Fasting

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Fasting is one of the most powerful weapons God has ever given us for our daily lives. We all go through times when we feel like we are not living up to our full potential. Sometimes we lose our energy and our spiritual sharpness . . . this causes us to lose our edge.
What does it really mean to lose your edge?
When a lumberjack keeps swinging away at the tree without sharpening his ax, the ax will soon become dull and ineffective. In much the same way, that can happen to us.
Going through our daily routines in our own strength wears us down. Little by little, we lose our closeness to God. Without that closeness, we become ineffective for the purposes His has for us.
Fasting can help you get back your passion! It can recharge you!
Although fasting lasts for a short season, it brings long-term results, which sharpens us, enabling us to face the challenges of life in His strength.  Through fasting, you can experience spiritual renewal and direction for your life . . . restoration of relationship . . . healing . . . release from bondages . . . and so much more!
We begin each year with 21 days of fasting. Fasting in January is much like praying in the morning to establish the will of God for your entire day. I believe that if we will pray and seek God and give Him our first and best at the beginning of the year, He will honor that sacrifice and bless our ENTIRE year! “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Mathew 6:33).
But when you make fasting a way of life, you get even closer to God and grow in your spiritual walk like never before. Making fasting a lifestyle is like a lumberjack who takes time to rest and sharpen his ax periodically to be able to effectively finish the job set before him.
Fasting can help you Recover Your Passion, Recapture Your Dream and Restore Your Joy!
Fasting is a principle that God intended for everyone to practice. It is not a punishment; it is a privilege!
Make fasting a “lifestyle”! Join me, and thousands from around the world, in the Fasting Movement 2012.

12 Reasons for Christmas

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  • “For this I was born and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37).
  • “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8; cf. Hebrews 2:14–15).
  • “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).
  • “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).
  • “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
  • “God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:5).
  • “For God so loved the world that whoever believes on him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16).
  • “God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9).
  • “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
  • “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against . . . that the thoughts of many may be revealed” (Luke 2:34ff).
  • “He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18).
  • “Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarches, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy” (Romans 15:7–8; cf. John 12:27ff).

Conformed or Transformed?

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“Do not be conformed…but be transformed.” Ro 12:2 NKJV

Each time we offer our bodies as “living sacrifices” to God, our stubborn nature will rebel. But with Christ in control we can break its grip. “Do not conform…to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (NIV). We have the option; be conformed or transformed! Deciding “I will not conform to the world” leads to a transformed lifestyle. Your old nature naturally conforms, enslaving you to worldly influences. Phillips’s translation says: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould.” Conforming to the world’s values—like sensuality, pride, control, etc.—will rob you of the liberating power of Christ living in you, resulting in a recurring cycle of guilt, failure and discouragement. Choosing not to conform to this world is what opens the door to your transformation. Unlike conformity, which is externally initiated, your walk with God will become an outer expression of an inner change. The tadpole’s life is transformed into the frog’s life, and the caterpillar’s into the butterfly’s. You become transformed from the inside out. How does it happen? “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1Jn 4:4). Add to your decision not to conform, your commitment to “the renewing of your mind,” which in Greek text means you think God’s thoughts instead of your old thoughts, then watch as a Holy Spirit-empowered transformation begins to take place in your daily life.

Jentezen Franklin

Questioning Our Hope and Refocusing Our Wonder

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byJohn Knight

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The topic of the new heaven and new earth is a popular one with some of the people we hang out with. As you can probably guess, they also have children with severe disabilities. There is comfort in thinking about our children being free from their limitations and pain.

But this hope can be dangerous, too. We envision heaven to be a wonderful place, full of freedom and laughter and conversation. No more seizures! Legs that can walk! Eyes that see!

And nothing about Jesus.

Does that thought make you recoil in horror? Can you imagine eternity without Jesus?

The Benefits Without the Person

For a long time I did just that. I wanted the benefits of Jesus’ work, but it didn’t really matter if he was there or not. When the suffering is persistent, lifelong and intense, the desire to be free from that suffering can overshadow the whole point of why we were created: to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

That subtle change of emphasis away from Jesus can also cloud our thinking about the Bible. The healing of the paralytic in Mark 2 can become primarily about his healing rather than what Jesus clearly stated as the purpose: “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2:10).

Remember What’s Most Amazing

When I focus on Jesus it becomes easy to get excited about spending eternity with him.  Jesus forgives sins. Jesus holds the universe together by the word of his power. We get to be with him, no matter our physical or cognitive abilities in this age, because Jesus paid a debt we could not pay, gives us a righteousness we cannot earn, and opens the eyes of our hearts to see him as he is. That is what’s amazing.

And the Apostle John tells us when he appears we not only get to be with him, we get to be like him (1 John 3:2).

I can’t even begin to imagine this. No more battling our sin. No more unrighteous thoughts.

Why It Will Be Wonderful

And no more disability. I believe that part of God making “all things new” (Revelation 21:5) includes my blind, autistic, cognitively disabled son being able to see, communicate clearly and think rationally.

I expect it will be wonderful. Not primarily because he isn’t disabled any longer, but because we both get to enjoy Jesus, forever.

