iBelin

What is Fasting?

// November 3rd, 2009 // 3 Comments » // fasting, prayer

Fasting is abstaining from food.  This is the general definition.  Breakfast is to break the fast of the previous night.  Specific to our purposes, fasting in abstaining from food with a spiritual purpose at heart.  Because fasting is spiritual in nature, when you abstain from food, you should also abstain from behaviors and activities that would distract you from your spiritual goals.

You fast because you are seeking to allow your spirit to become stronger.  Fasting shifts your attention from your flesh to your spirit and allows you to be more attuned to God.  God is a Spirit and we must come to God in spirit and truth (John 4:24 ).  Fasting is effectively shedding your flesh with all it’s whining and complaining and neediness so that you can feed your spirit.  When you spirit becomes stronger, so will your body and your emotions.  Spirit permeates everything there is, so to ignore your spirit is really to disconnect and isolate yourself.  To ignore your spirit is to miss out on the fullness of life.  To ignore your spirit is to ignore yourself.

Your spirit is at your center.  Your spirit is your core.  This is the "secret place of the Most High" the psalmist sings about in Psalm 91 .  Here is where God resides.  Many people seek all over the place for God only to find that the search ends within themselves (John 4:19-24 ).  This is God’s promise to us: God will be with us and in us (John 14:16-17 ).  Fasting helps us to reach our Center.

Click here for Why Fast?

Why Fast?

// November 3rd, 2009 // 5 Comments » // fasting, prayer

We fast to strengthen our relationship with God (Nehemiah 9).  Jesus assumes fasting will be a regular practice (Matthew 6:16-18 ).  The regular practice of fasting helps us grow spiritually stronger like exercise helps the body.

Fasting goes hand in hand with prayer.  Fasting is a spiritual practice and prayer is the language of the spirit. You fast to empower your prayer life.  There are many reasons to fast and pray:

Fast and pray to hear God’s voice more clearly and to know God’s Will (Daniel 9:3-4 ).

Fast and pray for spiritual clarity (Daniel 10 ).

Fast and pray to bring down strongholds in your life and the lives of those around you.

Fast and pray for direction and clarity in making decisions (Acts 13:1-3).

Fast and pray to free yourself and others of addictions.

Fast and pray to become more spiritually empowered.

Fast and pray for spiritual breakthrough (Joel 2:15-32 ).

Fast and pray for clarity and healing (Isaiah 58:6-9 ).

Fast and pray to create order in your life and in your household.

Fast and pray for God’s help against the enemy (2 Chronicles 20:1-30 ).

God is Speaking. Are We Listening?

// July 21st, 2009 // 7 Comments » // Discipline, prayer

Prayer is a conversation, right?  So, why are we doing so much of the talking?  Listening is an essential part of conversation.  It requires being quiet and allowing your conversation partner time to talk.  God wants that time with us.  Timeout for going into prayer with a list of complaints and demands!  I know for myself, had I spent more time listening in days gone by I would not have as much to complain about and demand today.

I am living through a very difficult challenge right now (details ain’t your business so keep it moving) about which I prayed and prayed.  I prayed for God to “work it out” and every time I thought I heard God saying “no” I prayed louder and longer (even threw some tongues in there for good measure).  Finally, I worked my way into the circumstance I wanted God to work out for me.  Today, that very circumstance has me in a headlock!  But, even though I’m in this headlock, I can still breathe.  Every time I inhale it’s grace and every exhale is mercy.

God is speaking.  Are we listening?

God is speaking to us concerning our families, His Church, our communities and this wonderful world over which He has given us stewardship.  Are we listening? Or, are we trying to talk over what God is saying because we want something else.  Hey! Let me tell you like Sophia told Celie, “Don’t exchange places with what I been through…” Let’s listen to God.

God’s Words are what we live on: our hope, our joy, our peace.  God is speaking to our hearts right now.  If we will just be still and quiet ourselves to listen, “wonderful Words of Life” will pour into our hearts and give to us all we need but often don’t have sense to ask for.

• Have you ever tried to outtalk God? Have you ever, like me, gotten into a mess because you would not listen?  Let me know I’m not the only one by leaving a comment below.

• If you are a good listener, tell us how you do it in the comment section below.  Don’t be stingy, share!

A Prayer Revival is on the horizon.  I am praying you will be a part of it.  Let me know if you will by making a comment below.

PRAYER REVIVAL

// July 20th, 2009 // 12 Comments » // Discipline, prayer

I have been wanting to ask you:

• Do you ever feel like something is missing?
• Do you have the feeling in your belly that there is MORE?
• Are you realizing there must be more than going to church to “get a Word” and to “get your praise on”?
• Have you been thinking that church has gotten more “me” focused and less “God” focused?
• Have you gotten tired of trying to create a feeling that just really is not there?
• Ever get tired of trying to draw a happy face on a dissatisfying situation?
• Have you realized that your “personal salvation” is not so “personal” after all?
• Are people in your life asking for more but you feel like you have nothing left to give?
• Could you stand to have more of these Powerful 7 in your life? LOVE –WONDER – JOY – MYSTERY – PEACE – POWER – LAUGHTER

Prayer is the answer. We need a Prayer Revival.

