After The Prayer & Fasting…
The end of the 7-Day Prayer and Fasting tonight doesn’t mark the end of seeking God.
In fact, seeking God is a lifestyle, which every Christian should practice because the nourishment of our spirit lies on our relationship with God.
Personally, the annual practice of prayer and fasting has helped me get spiritually recalibrated. Too much ministry isn’t a pretty accurate gauge of one’s spiritual health.
You can be active in the ministry and yet be spiritually malnourished.
So as we break our fast tonight after our prayer and worship night Victory-wide, I encourage you to maintain the attitude of dependence on God, seeking Him and being sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
For sure, as we let God lead and guide us, our 2011 will be a year worth remembering.
Let me leave you with these verses from Proverbs 3:5-8
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. 7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. 8 This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.
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Able & Willing
My dad is one of the hardest working people I’ve known in my 34 years of existence. He’s generous as well, always thinking of us or other people before himself.
However, here’s what I noticed, while his generosity amazes and inspires me a lot, there are times when he just doesn’t have the capacity to give when we ask for something. In other words, he’s willing, but not able.
This morning, I’m reminded of Someone from the Bible who is not only willing to intervene in our lives daily, but even able to sustain us, provide for us and reveal to us who He really is.
Reading the brief account of the leper, who had the guts to approach Jesus during his early years of ministry (see Mark 1:40-45), here are some interesting observations I had.
Without hesitation, this leper broke the rules of his time by approaching Christ in public (Leviticus 13:45-46) . You see, lepers during their time, were not allowed to mingle with “healthy” ones. He could have received harsh treatment from people for approaching Jesus. But he didn’t mind it anymore. All he wanted was to exercise his faith by coming to Jesus.
Jesus knew the prevailing cultural practice of his time. Lepers were outcasts of the society. It was a deadly, infectious disease. But Jesus wasn’t intimidated. He didn’t bow to the rules of his time. He was above legalism. What He saw instead was a man who needed healing and the validation of his faith.
So when the leper came to Him and asked that he be healed, Jesus healed him by touching him. Instantly, the man was cleansed from his disease.
The disease that all his life, left him unwanted, burdened, publicly humiliated and despised–all disappeared in his life-changing encounter with the Lord.
We all are like the leper at some point. We carry with us a disease that makes us outcasts in our society. Our habits, lifestyle, immorality–all these, make us “infectious” and therefore, considered the “outcasts” of our family, or circle of people we live with.
Yet, such a disease loses its grip on us when we humble ourselves before the Lord. Acknowledge that by our own effort, we can’t do anything significant. And then yield out lives completely to His reign.
For Jesus’ cleansing of the leper was a testament to Christ’s power and authority over anything that burdens and enslaves people, including sickness and disease.
Are you burdened? Sick? Discouraged? In pain emotionally or spiritually?
Christ is there, always willing and able.
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It Is Written…
Word power versus will power.
I’ve heard of that a lot of times as a Christ-follower, but sometimes, I subtly shift to the will-power mode when facing tasks or challenges in life.
Ahh, will power. Like any human being, we all tend to “will” our way to victory when challenges, tests or trials surround us like a huge army.
The sad fact is, no matter how hard we try to “will” our way to victory, we just can’t win at all.
Our battles against lust for example, is a classic case of “you-can’t-will-your-way-to-victory”.
When Jesus was tempted in the desert after fasting for 40 days, the devil threw his own temptation jabs, but each time, Jesus retaliated by declaring the word of God.
Take a look at Matthew 4 in Jesus’ encounter with the devil:
3The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
Notice what Jesus did with each of the devil’s temptation jab--He said, IT IS WRITTEN.
It would have been easy to follow the route the devil was telling him because Jesus could turn the stones into bread in a snap of a finger. But He didn’t. Instead, Jesus quoted God’s word, wielding it like a sword that struck the devil.
The devil took Jesus to the highest point of the mountain, showing him the splendor of the world, offering Him all the “best” that life could offer–fame, huge following, power–but Jesus didn’t buy in to the devil’s offer.
Again, Jesus quoted the word of God.
For every temptation jab, there’s a way to retaliate. We can learn from Jesus’ encounter with the devil.
When you’re facing the temptation jabs of the devil, or the jabs of worry and anxiety, jabs of lust or jabs of unworthiness, you and I can follow Christ’s example by facing these jabs head on and say: IT IS WRITTEN.
