FAST3

We are in Day 3 of 21 Days of Prayer & Fasting at Journey Church.

I hope you’re fasting something and spending some extra time in prayer/communication with God. If you haven’t started, there’s no time like the present. Jump right on in.  

I don’t know if you realize it or not, but “God helps those who help themselves” isn’t in the Bible. It’s ‘new’ theology. It’s fair to say that it’s something of an Americanism that’s anti pretty much everything the Bible teaches. 

You weren’t called to be an individual. The literal call on your life is to lean on Jesus - AND - to lean on others. In fact, independence from God and dependence on you is a sin. Your call is also to look around at the people you see and determine how you can serve them. Not to help yourself.  

This goes deeper. ‘God helps those who help themselves’ is one of the reasons we fail to pray. We don’t think we need God. We’ve got this.

We’ll ‘git er done.’ By ourselves. I’ll ask God if it’s a crisis, but otherwise, I’m sufficient.

But 2 Corinthians 3:5 says exactly the opposite: “NOT that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.”

That’s pretty clear.

Also: “Cast your cares on God because He cares for you.” That an counter-independence Scripture.

“When you’re weak, God can be strong.” Ditto.

“The battle belongs to the Lord, not to you.” Again. 

So much of the Gospel is counter-intuitive. It goes against the grain of what you’ve always believed. It doesn’t swim down a different lane of the stream you’re in; it’s a whole different river.  

It’s when you come up against a giant so impossibly big that you realize you are a total loss as to what to do, that’s when we drop to our knees. ‘God, help.’

When the marriage is not just on fire, it’s in complete ashes. ‘God, I need You now.’

When the doctor calls two days after the MRI and gives you the news you never expected to hear - something terminal. ‘God, come.’

When the mortgage is due for the third month in a row and you’re still behind and now the phone calls are coming from creditors. ‘God, please.’

So as we continue this season of prayer and fasting, here’s what we can embrace to confirm in our own hearts that heaven is listening: 

— Prayer is dependence on God. 

It’s humility in action. “God, I can’t; only You can. I don’t know; You know.”

— Prayer is community with God. 

As in any friendship, God talks to us; we talk to God.

— Prayer is an eternal activity.

God hears. God acts. Now, He does. And He doesn’t forget. He’s acting on your prayers into the way-out future that you prayed days, weeks, months, even years ago - shifting eternity all along the way.

— Prayer changes things.

100%.

Pray that way. Day 3 - keep going.