It happens to every believer. You start off on cloud nine—an adopted son or daughter of the living king! Your heart experiences joy like never before.

And you start to grow! Oh, the growth! Wow, you can’t believe the difference between the person you used to be and the one you’ve become!

But then you learn…the rules.

 

• The traditions someone tells you need to be observed,
• The attendance level at church that legitimatizes your family standing
• The “lingo” that Christians supposedly must use
• The  places acceptable (and unacceptable) to go
• What you can and can’t drink
• Like to dance? Forget that.
• A nice glass of merlot with dinner? What, are you crazy?! That’s the devil’s brew!

And on and on it goes. The above are just a few imaginary scenarios—there are a million others. But they all tend to do have the same affect. They drain the passion right out of the Christ follower until they’re left with little more than ‘going through the motions of Christianity.’

What do you do when it feels as though you’ve lost some of the wind in your sails since the last revival or big Christian conference?

 

• Seek out the next conference?
• Google ‘revivals’ and hope you can catch the next one sort of like a storm chaser going after a tornado?

What if I told you there’s a much better way?

And it’s not a roll of the dice or even a gamble at all. That’s not to say it’s easy—far from it. It will be a challenge, but if you and I will hang in there and stick with what I am about to tell you.

We WILL hear from God!

The answer is, “fasting.”

Disappointed?

Don’t be, unlike the other suggestions we are all used to hearing and giving others—this actually works. And there are tons of examples of it in scripture.

Fasting:

 

1. It brought strength and courage to Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (Daniel Chapter 1).
2. It brought answers to Daniel (See Daniel 10)
3. It brought Moses face to face with God and made him the recipient of the 10 commandments!
4. It kicked off Jesus’ ministry!
5. It can get rid of particularly powerful and pesky demons.
6. It brought the gospel to the Gentiles (Cornelius). Cornelius fasted four days after which time an angel appeared to him. Consequently, he and his family received the gospel and were baptized. Acts 10:30-31
7. Courage and Wisdom. Esther and the Jews of Shushan fasted when faced with their destruction planned by Haman (The book of Esther).
8. Ezra fasted as he prayed for wisdom and protection when he prepared the people to return to Jerusalem from Babylon. Ezra 8:21, 23
9. The King of Nineveh ordered the whole city to fast and repent. Consequently, they were forgiven of their sin. Jonah 3:5
10. Spiritual Recuperation. Elijah fasted 40 days after killing prophets of Baal. 1 Kings 19:1-9

10. Esther and the Jews of Shushan fasted when faced with their     destruction planned by Haman. Esther 4:3,16; 9:31

What do you think? Worth it?

Bottom-line, if it was something the very Son of God thought He needed to do to prepare for His mission—It should be a no-brainer for us!

I’m about two weeks into my Daniel fast at this point and the promised clarity and direction is already coming from the Lord! So, I couldn’t help but wonder how much greater the impact would be if a whole lot of Impactors joined me in this!

If you feel like God is leading you to be a part of the Daniel fast then you can learn all you need to know about it by checking out THIS LINK.

And remember, if you have health concerns with going this long then consider a 10 day fast or even a one day, water only fast. God looks at the heart, not the performance.

Oh, one more thing. Would you let me know what God is teaching you through your time of fasting? Just email me at pastorrob@impactchurchonline.org

Happy fasting!

In case you missed it. Here is the video we used today in our kick off of, “Dream Again.”

–       Great to see so many people all together today at 11:00 am! Thought the Panther’s game would be a drain on the crowd, but we had a good group there ready to worship and lift high the name of Jesus!

–       We talked about the power of fasting today and how it helps us to press in closer to Jesus when we desperately need to hear from Him. I challenged the church to join me in a 21 day, Daniel fast in order to start the year off the best possible way. As they were leaving worship, several told me that they were going to start TODAY!

As promised, I will be posting some vital information about the Daniel fast (as well as shorter or longer fasts) later tomorrow, but for now, know this. Even a one day fast can be spiritually beneficial. If you’ve never fasted before—you might want to start with that. Also, the Daniel fast is actually a ‘partial’ fast. You do eat on the Daniel fast—it’s just limited to certain things—in a nutshell, fruits and vegetables (any seed bearing plant), but again, more on that tomorrow on this blog.

–       For those of you who missed today and are interested in the upcoming Haiti mission trip. There is an important informational meeting after the service next weekend in the Cuthbertson Media room. If you are interested but did not sign up two weeks ago, just email me pastorrob@impactchurchonline.org and I will make sure to get you on the list. But hurry, it’s looking like we will do one trip in the very late Spring/early Summer time frame and there are already 45 people signed up. Space is limited!

–       We kicked off our series, “Dream Again” today with the first of four messages on the life of the biblical dreamer, Joseph. Here are a few key things from the message:

• When God gives you a dream, He will also get you ready to receive it (Think, ‘testing and trials’)
• The road to realizing your dream is filled with speed bumps.
• The race to realizing your dream is not a sprint—it’s a marathon.
• Fasting is one way to speed things up!

–       Next week our new turbo charged prayer begins!—from 10:00am to 10:30am in the media room. This is for people from beginners (who have never even prayed out loud) to prayer warriors and everyone in between. Come for a time of interactive prayer (at special prayer stations set up around the room) and corporate prayer as well.