Witness for Christ Blog

Prayer and fasting is not very popular in the 21st century Western church and one could wonder if there is a correlation with the lack of signs and wonders which are supposed to follow the preaching of God's Word.

(Mat 6:16-18 NIV) "When you fast, do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Jesus didn't say "if you fast", He said "when you fast"... fasting is depriving oneself of food for spiritual reasons. If you do not fast you are depriving yourself of the reward. God cannot bless you if you do not meet the condition.

(Heb 11:6 NIV) And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Fasting is not dieting. Without proper care you are in danger of putting back all the weight you lost plus some. Fasting is not a hunger strike. You do not manipulate God to obtain what you want. Instead you humble yourself to seek God's face. Blessed are those who aim for nothing for they shall not be disappointed (!) For your fast to be successful you need to be quite clear in your mind as to why you are fasting. Keep a prayer diary to remember those things.

Here are several reasons as to why you should fast:

To humble yourself
(1 Cor 6:19-20 NIV) Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body.

(2 Chr 7:14 NIV) if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

(Psa 35:13b NIV) I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting.

(Mat 23:12 NIV) For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

To come closer to God
(James 4:8a NIV) Come near to God and he will come near to you.

To understand God's Word
(Isa 58:8a NIV) Then your light will break forth like the dawn

To find God's will and receive direction
(Ezra 8:21 NIV) There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.

To seek healing or deliverance
(Isa 58:8b NIV) your healing will quickly appear
(Mat 17:21 NKJV) However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.

To get God's intervention in some particular crisis
(2 Chr 20:2-3 NIV) Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, "A vast army is coming against you from Edom, from the other side of the Sea. It is already in Hazazon Tamar" (that is, En Gedi). Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the LORD, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah.

(2 Chr 20:17-18 NIV) You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.'" Jehoshaphat bowed with his face to the ground, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem fell down in worship before the LORD.

To make intercession of behalf of someone else (unsaved loved one) or to appoint someone in authority
(Acts 13:2 NIV) While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."

(Acts 14:23 NIV) Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.

Practical tips for fasting

Don't go on a week long fast if you have never done it before. You may want to start by just skipping the evening meal. If you drink coffee you will have severe headaches. Stop the caffeine one day before you start the fast. You stomach will contract. Do not end a fast with pastry or anything greasy, fat or heavy. You may block your intestines! Instead use salad, fruit, green vegetables, a tin of warmed peeled tomatoes, etc...

The first day of the fast you may face an attack of many symptoms. After that your body hits ketosis, where energy is now drawn from your fatty tissue and you are on a high. Even Eastern religions use it to get elated.

Never go without liquid. Use water, fruit juice, broth, soup, herbal tea, (not caffeine) etc...

Fasting is both our duty and privilege as Christians. Let us heed God's call to pray and fast, individually and corporately, trusting Him that He will fulfil His promise to reward those who diligently seek Him.

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Ever wondered why God is not coming good in the midst of your circumstances? Faith which hasn't been tested is no faith at all. Cold comfort for those who are battling it out.

So what would be the right attitude? Compare for instance the reaction of Zechariah, father of John the Baptist with the reaction of Mary the mother of Jesus when they both had an angelic visitation.

Zechariah doubted the word of the Lord and had to be made mute until the birth of the child so he would not speak unbelief into the prophet's destiny.

On the other hand Mary was quite accepting of her role in the virgin birth of our Saviour. When Joseph thought of divorcing her quietly because of her pregnancy, the Lord gave him a dream to reassure him.

Sometimes you would like to have a good story to tell - a testimony that would point people to the faithfulness of God in your life. Instead all you have left is your faith and the taunts of unbelievers who murmur "you believe in God - let God pull you out of your hole, I am not going to lift a little finger to help you out..." If you are not careful the enemy will also whisper in you ear the same teasing hoping you would roll over and give up.

