Tag: Biblical fasting

Fasting To Grieve Before The Lord

Author: Lisa Groen

Category: Devotional and prayer

May we be careful of not trying to add fasting to times of the motions of drama where we might be prone to exaggerate our cries to God. I have been prompted to sort out my own emotions looking for signs of drama in my requests to God as I have taken on a long-term substitute teaching assignment in my community and I daily encounter the occurrence of drama and of over-realized “sensitive-trigger buttons which the students become overly vocalized about”. And I know at once it should not be something I let sway me as I realize that there can be floods of “whims” of students that may be unaware of the temptations pushing them to leverage control over the direction of the class. OOOh, how this renews my perspective of the carefulness of Our Loving Heavenly Father who must daily weigh what is best for us when it might or might not be a “virtue producing thing” for Him to answer our many rivers of egocentric prayers, and discern the best times for an optimum approach of His to produce more fruit in us even when He says “No!” Even in his “Nos” when he chooses them he is building in us a confidence that we can know he has our best interest in His mind. As I am in position to promote my hopefully healthy response to the flood of requests in my class, I need to use discernment and guard against forces who may try to veer my tasks off course in my teaching and building the classroom into a healthy environment.

God is in the salvation business so to speak, and God saves us by grace through faith—but not by our prayers exactly. God can clearly save people who can’t talk—so the verbal measure of prayer is not as important as the faith measure of a prayer because prayer can be done in the heart. Mourning over sin can be done in the heart as well, and yet in our running to God, let us remember that we need not to have every request heard by those around us nor every motion of fasting noticed by others! Public fasting and prayer is definitely not a bad thing, because we can see it OFTEN presented corporately in the scripture, so we know corporate fasts are something God uses in the Old and New Testaments, but let us also remember it can be done as a show, and people of faith should avoid that. But on the days we might slip in our footing and go sideways into “having too much of our prayer and fasting noticed by mere flesh and blood”– we may realize then that the power is not solely in the corporate fasting and praying we do with others or even with spouses, but truly having to do with the measure of our faith in God.

Isn’t this folly also in us at times? Is it not also a natural temptation for Christians to get tempted toward narcissism when offered free “asking privileges”, and shouldn’t the awareness of this really cause us to seek to make our requests do the opposite of narcissistic motions? May we seek to discern more greatly about “any drama or narcissistic tendencies” in us, and may we push vigorously away from them, and discern more greatly our true needs for real and fitting motions of mourning, grieving, and fasting, and seek to sorrowing over different categories of things in our lives worthy of our mourning, grieving and fasting…Have we freely found the right temper and persistence for….

Grieving over our sins, our lost ground, our missed chances for carrying out a prompting of God?

Grieving over our loved ones’ losses, or grieving about how distant we or they are from God?

Grieving over the lost on a larger scale, in our communities, in our nation, grieving over our lack of having a voice in our school board meetings, or over the missing power in our voice to prompt the legal system in our governments towards more righteous law making?

Grieving over the broken state of our churches, our missing times of “repairing the broken walls (as Nehemiah did)” or that we are missing the very “Nehemiah—like Leaders” who will bring a cry to the nation for our participation in the corporate need for spiritual building, fortifying, and healing?

Grieving over our callousness, blindness, coldness, too thick-skinned-ness, our roughness, sharpness, failures to say the right thing at the right time, our failures to aim to “seek and save the lost”, for the feeling others may have had about us as in perceiving some “seeming deadness or insensitivity”, or in having an unawareness to the true needs out there, our denial, minimizing, living as if nothing is wrong, our justifying sin, our rationalizing, our spiritualizing, failure to grieve over holes and cracks in the broken walls, our failure to grieve thoroughly over the harvest that we are not just sure we may have seen falling to the ground, grieving over not crying out for needing more workers in the harvest fields, grieving over our failure to pursue a steady flow of steady spiritual growth if called to a long term many years of this and we have gotten tired—-and drifted from our calls, or to grieve because of the presence of more of these kinds of failures we tell ourselves aren’t happening—because no one ELSE is grieving about these things, that come to mind except maybe a few…

Is it that we believe too heavily in the Sovereignty of God that we convince ourselves our “fasting can’t add another person to the kingdom that God has not already predestined to come to Him?” If people believe this last statement, then I would say, “it must be you shouldn’t pray either then because if God uses NOTHING of the faith of people to get his will done, then, you must be saying our prayers to Him are meaningless!!” Didn’t Jesus demonstrate the very OPPOSITE belief and works of power throughout his ministry? We should never MINIMIZE our role in fasting and prayer or the use God may choose to put our fasting and prayer to.

