Most people are familiar with fasting as either a medical or spiritual practice. How have you
practiced fasting in the past? What does Jesus want us to know about fasting?
Show Notes
The reward for giving and praying and fasting is found in the giving and praying and fasting. Fasting and praying
and giving allow us to experience more of Him. And He is everything. Our reward is the intimacy forged in prayerful
conversation with the One who stitched us and knows us and sits enthroned within us and over us.
In The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: “If there is no element of self-denial in our lives, if we give free
rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world),
we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to
devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation.”
This week you and I are going to see a need that we can meet — someone we can pray for, someone we can serve,
some opportunity to be generous, some opportunity to live out our faith — and we are going to have an opportunity to
practice being “in His Majesty’s Secret Service.” Try doing something to meet a need without telling anyone about how
you did it. Now, I’ll never find out if you did it or not, so this is on the honor system. But decide this morning to make
it your goal this week to serve someone without gaining any recognition or praise in return. Then consider the holy
moments that are before you in your daily walk with Christ. Would not a season of self-denial help you to focus on
what God is trying to say?
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