The power and influence food holds over our lives is
simply astounding. I saw this illustrated recently when our community was
recovering from a blizzard that had descended upon our region. I stood in one of
sixteen long lines at a Sobey’s supermarket and watched people wrestle with not
having had access to food supplies for several days. In quiet frenzy people
raced through the store trying to secure whatever they needed for another round
of dining.
This experience reminded me that we are consumed with eating, not just to meet
the obvious need for energy maintenance, but to satisfy a compulsion buried deep
within our nature. All indicators point to a North American culture obsessed
with food and paying for the obsession with early onset diabetes, debilitating
heart disease, and troubling ailments brought on by poor eating habits.
Knowing the priority people place on food consumption, and the obvious pleasure
associated with eating Big Macs, Whoppers, donairs, and Wendy’s chicken fingers,
imagine the challenges associated with trying to convince people to drive past
the drive thru and choose, instead, to park themselves in a seat at God’s
restaurant and enjoy a meal of healthy prayer and energising abstinence?
One of our greatest spiritual challenges is to help one another rediscover the
power and lasting impact fasting and prayer brings to everything we do. Here are
four ways to help make prayer and fasting a living reality in our lives.
1. Church leaders must teach the value and necessity of prayer
and fasting.
A quick review of a Bible concordance on the subject may surprise you. God has
placed great importance upon these spiritual disciplines and calls for us to
avail ourselves of the strength inherent in them. By combining scriptural
instruction with living examples found in people like John Wesley, Phoebe
Palmer, and Gertrude Wilson, every Wesleyan influencer possesses powerful
resources to help those who struggle with godly living in this self-indulgent
and food-obsessed culture.
Prayer and fasting is a biblical injunction that can also be delivered annually
through the 40 Days of Prayer and Fasting emphasis promoted by The
Wesleyan Church. If pastors teach the principle and practice of prayer and
fasting even once a year, imagine the results after a lifetime of careful
instruction!
2. Church leaders can personally model prayer and fasting.
I am often moved by what Matthew’s gospel records about Jesus’ Temptation in the
wilderness:
“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.
After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to
him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every
word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4: 1-4 NIV).
Imagine the validity Jesus’ experience gave to his preaching on prayer and
fasting. There is no lesson quite like the one taught by the life of a committed
leader. Sermons and Bible studies give opportunity for us to discuss the value
and practice of prayer and fasting in our own lives and gives our people a
chance to ask us how they, too, might incorporate it into their own pursuit of
holy living.
3. Local churches can reserve special times for prayer and
fasting.
In our church, we set aside Thursday noontimes for prayer and fasting. We gather
at the parsonage, share prayer requests, and then begin to pray for God to work
in the lives of those we love and the church we care about. It’s a powerful time
that I don’t miss simply because there’s power in the prayers of those who are
giving up their lunch to pray. In our cuisine-conscious culture, a sure sign
that people are serious about knowing God’s heart is when they willing forego
food in order to feed on the Word of God and prayer. Does your church set aside
a regular time for prayer and fasting? Do you attend?
4. Christ followers must recognise Satan’s attempts to thwart
prayer and fasting.
Jesus fasted and prayed and Satan sought to use it to dissuade Him from His
calling. (Matthew 4: 1-11). The early Church, newly-empowered by the Holy
Spirit, discovered their need for spiritual discernment and the physical
protection prayer and fasting afforded them (Acts 12: 12; 13: 2; 14: 23). And
each one of us must admit that Satan is working in many corners of our lives. He
knows that the disciplined habit of personal prayer and regular fasting is a
threat to the wicked schemes he seeks to foist upon us. I am learning that
prayer and fasting, while of major consequence to my spiritual health, is often
belittled by the enemy and is made to appear archaic and absurd. This is because
this dynamic duo, combined with living faith, moves mountains like nothing else
I do.
I am convinced that responsible church leadership teaches and
models prayer and fasting and plans for it’s practice in the church. Leaders
also recognise Satan’s hatred of it and prepare people accordingly. To do
anything less is to leave our people wandering around Sobey’s not knowing that
there is more to life than what’s in their shopping cart.
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