It is a strange kind of thing that God does in his validating the faith of Ahab, in 1 Kings 21:25-29 in his remorse, prayer, fasting, and humility after saying he previously “SOLD HIMSELF TO DO EVIL”. Could it be that by the mourning, grieving, fasting, and sorrow of one of the most broken sinners, who was so unique in all of history that GOD Himself first says in 1 Kings 21:25-26 “Surely there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife incited him. 26 He acted very abominably in following idols, according to all that the Amorites had done, whom the Lord cast out before the sons of Israel.” —then later, how did this Ahab discover through fasting, mourning, grieving, and humbling himself, that he could receive some amount of God’s mercy, enough to save his life after God said he should die, even after being called so evil and “abominable” by God, that God made mention of him to the prophet Elijah after his repentance that his going about meekly, and remorsefully caught His attention so that He even spared his life? It is worth repeating even if to ourselves alone that God makes mention of the formerly evil person’s humbling himself with prayers and fasting even to the prophet, that God changes his plans for Ahab!  It says in 1Kings 21:27-29 “It came about when Ahab heard these words, that he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and fasted, and he lay in sackcloth and went about despondently. 28 Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying 29 “Do you see how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but I will bring the evil upon his house in his son’s days.” That is a good place to pause and meditate!

Prayer: Oh God our Gracious Heavenly Father! How deep is our need for you! How slow is our believing! How broken our lives and cities, and of the nations of the world! How dull we have been to hearing you! How slow we have been to keep in step with You! How many are Your mercies! How real is the hope that lies before us to grieve for the lost for their salvation! How entreatable You ARE! How quickly we forget we are in a war over our hearts! How much we need to do regular re-adjusting of our spiritual trajectory to fulfill all Your good will for our lives and to be fully shaped by You to bear the fruits of our ministries! Oh God! Please forgive us, renew us, grant repentance, faith, hope, grace, perseverance, pure motives and help us with walking daily as we should to reflect in our actions what we believe about you in our hearts! I pray Oh Lord, may Your mercy prevail! And please grant good fruit through this time of seeking You with prayer and fasting Oh Lord! May we truly be able to stretch forth our tent straps and may You fill our tents with more brothers and sisters in the Kingdom and may the fruit be to the praise of Your glory Oh Lord! I ask dear Lord in Your Name Oh God! Amen!

Keep growing in the Word! LG

24 Biblical Blessings From Fasting for Today

Author: Lisa Groen

Why did OT believers or I, myself have to do anything to “get” God’s presence? As fasting is an approach that is taken by some to draw near to God, we can see similar postures of heart comparable to fasting were prescribed and even ordained by God in the Old Testament. Fasting goes hand in hand with mourning or taking a heart posture of sorrow, self-denial and self-control. Are developing these truly a good work for the believer? This sorrow of fasting is not a type of play acting that God is telling us to do like a child play acts sad and cries with fussy “tears” to manipulate their parents. Fasting is not a process comparable to the “refusal of food” a child might do to try to get the parents to do something the child wants in order to make the child happy. Biblical fasting is for “the believer” (at a minimum) because fasting isn’t needed by God to help God hear us more effectively. There is nothing deficient in God’s hearing. God is not dependent on us, but he does enable pathways by which the believer can draw nearer to God. But let’s examine how is it used to help a believer draw near to God.