From www.desiringgod.com

God’s Prescription for Divine Health

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by Gloria Copeland

There is a medicine so powerful it can cure every sickness and disease known to man. It has no dangerous side effects. It is safe even in massive doses. And when taken daily according to directions, it can prevent illness altogether and keep you in vibrant health.

Does that sound too good to be true? It’s not. I can testify to you by the Word of God and by my own experience that such a supernatural medicine exists. Even more importantly, it is available to you every moment of every day.

You don’t have to call your doctor to get it. You don’t even have to drive to the pharmacy. All you must do is reach for your Bible, open to Proverbs 4:20-24 and follow the instructions you find there:

“My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health (Hebrew: medicine) to all their flesh.

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee.”

As simple as they might sound, those four verses contain the supernatural prescription to divine health. It’s a powerful prescription that will work for anyone who will put it to work.

If you have received healing by the laying on of hands, following this prescription will help you maintain that healing. If you have believed for healing, but are experiencing lingering symptoms, it will help you stand strong until you are completely symptom-free. And if you are healthy now, it will help you stay that way–not just for a day or a week, but for the rest of your life!

Powerful Medicine

To understand how this prescription works, you must realize that the Word of God is more than just good information. It actually has life in it. As Jesus said in John 6:63, “It is the spirit that quickeneth [or makes alive]; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”

Every time you take the Word into your heart, believe it and act on it, that life of which Jesus spoke, the very LIFE of God Himself, is released in you. You may have read the healing scriptures over and over again. You may know them as well as you know your own name. Yet every time you read them or hear them preached, they bring you a fresh dose of God’s healing power. Each time, they bring life to you and deliver God’s medicine to your flesh.

That’s because the Word is like a seed. Hebrews 4:12 says it is “alive and full of power–making it active, operative, energizing and effective…” (The Amplified Bible). It actually carries within it the power to fulfill itself.

When you planted the Word about the new birth in your heart, then believed and acted on it, that Word released within you the power to be born again. By the same token, when you plant the Word about healing in your heart, believe and act on it, that Word will release God’s healing power in you.

“But, Gloria,” you may say, “I’ve met people who know the Bible from cover to cover and still can’t get healed!”

No doubt you do. But if you’ll look back at God’s prescription, you’ll find it doesn’t say anything about “knowing” the Bible. It says, attend to the Word.

When you attend to something, you give your attention to it. You make it top priority. You set aside other things so you can focus on it. When a nurse is attending to a patient, she constantly looks after him. She doesn’t just leave him lying alone in his hospital room while she goes shopping. If someone asks her about her patient, she doesn’t feel it’s sufficient to say, “Oh, yes. I know him.”

In the same way, if you’re attending to the Word, you won’t leave it lying unopened on the coffee table all day. You won’t spend your day focusing your attention on other things.

On the contrary, you’ll do what Proverbs 4 says to do. You’ll continually incline your ear to God’s Word.

Inclining your ear includes more than just putting your physical ears in a position to hear the Word being preached (although that, in itself, is very important). It also requires you to actively engage with God’s Word, to believe it and obey it.

In fact, The Amplified Bible translates Proverbs 4:20, this way: “My son, attend to my words; consent and submit to my sayings.” Submitting to the Word means making adjustments in your life. Say, for example, you hear the Word in Philippians 4:4 that you are to “rejoice in the Lord always.” If you’ve been doing a lot of griping and complaining, you’ll have to change in order to submit to that Word. You’ll have to repent and alter your behavior.

Take as Directed

In addition to inclining your ear to the Word of God, the Proverbs 4 prescription also says you must keep it before your eyes and not let it depart from your sight. In Matthew 6:22-23, Jesus reveals why that’s so important. He says, “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

Your eyes are the gateway to your body. If your eye (or your attention) is on the darkness, or the sickness that is in your body, there will be no light to expel it. If, however, the eyes of your heart are trained strictly on the Word, your whole body will eventually be filled with light, and healing will be the result.

Granted, it isn’t easy to keep your attention centered on the Word like that. It takes real effort and commitment. It may require getting up a little earlier in the morning or turning off the television at night. But I urge you to do whatever it takes to take God’s medicine exactly as directed.

It won’t work any other way!

That really shouldn’t be so surprising. After all, we wouldn’t expect natural medication to work for us if we didn’t take it as prescribed.

No rational person would set a bottle of pills on the night stand and expect those pills to heal them. No one would call the doctor and say, “Hey, doc! These pills don’t work. I’ve carried them with me everywhere I go–I keep them in the car with me, I set them on my desk at work, I even have them next to me when I sleep at night–but I don’t feel any better.”

That would be ridiculous. Yet, spiritually speaking, some people do it all the time. They cry and pray and beg God to heal them, all the while ignoring the medicine He’s provided. (They might take a quick dose on Sunday when they go to church, but the rest of the week they don’t take time for the Word at all!)

Why do people who love God and believe the Bible act that way? I think it’s because they don’t understand how putting the Word in their heart can affect their physical bodies. They don’t see how something spiritual can change something natural.

If you’ll read the Bible, however, you’ll see that spiritual power has been affecting this physical world ever since time began. In fact, it was spiritual power released in the form of God’s Word that brought this natural world into existence in the first place.

When you realize that God’s Word is the force that originally brought into being everything you can see and touch–including your physical body–it’s easy to believe that the Word is still capable of changing your body today. It makes perfect sense!