Replicate Response: Fast Purposefully

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Replicate Response: Fast Purposefully

Fasting is one way of us showing God that we value His presence more than anything else in our lives. Personally, fasting is a spiritual discipline that I have always struggled with the most, but I’m honestly not surprised by that, because fasting is the action of giving up something, usually food, and clinging to God when we crave it. Fasting is not natural to us because we love our food and possessions! It goes against the flow of what our culture shows us. Fasting pushes against the cravings of our flesh and the world, and it compels us to press into and lean into God more than anything.

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Replicate Response: Pray Earnestly

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Replicate Response: Pray Earnestly

Prayer is our direct communication to God! I am still amazed at the reality that God grants me direct access to Him through prayer. It is truly amazing! Those of us who are His children and have given our lives to Him, have unlimited availability to talk to God. In our Western culture, we often take this for granted because life can be so busy and overwhelming. We also have so much at our fingertips and become easily distracted. The truth is, prayer should not just be something that we do when life is not going well or when tragedy hits. Prayer should be constant and consistent in our lives, no matter the circumstance we find ourselves in.

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Replicate Response: Give Generously

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Replicate Response: Give Generously

We are each given the task and responsibility of stewarding our finances well. Money is a gift from God, but money can also be used to our disadvantage if we are not careful. 1 Timothy 6:10 says this: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.” Paul doesn’t tell Timothy that money in itself is evil, but he does tell him that the love of money is evil. We know that money itself cannot be evil, and it is a good thing. Making money is how we take care of ourselves and provide for our needs and families. The jobs that we work give us money, which is a good and honorable thing to the Lord. The question is, though, how are we managing and using our money? 

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The Joy of Giving Back

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The Joy of Giving Back

The launch of the early church was an incredible time! When Jesus ascended to heaven after his death and resurrection, he sent his Holy Spirit to stir the hearts of his followers and spread the movement of the gospel. When we search through the Bible looking for examples of the unity within the church, the early church in the book of Acts stands out. The early church understood what it took to be on the same page. It doesn’t mean that they were perfect, but it does mean that they strived for unity through the Spirit of God. One way that the early church was unified was in their giving. The verses above represent a collection of believers coming together, equally and obediently sacrificing to the work of God and the needs of others. The text says that things were “distributed to each as any had need.” This is a difficult concept to grasp for us today because there seems to be so many needs around us.

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The Motive of Fasting

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The Motive of Fasting

It is so easy to do the right thing for the wrong reason. This is especially true when it comes to religious action. For many of us, we are pharisees deep down. We know that we should be serving God, but we really want others to see us do things for God. This can especially be true for seasons like Lent. We pray more, fast, or give during Lent so people will make sure they know we are religious. Jesus is adamantly against this. In Matthew 6, Jesus’s focus is not whether people fast or how they fast but why they fast. Jesus tells us we should keep our fasting private. In fact, we should act as though we’re not fasting. We’re fasting not to be seen by others but to be seen by God. We’re fasting to grow closer to the Lord, not to earn religious accolades.

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Jesus Can Relate

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Jesus Can Relate

Prayer is one of the most foundational disciplines and principles of the Christian life. Although we know that we should pray and need to pray, we can often be intimidated and insecure in our prayers. Thoughts come across our mind that God is distant from us or that God is too big and busy to listen to our personal prayers. Does God really pay attention and take note of our needs? Can he really relate to our situation? In this text, the author of Hebrews shares some great encouragement and insight—God is not far from us, but he is very near. Jesus was fully God, yet fully man. Because of this truth, we can be assured that Jesus had experiences, struggles, and situations in life, just like we do. In fact, in Matthew 26:36–46, Jesus earnestly prays to God the Father as he was approaching his death: “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” Jesus did not necessarily like his circumstances, or even want to walk through it, but he knew that it had to be done, and he sought out God to be his refuge in time of need.

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When You Give

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When You Give

Giving is always one of those sensitive subjects; however, giving has always been a significant element of Lent. Why? There’s something about giving. Giving is a humbling, sacrificial act. Giving is also a way in which we can manifest the love of God in a tangible way. Jesus understood this when he spoke of giving in Matthew 6. Often when we do something “religious,” we want other people to see us so we can be praised for our accomplishments. Jesus, however, reminds his followers of how we should give. Rather than make a scene when we give, Jesus says that we should not “let your hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matthew 6:3). Giving should be done so secretively that our own hand doesn’t even know what the other hand has done. Obviously Jesus was speaking figuratively, but the point still stands. Jesus’s point gets to the heart of why we give. What are our motives? Are we giving to be seen by others or to honor God and serve others? 

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The Preparation of Fasting

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The Preparation of Fasting

In the beginning of the book of Jonah, God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh, and to call the people to repent from their evil ways. Because of Jonah’s fear of the city, he goes the opposite direction, which resulted in God getting Jonah’s attention. There were great consequences for Jonah’s actions, and Jonah eventually got back on track with the calling that God gave him. The preaching that Jonah delivered to the Ninevites resulted in their preparation through fasting. This time of fasting and preparation pleased God greatly, as the king of Nineveh commanded the people in Jonah 3:7–8, “Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call our mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.” The Ninevites feared God, and did not want to experience his wrath, so they submitted to Jonah’s warning, and believed in God.

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The Position of Prayer

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The Position of Prayer

These passages of Scripture take place during Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. He stands on a mountain, and begins to teach people the truths of his gospel, explaining the Beatitudes, how to be salt and light in a dark world, fulfilling the law, dealing with anger, fighting against lust, resisting divorce, loving your enemies, and giving to the needy. Jesus covers some very difficult and relevant topics that hit the issues of that time period, and even today. He already knows what we struggle with, and what we WILL struggle with. Pride is one of these things. Jesus refers to the discipline of prayer, and how Christians are to approach prayer. In this section of Scripture, Jesus models and teaches how we are to pray, and calls it “The Lord’s Prayer.” He teaches against approaching prayer in a prideful way, as the hypocrites and Gentiles do, but rather approaching prayer in a humble and desperate way.

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