Prayer is the most powerful activity you can engage in. To pray is to know and celebrate that we are spiritual beings.  Prayer is what nurtures the spiritual life as food does the physical life.  But we must remember that God is the object of prayer, He is our conversation partner.

The Jewish Theologian Abraham Heschel uses the illustration of a pianist who performs a concert for the promise of pay but while in the midst of the performance no thought of pay enters her mind because were her mind to go to the money her fingers might slip and strike the wrong key.  So, he argues, it is with those who pray.  Some desired outcome may be the impetus for prayer but when we actually begin to pray, God becomes our desire and focus.

Our sole desire and purpose in prayer must be intimacy with the Father.  This worship and communion with the Father brings power, peace, love and joy into your life.  This worship and communion brings us into a life of His Presence, a life of complete and perfect spiritual abundance. Taking care of the Spirit-life is priority.  For the health of our spirits determines our ultimate health.  Our inner life will manifest in our outer life.

In prayer we learn that it is not always about answers.  In prayer we learn to live into the wonder and mystery of God.  It is in prayer that we stop our petty search for mere happiness and begin to embody the joy of the Lord.  We move beyond our fickle dependence on our moment-to-moment circumstances and stretch out into the Eternal Mystery.  It is faith in the Unseen.  It is here, in the great dance of doubt and faith, that our prayer-legs gain immeasurable strength.  It is in prayer that we really learn to be honest with God and with ourselves.

So, we must spend a lot of time in prayer.  Prayer is our life.  We need not have to make time for prayer.  Prayer IS our life.  Prayer is our priority.  We cannot be too busy to pray, we are too busy not to pray.  Our lives must be ordered around prayer for it is our communion with and worship of the Father.

I am looking for some people who will join me in prayer and fasting.  We will pray for others and for the world in which we live, but our prayer is for God, to be closer to Him, to live in more fully in Him and that He will live more fully in us.

If God is moving on your heart to join this prayer revival, please leave a comment below and share this post with someone you believe will want to be a part.  More is coming…

Climbing and Praying

// July 3rd, 2009 // 2 Comments » // prayer

The Way of Prayer is sometimes like climbing a trail. It is a beautiful journey but not an easy one. Prayer really can be strenuous. Trying to get rid of distracting thoughts and concerns, pushing past our fears and getting away from the demands of the day really is hard work. But, the most challenging part of prayer is, perhaps, overcoming our unwillingness to pray. We do not always want to pray…

To pray is, too often, to be confronted with unresolved issues OR problems we have been avoiding OR failures we are trying to forget OR various conditions of suffering, pain and misery OR mistakes we’ve made OR the lack of something OR broken relationships OR some other unpleasant situation. Then, if we are praying for others, we are carrying additional weight as we climb in prayer. Prayer really can be strenuous.

Some challenges to the way of prayer are caused by the wrong focus. Prayer is focused on God and not problems. A problem may lead you to pray, but God is the focus of prayer. God is the Focus of prayer, the Words of prayer and the Answer to prayer. When God becomes our primary desire and focus, prayer becomes more meaningful and more powerful and more transformative. Prayer is the essential means of nurturing our relationship with our God. We cheapen prayer when we think of prayer as our way of getting something from God. In prayer, our hope must be for more of Him and a closer relationship with Him. This life-giving relationship yields answers and solutions and healing and wholeness.

Still, prayer really can be strenuous because life pulls at us from many different directions. But we have to keep climbing that trail because there is nothing like reaching a place while you are climbing and stopping to look out at the view. When we focus too much on the challenges and difficulties of the climb we miss the beauty of the space we have reached. When we look out, we look out with a new perspective.

The next climb will be challenging too, but our prayer-legs will have gotten stronger and our stamina will have increased. The more we climb the more we learn that we must not only take care to ensure that our footing is secure as we climb, but our anticipation of the view from the place we climb to in God make this strenuous climb irresistible. More than this, the secret place of health and wholeness God welcomes us to in Himself is a place of love, joy and peace.

An Early Morning Prayer

// June 18th, 2009 // 24 Comments » // prayer

O God, Thou art my God. Early will I seek thee… Psalm 63:1

O God, I come to you in the darkness of the morning

I come just as I am starting to hear the birds singing praise to you

I come before the phone starts to ring, before messages are texted or tweeted

I come to You, O God, before the flood of emails and voicemails

I come before I remember tasks left undone from yesterday

I come before the uncertainty of tomorrow becomes fear

I come before I try to live out my own plan

I come before temptation ripens

I come to You, O God, before competing voices can influence

I come before I can mistake my thoughts for Your voice

I come before I can remember all I want from you and all I want you to do for me

I come, early in this morning, to say I love You and I thank You for loving me

Thank you for giving me this day – now, I give it back to you:

live today in me

live through me

love through me

bless through me

empower through me

rescue through me

give joy through me

O God, I come to you in the darkness of the morning, like Jesus did, to make your will my will.

In His name,

AMEN