The best way to keep your sanity is to develop the ability to praise God in the face of adversity. For a start is gets all demons to flee - they cannot stand it! Now while it is just between you and God it is OK to pour out your heart and say to Him: "It is not fair!"

But the currency in the kingdom of God is not fairness - it is faith. The ability to see beyond your emotional horizon. The ability to speak forth - to prophecy your future. Speaking of things that don't exist in this world is labelled as hypocrisy. In the kingdom of God it is called wisdom!

Instead of mulling over your impossibility you'd better spend your time asking God what He would like you to gain from the experience. The flip side of this is that if you don't learn anything this time around you may have to pass that test again and again... until you are refined in the furnace of life as pure gold. OK let's have a head count. Who still wants to be a Christian now? Salvation is free but following Christ will cost you everything you are.

Do you think God owes you a little explanation? God is sovereign and is not accountable to us. Instead we are accountable to Him. So what do you do in the meantime? If God has given you a vision or a dream and it seems further out of reach as ever what do you do? You may end up in jail betrayed by your brothers and Potiphar's wife like it happened to Joseph (son of Jacob in the Old Testament). But even in jail his management skills couldn't be hidden and in due course he was pulled out to save not only Egypt but Israel also.

All well and good - so what do you do in the meantime? What can you do to get from where you are to where you ought to be? A glib answer: spend time with God. You obviously need Godly wisdom to solve you conundrum. God may send your way some kinsman redeemer to sort you out but the enemy could also send you a time waster to get you off course. Have you considered your secret weapon - prayer and fasting? More on this in a following article.

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If you are saved in Jesus Christ, but have not experienced healing or deliverance you might be running on just one cylinder instead of three.

The little Greek word sozo in the New Testament means three things at once: to save, to heal and to set free. Depending on the context it is rendered as one or the other. But we miss out in the translation the fact that all three are part and parcel of the same deal: namely that Christ purchased all three for us by His blood shed on the cross.

This is consistent with what Isaiah says:

(Isa 53:5 NIV) But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Sozo appears 120 times in the New Testament. Here are a few examples:

Salvation
(Luke 19:10 NIV) For the Son of Man came to seek and to save (sozo) what was lost."

(John 3:17 NIV) For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save (sozo) the world through him.

(Rom 10:9 NIV) That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (sozo).

Healing
(Mat 9:21 NIV) She said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed (sozo)."

(Luke 17:19 NIV) Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well (sozo)."

(Luke 18:42 NIV) Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has healed (sozo) you."

Deliverance
(Luke 8:36 NIV) Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured (sozo).

(2 Tim 4:18 NIV) The Lord will rescue (sozo) me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

(Jude 1:5 NIV) Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered (sozo) his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.

So what's the big deal? How is that relevant to the church in the 21st century? Well the issue is that we have just come to the realisation God is interested in transforming the whole person. Body, soul and spirit. We are familiar with having a born-again spirit when we invite Jesus Christ to rule our lives. Why should we miss out on having our body healed and our soul set free from bondage?

After denying for so long that miracles ceased with the death of the last apostles who walked with Jesus we now see supernatural healings taking place everywhere.

The next step is to admit that the enemy of our souls is very cunning at enslaving our minds with strongholds, mindsets and lies planted by demons. Why should we miss out and not apply the blood of Jesus to that also? Then we will be whole and able the remove the spec of dust from our brother's eye - having removed the plank in our own eye beforehand!

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God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Could we have at least one lady out of the three? God is three in one. That's the mystery of the Trinity. We go astray every time we try in our carnal mind to explain things out. Peace comes when you admit that your mind cannot for now wrap itself around some spiritually discerned matters. Look at H2O which can take 3 forms: ice, water and steam. The same matter in 3 different manifestations.

Nobody has any problem seeing The Almighty as our Father. We can all relate to a Creator, a Provider, a Healer. Things become more nuanced with the Son. We can relate to a Redeemer, a High Priest, a King of Kings. But women can also sometimes see themselves as the Bride of Christ and fantasy having an embrace with Him.

