40 Days Begins

Here is today's devotional for your convenience. If you would like to comment on this lesson, just add your thoughts below. May the Lord bless these days as He stretches our faith to believe in the impossible!
___________
Isaiah 58:1-14
“Discovering my Purpose for Fasting”
The passage in Isaiah 58 actually gives us 9 biblical purposes for fasting! As you think about the purpose for your own personal fast…consider each of these to discover if they fit any of the circumstances for which you are praying.
1. To break an addiction
2. To solve problems
3. To win someone to Christ
4. To break crippling fears
5. To provide for the needy
6. To provide insight for decision making
7. To provide healing
8. To have his power on my life and testimony
9. To protect from evil

Each of these are powerful ways to see God working through your life. The biblical instruction from the Gospel of Matthew for fasting is not “if” you fast, but “when” you fast! Jesus is assuming His disciples will fast. So…it is understood that all Christians should practice some form of fasting. Understood, there are some who medically cannot fast! There are additional ways to fast other than abstinence from food. That just happens to be one of the more obvious!
The type of fast that we are doing is both a corporate (the entire body of Christ is asked to fast together) and a personal fast (a time where God draws your heart to fast for a personal reason.) Some have misunderstood Jesus’ words in Matthew in the sense that you couldn’t tell anyone if you were fasting. If Jesus had meant for all fasting to be in secret, then he would have meant for all giving and all praying to be done in secret, too, as that is the context of the passage. Instead, he meant for us to fast for the right motive and not to seek to draw attention to ourselves. If our motive has been to draw attention to ourselves then we have received the only reward we will get.
Pastor Arlie Davis

Meditation: Lord, Help me to understand the significance of fasting and to fully grasp the meaning of seeing my desire be your will on earth!