Pastor Bruce’s blog

For the last few years we’ve taken 21 days in January (this year the 3rd to the 23rd) to fast and pray for the year to come.  We try to do it as a church, a community of believers, and seek the Lord together.  If you’d like to join us, please do!  A fast like this is for breakthroughs in areas that need radical, godly change;  in other words, for God to step in!  For the fast I prepare a devotional for us to read each day.  Here’s the first seven days worth.  It’s all from the Gospel of John and we’ll be preaching from John on each of the Sundays during the fast as well.  You can hear those messages on our website, www.cccbrockport.org, normally the day after the service.

A 21 Day Devotional for Fasting and Prayer January 3 – 23, 2011

Day One  John 1

Just a note, these devotionals can in no way cover all that’s in these marvelous chapters!  I can only take a piece, a snippet, of each one and comment on that alone.  My suggestion to each of you is to read the chapter for the day, pray before you do so, and find more of what the Lord has placed in this book to convince you of the Truth, the Lord Jesus Christ….

In chapter one, verses 29-34, the greatest prophet ever, John the Baptist, gives his witness to Who Jesus is.  He looks ahead and sees (verse 29) that He is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” as Jesus walks toward him.  And then he says something in verse 31 that he repeats in verse 33.  “I did not know Him.”  And yet, John the Baptist tells us things about Jesus that are eternal in nature and profoundly spiritual.  How did he go from not knowing to knowing?  From two sources: the Scriptures and the Spirit.  The Baptist had studied and read over the Scriptures from the time he was young, taught at his father Zechariah’s feet.  He knew that Messiah was to come and it had to have a strange warmth to him, as his life was to point to Him.  But how would he know the specific One out of so many faces?  The Spirit of the Lord instructed him specifically: “Upon Whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.”

How do you and I know Him, we who live so many years beyond this moment in history?  The same way!  We read and study the Scriptures and we ask the Holy Spirit to reveal Him to us.  We seek in the same way John the Baptist did and we get the same results, Jesus is revealed.  Not by human eyes or ears can He be known, but by the work of the Holy Spirit of God.  That’s how we go from not knowing Him to knowing who He really is and then declaring Him to a lost world.  Ask Him to reveal Himself to you in new ways this year!

Day Two   John 2

In this chapter we find a story that is not related in the other Gospels.  John tells us selected stories from the myriads of events surrounding the Lord in order to convince us that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing in Him you might have life in His name.  (see 20.31)  Here is the story of His first recorded miracle, which happened at the wedding He and His disciples were attending in Cana of Galilee.  He turns ordinary water, meant for ceremonial washing, into the finest of wines once they had run out at the wedding feast.  Interesting to me is the fact that it wasn’t exactly a public miracle, but one that His disciples, His mother and the servants saw and not the rest of those gathered there.  He was primarily teaching His disciples who He was through this miracle.  However, note carefully that this miracle has much to say about servanthood.  Jesus, the Lord of All, took on the role of a servant in responding to His mother’s “request” of sorts in verse 3.  And then she told the household servants “Whatever He says to you, do it.”  Jesus serves.  And if you’ll notice the practice of the human servants, they serve, just doing what they’re asked without questioning.  They filled the waterpots “to the brim”, drew out the liquid inside, which they might not have seen was wine when they were asked, and took it to the Master of the Feast.  They had a front row seat to the first miracle and even had a part in it; lowly servants!  When will you see the miracles of God through your life?  When you humble yourself, obey instantly as a servant and carry out His promptings without question.  Risk the embarrassment of maybe bringing plain water to the people in charge, it’s always going to be a marvelous miracle ending if you humble yourself and obey.  Ask the Lord to make you more His servant this year, more able to hear His voice and more instant to obey!

Day 3   Chapter 3

This is such a familiar chapter to most of us who have been reading the Bible for any length of time!  Here we listen in on the Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, and hear Him speak of being born again by believing in His Name.  Of course, John 3.16 is the most quoted verse in the Bible.  But let me draw your attention to the end of the chapter where once again John the Baptist is speaking.  He is addressing his own disciples here and responds to their questions regarding Jesus and His new found popularity which rivaled John the Baptist’s fame.  John answers humbly in verse 27-30, ending with the famous line in verse 30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”  But read on and hear John the Baptist’s witness in verses 31-36.  Plainly he’s learned much of Who Jesus is by the Spirit!  Verse 36 says “he who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believer the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God aides on him.” Profoundly deep and accurate is his conclusion to Chapter 3.  So let’s ask ourselves: are we as clear with ourselves and the world around us when we answer the question, “Who is Jesus?”  Are we the clear message givers that we could be if we were as humble and truthful as John the Baptist?  Could we say these same words to someone that doesn’t know the Lord yet?  Pray that God would make us humble, clear and truthful in declaring to others the message of Who Jesus is and how important it is to believe the Son.