Things become more dicey with the Holy Spirit. We can understand a Counsellor, a Comforter, a Guide. But it is tricky to relate to someone who moves like the wind, who can be quenched and grieved and who shies attention and passes everything back to Jesus instead - who in turns refers back everything to the Father... and so we have gone full circle - hence the Trinity.

People relate to God out of their human experience. Those of us who have been hurt or ignored by our earthly father have a hard time putting their trust in God until we have the courage to forgive our parent and take steps to repair what is left of the relationship.

Jesus calls us friends rather than servants. We are supposed to be seated in heavenly places with Him. We can relate to Him as our sibling who came to our level, performed what no-one else could do to save us from our predicament and returned to the glory of God to intercede for us.

But there is one critical figure that is missing in the equation. All of us once were totally dependent on mommy who fed us, clothed us, wiped our nose and our rear, saved us from the big bad wolf, tucked us into bed and sang lullabies to send us to sleep... Could that be the Holy Spirit? Maybe not. We are to mature in Christ and leave the childish things behind...

God is Spirit and spirits (angels) have no gender. We will have quite a (pleasant) surprise when we inhabit our resurrected bodies. God is above the sexual divide (He created sex). Even Jesus said some bizarre things like comparing Himself to a hen gathering her chicks under her wings... Women are often more in tuned with spiritual things because they operate in the realm of intuition while men operate in the realm of logic. Women make great intercessors who labour in prayer for a cause dear to their heart. Let us thank God for the way He made us and let us not cause strife by trying to swap places.

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The Bible from the onset presents a triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Right there from the beginning of time we have love, fellowship and unity. A direct consequence is that being a follower of Christ (a Christian) means to enter into a relationship with God - not obeying a set of rules.

The grace of God is not a licence to sin - it is a challenge to use our common sense and God given abilities to do good in our sphere of influence. Not because we have to but because we want to please the one who granted us eternal life through the divine exchange that took place at the cross.

Someone asked Jesus how you could sum-up all the Jewish law under the dispensation of the New Testament. His reply was: "1- Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. 2- Love your neighbour as yourself." If you can't see that this it is a lifestyle based on proper relationships you have missed the point totally.

True Christians have an inner joy that carries them through the vicissitudes of life. Christianity has the knack to pop up in the most adverse environments. The underground church in China is buoyant. Jesus reveals Himself through dreams and visions to selected people in the Muslim world where reading a Bible is an offense. In the western world the main difficulty is to isolate yourself from the appeal of a materialistic lifestyle.

Sin could be defined as our innate ability through wrong deeds and thoughts to turn our back on God and live independently of Him. A creation that has rebelled against its Creator. Not a pretty sight but nothing can take God by surprise and He had already a plan in mind.

So what is this divine exchange that a follower of Jesus Christ would enter into? Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the second person of the Godhead was obedient to the will of the Father. Having started a relationship with the Jewish people since Abraham the time had come to open it up to the whole of mankind. The good news is that Jesus came to earth 2000 years ago to perform a task nobody else could ever do: The redemption of all those who would put their trust in Him. Only Jesus was qualified to deal with the issue of the sin of mankind once and for all. By laying down His sinless life and taking upon himself the sin of humanity He died of a broken spirit. By His resurrection 3 days later He conquered death on behalf of all those who would follow Him.

Everyone born on this earth will have through their lifetime a chance to connect with God through the person of Jesus Christ. If Jesus was with the Father at the creation of the universe He has no problem in getting through to you at a time of His own choosing. Most often it is done through natural means - the corporate body of believers is obedient to the leading of the Holy Spirit and will position themselves to offer you help and assistance when you need it. Only in rare circumstances (incarceration, persecution, etc...) would something supernatural happen. There is no limit to what God is willing to do to reach a lost soul. Christ died on that cross for you. That's how precious you are to Him.

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