“Day 6: God Delights in Renewal
Sometimes we need renewal in our spiritual lives. Fasting is one of the ways you can cleanse your body and aid the process of communicating with the Father. God is already raising up people in this hour who do not want a diet of just “church as normal” any longer. Hungry people are desperate people.
If we are not careful, we can allow life to get us into the same old ruts and routines without even realizing it. Our relationships with the Lord can suffer the same fate. When we don’t do what it takes to stay sharp and sensitive to the Holy Spirit, our praise, worship, offerings, and even preaching can become heartless routines to God. As a believer, you can pray, read your Bible, and go to church week after week and still be losing sight of your first love. It is not that you don’t love the Lord, but the business of life can bring you to the6 JANUARY (1856)
Life for a look
“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.” Isaiah 45:22
suggested further reading: Acts 26:1–29
Six years ago, today, as nearly as possible at this very hour of the day, I was “in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity,” but had yet, by divine grace, been led to feel the bitterness of that bondage, and to cry out by reason of the soreness of its slavery. Seeking rest, and finding none, I stepped within the house of God, and sat there, afraid to look upward, lest I should be utterly cut off, and lest his fierce wrath should consume me. The minister rose in his pulpit, and, as I have done this morning, read this text—“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” I looked that moment; the grace of faith was vouchsafed to me in the self-same instant; and now I think I can say with truth:
“E’er since by faith I saw the stream
His flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.”
I shall never forget that day, while memory holds its place; nor can I help repeating this text, whenever I remember that hour when first I knew the Lord. How strangely gracious! How wonderfully and marvellously kind, that he who heard these words so little time ago for his own soul’s profit, should now address you from the same text, in the full and confident hope that some poor sinner may hear the glad tidings of salvation for himself also, and may today, on this 6th of January, be “turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.”
for meditation: Even if you cannot pinpoint an exact time or place, can you recall your conversion when the Lord Jesus Christ became real to you and you trusted him to be your Saviour? If you can, are the memories of that great event still as precious as they should be? If you have no such memories, Spurgeon, though dead, speaks to you today. Read again his testimony, obey his text and look to his Saviour so that you too may be saved.
sermon no. 60 point of losing your freshness, your enthusiasm, and your sensitivity to His Spirit and what pleases Him.”
“My mother was an excellent cook. But if she had gotten so caught up in other things that all she ever put on the table for us was meatloaf every night of the week, I don’t think it would have taken long for me to find somewhere else to eat. The disappointing sound of comments like, “Aw, Mom, meatloaf again?” would have been common at my house. What if God were hungry and all we have to feed Him is our same dull religious routines day after day? Just like ending up with meatloaf on the table every night, I can just hear our heavenly Father sighing, “Religion again?”
That’s why God said to Israel, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine, and all its fullness” (Ps. 50:12). God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He does not need our routines. He does not savor heartless activity. He does not want our “leftovers” when He can get “fed” elsewhere. True worship that comes from our hearts feeds Him and satisfies Him; it is something “He desires—and deserves. Our religiosity of going through the motions once a week does not please Him as much as our obedience to His Word.”
“The reason this subject fits in a book about fasting is simple: fasting is a constant means of renewing yourself spiritually. The discipline of fasting breaks you out of the world’s routine. It is a form of worship—offering your body to God as a living sacrifice is holy and pleasing to God (Rom. 12:1). The discipline of fasting will humble you, remind you of your dependency on God, and bring you back to your first love. It causes the roots of your relationship with Jesus to go deeper.
There are dimensions of our glorious King that will never be revealed to the casual, disinterested worshiper. There are walls of intercession that will never be scaled by dispassionate religious service. But when you take steps to break out of the ordinary and worship Him as He deserves, you will begin to see facets of His being you never knew existed. He will begin to share secrets with you about Himself, His plans, His desires for you. When you worship God as He deserves, He is magnified.”
“When you are truly hungry for God, you will push past the customs, you will push over the rituals—you don’t want to leave hungry!
Don’t allow the enemies in your life to cause you to focus more on your appetite or circumstances than on the promises of God that are released when you employ the powerful weapon of fasting.
On your sixth day of fasting, remember:
• Concentrate on prolonged times of meditation and listening.
• Your senses (smell, touch, hearing) will begin to heighten.
• Weight loss and detoxification continue.
Thoughts for your journal:”
“(Write your thoughts in a separate journal.)
• How is experiencing fasting as a private discipline bringing you closer to God?
• Has God revealed anything to you since your fast began?
• Prayer Focus Day 6: Breaking Addictions
You cannot enjoy the fullness of life in Christ when you are still a slave, bound by addictions. Sexual and chemical addictions like alcohol and drugs, nicotine, overeating, antidepressants, insomnia, and so on can be broken through the discipline of fasting. If there are addictions in your life, list them below and ask God to give you grace during this fast to walk away free of those chains! Perhaps there is a family member or loved one suffering with addiction. Write down his or her name to target for prayer during this time.
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
—JOHN 8:36, NIV”
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