Let’s first read how God addresses the lack of self-denial, entitlement, and several other self-gratifying attitudes spoken of in Isaiah 58:

Isaiah 58:3 Why have we fasted and You do not see? Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?’—-this is entitlement
Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire, —-this is entitlement
And oppress all your workers. —-This is an absence of self-control
4 Behold, you fast for contention and strife, and to strike with a wicked fist. —-This is an absence of self-control
You do not fast like you have done today to make your voice heard on high!—maybe they were fasting physically but in their hearts they had wrong attitudes.
5 Is it a fast like this that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself?—short lived “humility” or “an outward spiritual show”
Is it for bowing one’s head like a reed— short lived “humility” or “an outward spiritual show”
And for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed? —this is all outward show but doesn’t mention heart attitudes changing.
Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the Lord?

God’s fast appears to be the solution God gives for breaking the entitlement attitude off of us (vs. 3) and appears to be God’s solution for breaking off of us the menacing lack of self-control.(behold…you find your desire, vs 3), and appears to restore back godly self-control. Fasting appears to deal with getting rid of the wrong attitude of the heart, like the heartless using physical force against people. (vs. 4) Fasting deals with getting rid of the wrong belief that just bowing yourself to God like a reed for a day (the pride of a spiritual appearance) that related to the idea they will get noticed by God for their spirituality. They were wanting their voices to be heard on high, and Isaiah doesn’t say that that was a bad pursuit, but just that the way they were going about it was bad. A list of actions in Isaiah 58:1-5 were fruitless, or wretched, and self-indulgent and fasting is shown to be the hatchet that would cut them away. Fasting can build the discipline of maintaining a longer-term posture of humility instead of just humbling yourself for a day (vs. 5). Next, fasting can make our prayers more effective in causing or letting the oppressed go free (vs 6) undoing the bonds of wickedness (vs 6) and undoing the bonds of the yoke and that every yoke of wickedness would be broken (vs 6).

Let’s look at a more extensive list of 24 direct blessings from fasting:

6 Is this not the fast that I choose:
To release the bonds of wickedness,  —blessing 1
To undo the ropes of the yoke, —blessing 2
And to let the oppressed go free, —blessing 3
And break every yoke? —blessing 4
7 Is it not to break your bread with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, to cover him;
And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
8 Then your light will break out like the dawn, —blessing 5
And your recovery will spring up quickly; —blessing 6
And your righteousness will go before you; —blessing 7
The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. —blessing 8
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; —blessing 9
You will cry for help, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ —blessing 10
If you remove the yoke from your midst,
The pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness,
10 And if you offer yourself to the hungry
And satisfy the need of the afflicted,
Then your light will rise in darkness, —blessing 11
And your gloom will become like midday. —blessing 12
11 And the Lord will continually guide you, —blessing 13
And satisfy your desire in scorched places, —blessing 14
And give strength to your bones; —blessing 15
And you will be like a watered garden, —blessing 16
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. —blessing 17
12 Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; —blessing 18
You will raise up the age-old foundations; —blessing 19
And you will be called the repairer of the breach, —blessing 20
The restorer of the streets in which to dwell. —blessing 21

13 “If, because of the Sabbath, you restrain your foot
From doing as you wish on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a pleasure, and the holy day of the Lord honorable,
And honor it, desisting from your own ways,
From seeking your own pleasure
And speaking your own word,
14 Then you will take delight in the Lord, —blessing 22
And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; —blessing 23
And I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, —blessing 24
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

God shows us He is truly responsive to a mournful heart, and tears of repentance and sorrowful seeking of Him, as people knew their brokenness and need for Him. In Isaiah 58, God gives at list of 24 spoken blessings God that come with the right heart attitude of self-denial that goes with fasting and does not  take away these 24 promises for the believer after Jesus went to the cross. The promises of Isaiah 58 are still active and alive today. Isaiah 58 seems to be about the theme of self-denial and self-control in seeking the Lord, and the lack of self-denial and self-control. The desire to build these back again and making room for self-control and self-denial leads were possibly the singular cause and best reason today in the New Testament for God’s people to resort to fasting.

