Too Full to Fast... Too Fast to Pray

Fasting used to be part of the regular spiritual exercises of the early church. They fasted as part of their ministry of worship to the Lord (Acts 13:2) and fasted in conjunction with prayer when starting new ministries (Acts 13:3). They fasted when they needed direction for personal problems (I Corinthians 7:5) and when they wanted to confirm new leaders in the Lord (Acts 14:23).

At critical moments in church as well as personal life, the early Christians enjoined fasting to their prayers in order to gain insight, direction, confirmation, or a blessing from the Lord. Unfortunately, this is not the case with us today because we're too full of the world to fast and live too fast a lifestyle to have a meaningful prayer life.

This is why we have a prayer and fasting weekend. From Friday Feb 22nd 6PM to Saturday Feb 23rd 6PM, we will try to have a full 24 hour period of prayer and fasting as a church. I'll give the details of how this will work during my lesson today but the important things to remember are the following:

• If you don't feel like doing it – then you need it badly because you're either too "full" or too "fast" and it's time to empty some of self and be filled with the Spirit.
• If you look forward to it then doing it only once per year is not enough to feed your spiritual hunger.
• If you're not sure, don't worry because all the information you need will be provided.

Here's to a weekend where there will be less of us, less of the world, less of the evil one and more of Him.