And Get Ready For Fasting…

1. Prayer on Sundays (every 5th Sunday) and Sunday morning prayer

2. Sharing on Social media once a week; Inviting one person to church a week

3. Bible reading plan and devotion

4. Join us in 21 day fast and continue to fast with us on Mondays.

5. Serve in some capacity at Hope Community

6. Commit to discipleship through bible study

7. Faithful Sunday morning attendance

It’s interesting because there have been several times in biblical history where a national fast has been called.

Esther and the fast for the saving of the Jews and who know that God has put you for such a time as this. And then Ezra fast as the nation returns to Israel with only water and mourns over the sins his country has committed. Daniel abstained from “pleasant bread” meat and wine for his country and the visions that God had given.

Abraham Lincoln called on one in the middle of the Civil War and within the next week they began winning major battles allowing the North to win. In the middle of World War War II and Winston Churchill in his memoriors that it was the crux of the war and Hitler determine to not invade Great Britain right after it. And our governor John Bel Edwards called a statewide fast as we were being hit so hard by Covid in the early stages.

Its even become a diet fad and many people are seeing great effects of fasting.

The word fast both in the Greek and Hebrew actually mean self-denial.

We fast and pray for results, but the results are in God’s hands. One of the greatest benefits of fasting is becoming more attentive to God and more sure of His goodness and mercy in our lives.

Fast: Example of fasting for My youth pastor’s daughter who had a cancerous spot on her eye.

Isiah write prophetically at the end of his book these prayers and cries to the Lord, as they were waiting on their Messiah, Jesus to appear.

Isiah 58

58 “Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression,

to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God. 3 ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not?

Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,[a] and oppress all your workers. 4 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. 5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed[b] go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? 8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. 11 And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. 12 And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.

What Does Fasting Do?

1. Loosen the bonds of wickedness

2. Undo heavy burdens

3. Let the oppressed go free

4. Break every yolk

5. Give bread to the hungry and provide the poor with housing

6. Allow the people’s light to break forth like the morning

7. Cause their health to spring forth speedily

8. Cause their righteousness to go before them

9. Cause the glory of the Lord to be their reward and guard

What Kind of Fasts Are There?

Selective Fast This type of fast involves removing certain elements from your diet. One example of a selective fast is the Daniel Fast, during which you remove meat, sweets, and bread from your diet and consume water and juice for fluids and fruits and vegetables for food.

Complete Fast In this type of fast, you drink only liquids, typically water with light juices as an option.

Partial Fast

This fast is sometimes called the “Jewish Fast” and involves abstaining from eating any type of food in the morning and afternoon. This can either correlate to specific times of the day, such as 6:00 am to 3:00 pm, or from sunup to sundown.

Soul Fast

This fast is a great option if you do not have much experience fasting food, have health issues that prevent you from fasting food, or if you wish to refocus certain areas of your life that are out of balance. For example, you might choose to stop using social media or watching television for the duration of the fast and then carefully bring that element back into your life in healthy doses at the conclusion of the fast.

When Do I Fast?

When Communion with Christ is broken, when concerned for the welfare of others, when challenged by personal concerns, when facing danger, when engaged in spiritual warfare…

As a pattern of our spiritual lives

In our call to pursue God that he has placed on our hearts we are asking/calling on believers to join with us this year in fasting habitually on Mondays this entire year.

And in Special Times of Need and Prayer

In our call to pursue God that he has placed on our hearts we are asking that we as a church will fast for 21 days starting January 9th and ending January 29th which will coincide with our PURSUE conference with Pastor Freddy Frye. These next three weeks we are asking that you would cry aloud to God, and join that cry with fasting. In a selective, complete, partial, or soul fast. And that you would begin to ask God and cry out to the Lord to do the very thing He promised in Isiah 55