as to yet, we had done nothing for him, yet His pure undeserved love poured out for us and gave Christ as a sacrifice because God so longed to have us, to be in relationship with us – that revelation can and should fan into flame the fire of love on our hearts.
Would you stop for a moment and think about how God gave His love for you? Would you ask the Father to blow on the embers of your heart and fan into flame His love? Would you ask Him to show you who you can love better? Would you ask Him how you can love better?
- Mikki
Day Four
The cross was confusing for the disciples. Although Jesus had shared with them what would happen to him, they had no context for understanding. All they knew at their present moment was that their leader was gone and that all they had given the last three years of their life for now seemed to be destroyed. They were afraid and disillusioned to say the least. The events of the last week just didn’t fit into any paradigm of thinking that they had. They had gone from Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem to seeing his dead body upon a cross. They had experienced the joy of the crowds shouting, “Hosanna”. They had experienced utter confusion, pain, and doubt as they watched their leader crucified.
It had been a roller coaster week.
Their emotions were spent.
Their physical bodies were exhausted.
Their minds were confused.
Yet God was right in the midst of it all.
How Jesus must have longed to rescue them from the hours of pain during those days just as a parent longs to rescue their child from pain. Yet at times, we who are parents know that we must not rescue our child from their present difficulty – not just yet. The journey is important. In fact, it is a requirement.
After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to them, “And their eyes were opened and they knew Him.” Luke 24: 31
“And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.” Luke 24:45
At the right moment, Jesus gave them understanding. It didn’t come from their own resources. It came from Christ. It clicked just like when a combination on a lock clicks into place and the lock opens.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit can do that for us. And when it happens, you know it. The treasures of the safe become available to you.
I wish I could tell you that the rest of the story was an easy, pain-free ride for the disciples. It wasn’t. But it was one of great adventure as the disciples became literal world-changers. Many more times, they would need their understanding to be opened. And such is the life of faith.
As we participate in this time of fasting, may we embrace the journey of faith for whether we find ourselves in dark, confusing days or in days of joy and celebration, God is right there in the middle of it all with us. As we seek to follow Him, we can rest in the assurance that at the right moment He will open our understanding.
-Mikki
Day Three
The Beauty of Brokenness
The centerpiece of our Christian faith is the sacrifice of Christ. As he hung on the cross, he was broken. Broken for our sin. Broken in his body. What we might call a bloody mess. Yes, no matter how sanitized we would prefer to make our mind’s snapshot of Christ on the cross, the reality of it is that Christ hung there broken.
A man who had never sinned received into his literal physical body all the sin of all mankind and took the penalty that such sin required. And it broke him.
His physical body was broken. Nails in his hands and feet. Long thorns thrust into his skull. His face bleeding from the places man had pulled his beard out. His back, torn into pieces from the whipping he had endured. His body crushed from falling under the weight of the cross on the way to Golgotha.
His heart was broken as he experienced separation from his Father as he lived in his present darkness. He experienced our confusion, our loneliness, our doubts, our fears.
He was broken for me. He was broken for you. That is the beauty of brokenness.
May every time we experience the reality of brokenness, whether our own brokenness or the brokenness of others, lead us to remember Christ who was broken for us all and may we live in grateful love for the One who through brokenness has become our healing and our salvation.
- Mikki
Day Two
The body of Christ broken for you…
Today I spoke those words many times as individual congregants participated in communion. Often I spoke the person’s name who stood before me and personalized the message. Deborah, the body of Christ broken for you. Josh, the body of Christ broken for you. As each person broke off a piece of the bread symbolizing the breaking of the body of Jesus, the holiness of the moment was tangible. More often than not, the one standing before me had tears in their eyes as the realization of what Christ has done for us all permeated our hearts. It was a sacred privilege to serve others in this remembrance of Christ.
And I thought of what a beautiful way it was to begin our 21-day fast together as a body of Christ. The very observation of communion calls believers into a place of introspection. Scripture teaches us to examine our hearts as we partake of the Lord’s table. Together we acknowledged our sinfulness and His sufficiency and we experienced communion with Christ and with each other.
As we enter this fast together being led by the Holy Spirit, may each time we say no to our fleshly desires remind us of the sacrifice of Christ who offered up His flesh for us.
- Mikki
Day One
The leaders of Grace House are calling our people to a 21-day fast. The purpose of this fast is for us to be able to enter a deeper place of truth and intimacy with Christ and others. This deeper place of truth will bring us closer to the heart of God and allow us to more clearly discern his voice and purposes.
One thing I know about fasting is this: our fasting must be directed at our own hearts.
Isaiah wrote these words in Isaiah 58:6.
Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry; and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, and your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; You shall cry; and He will say, ‘Here I am.”
I want you to realize that these instructions follow a rebuke that God speaks about fasting for wrong purposes. God instructed the people that they were not to fast for strife and debate (to prove their own points); they were not to fast in order to afflict their own souls so that God would notice them.Their fast, according to God, was to result in a changed heart - their own! Their fast was to result in a heart so changed that it was reflected in their deep care for others.
In fact, God dared to indicate that they had the order all wrong. This fast was not to be for their own healing or their call for the glory of God. BUT if they fasted in order to produce a pure heart that sincerely cared for the people, then the healing of God and the glory of God would naturally come.
As I thought about this fast, I thought of getting rid of cellulite. Yes, that is what I thought of. Cellulite is excess fat which is stored under the skin and appears lumpy, like cottage cheese. None of us want it.
The Church in America has a lot of cellulite. Fat stored in our individual bodies that is unattractive and shouldn’t be there in the first place. Fasting can get rid of our spiritual cellulite. Fasting produces results that affects the deeper layers of the body but the results can be seen from the outside. Fasting can bring health to the body; health which is not only skin-deep but reflects change that has happened on the inside.
Are you ready to get healthy?
- Mikki