Keep growing in the Word! LG

The Power of Fasting, Weeping, and Mourning

Author: Lisa Groen

Joel 2:12-13a reads, “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning; 13 And rend your heart and not your garments.” Now return to the Lord your God,…”

Here is yet another Biblical account of fasting, weeping, and mourning going hand in hand for God’s people. It is interesting that not all Biblical accounts of these come with a prophet or with God CALLING his people to fast, but Joel 2 does. When a biblical call is given by a prophet or directly from God to a group or an individual, it usually is done with the idea that those who are called to some task, or to God, will be brought somewhere God will chose, or will go somewhere God will chose, simply by following the call, and simultaneously are told to exit or leave a place, leave their life of sin, or let go of some desired circumstance, environment, belief or tradition. 

In the case of the call of the fast in Joel 2, the options for God’s people are clear. Joel sets the stage with the prophecy about the circumstances surrounding the day of the Lord. Joel 2 sounds like a judgement from God falling on all of the earth. Indeed, it is. But Joel 1-2 sets the reader up with by allowing some blindness about what the reasons are for the worldwide judgement. There is no mention of anyone’s sin in Joel 1 or 2, and so logically we are not given the tools to “assign the blame or the cause” for the destruction in Joel 1 & 2 on anyone specifically, nor for any sin or group of sins, specifically. The on-purpose design I believe given by God in the book of Joel is to get the reader to think about and search for what could possibly be the reason for the judgement of God and the day of the Lord—the terror, the crops dying, the seeds withering, the flocks going hungry, the invasion of the army of locusts, widespread destruction, and the fire burning behind them and before them…(to mention a few of the judgements in Joel 1-2). With nothing but emergencies happening, we are given Joel 2:12-13a “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning; 13 And rend your heart and not your garments.” Now return to the Lord your God.”

“Return to Me with all your heart” tells the reader they must leave something behind and go towards the Lord. It tells us those who hear Joel’s prophecy were once following the Lord, and must return. And the way it is written by not mentioning specific sins in Joel 1-2 allows for the individual to meet with God and to hear God personally speak to him or her, or remind them of scripture that points to sin, as they fast, weep and mourn for what to leave behind and what it will take to return to God.  In this way it is only with following the call to fasting, weeping, and mourning that these things become the light switch that will illuminate God’s truth for God’s people and begin to give them insight as to what to repent of and for how to return to the Lord.

The phrase “Yet even now…” speak volumes to us today to answer the call to fast, weep, and mourn, for our sins and for the sins of the God’s people and for the whole land around us. If we have reason to think we need not fast, Joel chapters 1-2 breaks apart every reason to think this way, because the day of the Lord has not yet happened. Until we see the blessings of Joel 2:13-14, 17-32 come to pass and unfold before our eyes, which appear to be the results of God’s people responding to Him, we have every reason to fast, and weep and mourn and to seek to return to the Lord, and to seek God that others around us in the church and in the world would be enabled to return to the Lord as well.

The prayer is a little longer today as I wanted to cover a lot of bases and holiday issues.

Prayer:

Dear Lord, as we know you are Sovereign, and that the day of the Lord will come, and that you have planned it, and that destruction will come with it, but you have given us and countless people the wisdom from the book of Joel. And you are wonderfully Sovereign and yet allow the space of time between Joel’s writings and the day of the Lord to encourage your people to seek you with all of our hearts. You are Sovereign and you will have your way and you do not enjoy the destruction of the wicked, and you “take no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Eze 18:23, 33:11) and there are blessings in the latter half of Joel 2 that will Sovereignly come as your people seek you. But you say in Joel 2:14 “Who knows whether He will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him…” so you call us to do our part and fast, weep, and mourn, and return to you. Please work with our humanity as we seek you. You never call us to a pursuit of no purpose. Dear Lord, may your purposes of the call in Joel for us to fast, weep and mourn and to return to You, with all of our hearts be fulfilled as we draw near to you and cry out to you. Give us grace to fast, weep and mourn and grace to return to you individually and for the people around us with all of our hearts, as you reveal things to us to repent of and also to those in our land around us, Oh Lord, as we seek you today. And as we seek you may we be refreshed and renewed and though this time of consecration may you open the doors for ministry opportunities be opened. Strengthen us in the opportunities that we now have, and for the assignments you have given us.

