It is my prayer that you have a blessed and productive 2011 as you shine like stars in your world and take forth the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This study booklet is a little different to what you have been used to. The material presented will simply flow on from day to day as each topic is presented. You could, if you needed to, simply read all the material as a normal booklet. I have broken the reading into the days of the week with prayer points so that you can continue the blessed habit of reading and praying regularly.
As always I encourage you to be prayerful beyond the points listed here. Ask friends, family, brothers and sisters in the Lord regularly how you can be praying for them and add the prayer points to your list in this reading booklet. But please, remember. God is not a shop assistant or check out operator. He is not a magical genie that gives us our three wishes each day. To help avoid that mentality you can include all the various types of prayers in your quiet time with the Lord.
Adoration is telling God how wonderful He is and how beautiful His character is. Focus on God’s character and being, His personality and traits. Use a CD about God’s goodness and sing along. God is pleased with such worship
Confession is admitting your sins and shortfalls to God. Ask Him to forgive you and rejoice in 1 John 1:9.
Thanksgiving is taking the time to thank God for the thing’s He’s done throughout history, at the cross and for you (and in your life personally). Each and every day you should have dozens of things to thank God for.
Supplication is where we bring our needs and concerns to God. This is where you pray for your friends and family and missionary contacts etc.
May God bless you greatly and use you powerfully in 2011.
Pastor Esa Hukkinen
Read Isaiah 58
Conclusion:
Having studied several Sscriptures and having spent the day in prayer, it appears that fasting is a vital and integral part of the believer’s life. Fasting serves several purposes and ends, being chiefly a way to commit oneself to the Lord above all other things, even the need for food.
Fasting is not an activity in and of itself. It is God directed and carried out in humility, obedience and dependence upon the Lord. Without the right heart or attitude, fasting is a waste of time that serves little or no benefit. Even though fasting is God directed, it has benefits for others around us. Our time of abstinence is a time where we can and should focus on the needs of the poor, those needing justice, the underprivileged and so on. It is possible that the food/money saved by our fasting be dedicated to feeding the hungry.
Fasting can be both corporate and private. Privately, fasting is to be done with a spirit of righteousness and humility. All possibilities of self gain, self promotion and public gaining approval are to be rejected and avoided. Corporately, we are called to fast when collective repentance is needed, when elders are elected and committed to the Lord, when corporate decisions/answers from the Lord are needed and so on.
By all teachings of Scripture, Christians can and should fast for a variety of reasons. Fasting is appropriate when:-
- repentance is called for
- a particular meeting with God is required
- an answer for God is required
- sin needs to be overcome
- elders are elected/chosen and brought before the Lord.
Again scripturally speaking fasting has benefits or blessings associated with it. In particular God promises to hear us and answer us when we fast with a right spirit and attitude. He promises to let our righteousness shine, to bring healing and wholeness and to guide us. Indeed Jesus Himself promised that humble, sincere fasting will bring heavenly reward.
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