Hebrews 4:12 says, 12For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
The next time you feel the itch of leaning on “will power”, pause, then shift to the word power mode because the Bible is every Christ-follower’s main weapon.
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Stubborn Faith
I’ve read the story of the bleeding woman in Mark 5:25-34 a lot of times already. And my faith also gets a huge boost each time I read it.
Story goes like this. The woman has been bleeding for 12 years. Imagine, bleeding for 12 years? Day and night she’d endure the bleeding. Blood all over her bed, bedroom when she stands up and blood dripping down her legs and feet. She had to endure the loss of blood, regular bouts of anemia causing dizziness when she stands up or tries to walk, perhaps loss of appetite also.
Mark, the Gospel author also mentioned that she had suffered a great deal even though she was under the care of many doctors. We go to doctors usually to know why we get sick, get diagnosed, and hopefully, be given the right medication so we could recover.
But here, the woman’s condition only grew worse (verse 26). That’s not just sad. That’s really, really bad! I presume she used to be wealthy and lived a decent life. But when sickness struck her, she eventually withered financially and her life was never the same again.
However, life didn’t end tragically for this woman. She had a slim opportunity to get well because Jesus was in town.
I say slim, because verse 25 says the crowd was pressing hard on Jesus. You know, people, who brought their sick relatives and friends and family members were also there to ask for Christ to touch them so they get healed instantly.
The problem was this woman was bleeding. She’s weak, and the thought of getting crushed by the mad rush of the crowd might only get her killed.
Yet, she was hopeful. And in faith, that this is God’s divine opportunity for her to get well.
Check out verses 27-29.
27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed. 29 Immediately, her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.”
That’s simply amazing! In her act of faith, what was once an imposing giant of sickness suddenly went down in a loud thud when she reached Jesus’ cloak. She got healed in the process!
Maybe she thought she did something terrible as well, because when she saw Jesus looking around to find who touched Him, she trembled in fear (verse 33).
But then, she mustered the courage she had and told Jesus the truth. And here was Christ’s response.
34 Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in preace and be freed from your suffering.”
Jesus commended her for her stubborn faith. Bucking the maddening crowd, overcoming her fears and withstanding the many what ifs that was bugging her before she decided to touch Jesus’ cloak.
Maybe you’re also “bleeding” right now. You’re in a situation where your financial challenges, challenges in your work, career or business, make you “bleed” spiritually.
You’re not alone. Everyone goes through seasons like that.
But you can choose to act with a stubborn faith. A faith that refuses to accept the status quo but willingly declares, I’ll trust Jesus.
Go ahead, touch His cloak in prayer. Touch His cloak by declaring God’s precious promises from the Bible.
Jesus isn’t going to give you a cold-shoulder treatment. He hears and most of all, He answers people who have stubborn faith.
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Fear of God
I’m going through the book of Exodus for more than a week now. You know, the 10 plagues the Lord brought as judgment to the gods of Pharaoh and Egypt, the Israelites’ miraculous exodus from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the water from the rock, and a whole lot more.
Of course, one of the highlights there was the giving of the 10 Commandments by the Lord to Moses.
And surely, it’s more than just another scene straight from the movie. It’s the Lord Himself, inscribing the Laws in a carved stone before giving it to Moses.
However, beyond the miracles and wonders the Lord had shown in the book of Exodus, one thing I’m learning again is the fear of God.
Exodus 20:20 says, Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”
The fear of God. I used to think it’s God, ready to throw down bolts of lightning to an imperfect, stubborn person like me.
But as I grew in my relationship with God, I realized that to fear God isn’t negative in anyway. Instead, it’s a person’s response to a forgiving, gracious and loving God.
It’s actually submitting to Christ’s kingship or rulership, which says, Jesus, I yield my heart, mind and soul to you. I’m no longer calling the shots for my life. But I let you call the shots and direct the affairs of my life.
Here are some realizations I had about the fear of God:
-the fear of God doesn’t come by accident. It doesn’t just happen one day.
-the fear of God instead, comes when we get exposed to God’s Presence. When we experience Him daily. Experiencing Him in our daily devotion with Him. When we pray and seek Him in His word.
-It’s being conscious of God and desiring to please Him daily rather than satisfy our own selfish desires.
Fear of God. It’s more than just a feeling. It’s an everyday decision to let God be God over your life.