Keep growing in the Word! LG

Fasting to Direct Our Hearts To Serve The Lord

Author: Lisa Groen

Today we will look briefly at one account of God’s people returning to the Lord with all their heart and how fasting is involved in this process, and have a prayer in response. Thursday we will cover Joel 2. 

1Samuel 7:3-6 Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you return to the Lord with all your heart, remove the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your hearts to the Lord and serve Him alone; and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.” 4 So the sons of Israel removed the Baals and the Ashtaroth and served the Lord alone. 5 Then Samuel said, “Gather all Israel to Mizpah and I will pray to the Lord for you.” 6 They gathered to Mizpah, and drew water and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day and said there, “We have sinned against the Lord.”

In previous places in 1 Samuel, we can determine why Samuel gave the admonition for God’s people to return to the Lord with all their heart. There was a CONSEQUENCE for Israel if they did NOT return to the Lord with all their hearts. The consequences of staying where they were at “in their hearts” was to suffer the pain of the current broken social and military position Israel had amidst other persecuting nations. In 1st Samuel this meant the Philistines would continue to be attack, harass, abuse, and control the Israelites in various ways.

A first step God gave his people as to how they were to return to the Lord with all their heart, was to “remove the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your hearts to the Lord and serve Him alone”. Once Samuel spoke to them about the false gods in verse 3, they removed them in verse 4. Now that some outer obstacles were dealt with, they were ready to work on a change in their “inner life” in order to be able to follow the command to “return to the Lord with all your hearts”.  When their hearts were occupied with other gods, they were not admitting their sins to God. But by verse 6, they began admitting “We have sinned against the Lord.” (highlighted for reference) It took Samuel to point out their sin with a promise of hope in verse 3, and so their sin became a problem to them, and their sin became real to them. Perhaps they were realizing for the first time that it was their sin that had opened the door for the Philistines to constantly attack them over many years. When their sin became real to them in verse 6, they confessed their sin. If they had previously been aware of their sin, would some have confessed it already? But not until verse 6 does it mention they confessed their sin, and they undergo some great healing as a nation by God giving them great deliverance. God was responding to their change of heart, and Proverbs 28:13 was coming true for them: He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. As Israel was embracing their whole-heartedness in turning away from their sin, they fasted in verse 6 with true genuineness, because they were finally telling the truth about their sin, and finally their hearts were becoming fully engaged in fasting/mourning for their sins as they were serving God.

Verses 10-14 describe the multi-layered victory God gave them: God gave the Israelites victory against the Philistines as long as Samuel was alive, God struck the Philistines down, the Israelites recovered all the cities which the Philistines had taken, the Philistines stayed outside the borders of Israel, and Israel had peace.

Lord, as we consider the importance of fasting through many Bible examples, may we also engage our hearts in fully serving you. May we receive your direction for how to wholeheartedly serve you and do the physical work of getting rid of false gods or false loves of any kind in our life and see them for what they are—these types of things CAN open the door for the enemy to harass, attack and “invade” certain areas of our lives. We know that not every attack is due to some sin or false god in our lives, and not every hardship is a result of some sin or false god. We also know you promised that in this world we would have tribulation, and we often see lots of it, but you promised that we could be of good cheer because you have overcome the world. May we not get into speculation of why problems exist in our lives and not be prone to condemnation, but may we also as we pray for success, protection, grace for living out our Christianity, our ministries, and depend on your discernment for success. But may we also remember how right it is to weigh out honestly in our minds that famous John Calvin quote, that “The human heart is an idol factory, churning out new idols like the conveyor belt in a manufacturing plant rolling out new widgets.” May we take warning, and may you grant us good solid discernment to know if we have any sins that we are blind to that we need to repent of that may be weakening us, and may it only be from your discernment that we follow and perceive our condition. May we follow truth and have clear vision. May we mourn and grieve appropriately for our sins, and by grace forsake them and find mercy. And as we do so, may we keep the victories of 1 Samuel 7 before our minds, that you are the God who desires truth in the inner man, and you are the God who gives us a love for the truth and will cause us to truly hate any false gods we might have once loved. May we worship you singularly, and with joy wholeheartedly, and see fasting is a strategic tool of mercy that can strengthen us and sharpen us in our renouncing sin, and in turning from it and in our pursuit of you and in our living for you and living out our love for you. May you through the process that you need to take us, grant us recovery of any parts of our lives, our homes, or of the places we trod, or that we work, that have been harassed or broken into by the enemy, to us and to our loved ones, that you would restore them to us, and dedicate them afresh to you, and allow that the promise that we would live in peaceful dwelling places as in Isaiah 32:18 be granted. May you grant us that we would keep our hearts devoted to you and forever raptured by your goodness, your grace, your strength, your mercy, truth, and love, and, all the more as we see the day approaching. I pray this in your great name dear Lord, Amen!

