April 7th is the next Day of Prayer & Fasting for our church. So, I want to share some more thoughts about the habit of fasting. Another example of fasting in Scripture is in Daniel 9. I’m especially drawn to verses 17-19. To a large extent, all the verses leading up to these last sentences of Daniel’s prayer are prelude. And the 12 verses of prelude go something like this: “God, you’ve always been faithful to us, but we’ve have failed you over and over again.” A primary element of fasting is admitting our need for God. It is arrogant for us to pretend that our broken situation (whatever it may be as the people of God) is just innocent happenstance and has nothing to do with our own (and our forefathers’ and foremothers’) failings. We admit this as we fast and pray.
Daniel prays about a “city” that bears God’s “Name.” To translate Daniel’s praying into our context, I think of Jesus’ words when he called us a “city on a hill” (Matthew 5:14). We call ourselves a church and we also bear the Name of Christ. Part of our praying is not for God to bless us with success as a religious club, but that His Holy Spirit would act within us and through us. We plead for God to take action in us—because God’s reputation is at stake—when we fast and pray.
No comments:
Post a Comment