Keep growing in the Word! LG

How Effective Could Fasting Possibly Be? I Mean, Can’t We Just Pray and See Results?

Author: Lisa Groen

It is my aim that today’s devotional will be motivational and show us the difference fasting can make for the believer, based on the first instance of fasting in the Bible that I came across after looking at a few different translations.

It begins in Judges 20:4 where a Levite tells of the death of his concubine, and later in the chapter Israel fasts and finds victory, but they have a slow and painful start until they add the corporate fasting.

Judges 20:4 And the Levite, the husband of the woman that was slain, answered and said, I came into Gibeah that belongeth to Benjamin, I and my concubine, to lodge. He tells how some men from Benjamin had raped her all night and murdered her and how evil it was that this happened. (And strangely the Levite doesn’t take responsibility for not protecting her… but that point is for another day…)

The response of “Israel” is to “go up against Benjamin”.

Problem #1 was even though they had unity as stated in verse 11, (So all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, knit together as one man) They were overpowered by Benjamin and had a lot of loss of life of 22,000 Israelite soldiers. They prayed again to God for what to do….and encountered another problem

Problem #2 was even though they sought the Lord and got an answer from the Lord to “fight them” they were still overpowered by Benjamin and had more loss of life–18,000 more Israelite soldiers died.

Then in verse 26 they add the fasting solution: 26 Then all the children of Israel, and all the people, went up, and came unto the house of God, and wept, and sat there before the Lord, and fasted that day until even, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. 27 And the children of Israel enquired of the Lord, (for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days, 28 And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days,) saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother, or shall I cease? And the Lord said, Go up; for tomorrow I will deliver them into thine hand.

When we read from verses 29-48, we can see the Lord providing his people the strength and fighting power and overcoming ability to overtake their enemy and to deal out justice against wayward Benjamin for the horrible acts of rape and death that several of the men from Benjamin did against the innocent concubine.

This chapter is a clear picture of the power fasting gives in following out the command of God to fight the good fight of faith. For Israel to do nothing in response to finding out about what happened to the Levite’s concubine, would have been another atrocity and deep injustice because of the sin, but also the people of God, when united, when having the arc of God in their presence, and when having the go-ahead Twice from God to fight the enemy, should have been able to win! But they were wounded in battle, and had a lot of loss of life and the ONE solution that worked in their favor was to FAST.

Now, I know the Old Testament is not an exact parallel to the New, but Jesus never tells us in the New Testament that fasting is UNNECESSRY, but does the opposite, when he says “This kind only goes out with prayer and fasting…” So, based on our Old Testament example, we must consider the cost of not fasting (40,000 unnecessary deaths) and the rewards for fasting as seen here, and logically count it as well worth doing …

It is very probable that this story in the OT represents some of the battles in the NT that need to be fought with heavenly power and WILL require fasting in order to win. And some battles may possibly need a whole army to fight an injustice against maybe one single person when that person represents Christendom today. May we be people dedicated to being available for God to use to fight with victory and be ready to fast and pray when circumstances call for it that His message will travel like an army spreading righteousness across the land.

Amen!

Lord may we fast at your leading!

Keep growing in the Word! LG