Day 4   Chapter 4

This is the chapter that tells us the story of Jesus’ challenge to the Woman at the Well, which took place in Samaria.  Samaria was a region within Israel that was occupied by a sort of mixed breed of people, partly Jewish and partly pagan, leftovers from the occupation of Assyria in previous times.  The pure Jews just wouldn’t deal with them and considered them to be unworthy of contact and fellowship.  In other words, they were prejudiced against this race of “misfits,” at least that’s how they saw them.  Jesus, taking a trip and passing through this region, taught us how God sees people that we might see as unworthy.  First of all, Jesus, left alone by the town water well, speaks to a woman directly.  Women of the day were not seen as equals to men and a Jewish Rabbi like Jesus was especially not to have a conversation with a woman like this, Samaritan and common.  He shows no hesitancy in conversing with her and addressing the present, the past, and the future.  He shows that He cares for her and knows all about her, sins and all.  He offers her the hope of Living Water and reveals Himself as the Messiah.  A woman and a Samaritan!  Of course we read that Jesus ends up revealing Himself to the entire town and they all believe for themselves, asking Jesus to stay for a couple of days.  Which He and the disciples do!  The message here?  Believing in Jesus is to be offered to everyone.  God doesn’t keep His goodness through His Son to just your kind of people.  He made all for His glory and all souls are His.  Jesus, the Light and Life, is that for everyone.  Even though the Samaritans hadn’t gotten much right about the Lord, they did know they needed a Savior, humbled themselves and believed Him.  Don’t withhold the goodness of God from someone you can’t relate to.  Ask God to use you to reach the unlovely, the different, the repulsive, as well as the easy love, this year.  If Jesus could, you can.  Note: He went from the Samaritans right to the nobleman’s request to heal his son.  God is no respecter of persons!  Aren’t you glad for that?

Day 5   Chapter 5

Here Jesus goes up to a feast in Jerusalem, likely Pentecost, and heals a man who has been paralyzed for 38 years.  Interesting to me is the fact that this man was still seeking the Lord’s healing by laying beside a pool of water in Bethesda, waiting for an Angel to stir the waters.  (He was nothing if not persistent.)  When that happened, the first person in the water was healed.  As you can imagine, there were lots of people waiting around the pool and watching the water for the first sign of movement.  It was a desperate lot.  Jesus, ever the obedient Son, knew what the Father was going to do.  No one knows why just him, but Jesus heals the man by simply speaking to him, commanding him to get up, take his bed in hand and walk away.  It was the most important moment in that man’s life.  He encountered God and was healed in the same moment.  Later Jesus finds him in the Temple, giving thanks to the Lord presumably and finds more accurately Who healed him.  The Jews, however, seek to persecute and kill Jesus because He dared to heal this man on a Sabbath day, a day on which no one was to work.  The Jews carefully made up their own rules as to what the definition of work was and they took great pride in those carefully made up, carefully enforced, rules.  They were offended at the challenge to their authority and pride.  The man who was healed trusted in a system of healing that didn’t work.  The Jews made up rules that didn’t work either.  Jesus broke both systems because the things of God are about God Himself and His Person is extended to those who believe, not those who follow rules perfectly.  Do you still think that God relates to you, moves in your life, according to how well you’re performing?  Not that we shouldn’t want to obey Him out of love and humility, but that’s not why God extends Himself to you.  It’s grace through faith that God cares about.  The Son of God is full of Grace and Truth.  Abandon your thoughts if you think that you’ve earned a place at His Feet.  Ask God to give you a humble heart and faith to simply believe that He loves you and wants to relate to you.  Believe in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  And rest from your efforts to relate by something you have to offer this year.

Day 6   Chapter 6

This is a rather long chapter and there’s much to be learned from it!  It begins with the story of the feeding of the 5,000 and then the stormy boat trip that ended with Jesus walking on the water.  (These incidents, by the way, are among the very few that John repeats with the other Gospel writers.)  Who but God could do such things?  Both incidents were amazing and especially with the feeding of the 5,000, very public.  Jesus gained many followers from the events of that day!  But what were their motives for following Him?  Look at verse 26.  They were into the miraculous meal and ignored the One who served it!  They loved what He could do for them, but were missing the more significant gift, God Himself!  They looked at the temporal (bread) and didn’t think the eternal was very important. They missed the message: “I am the Bread of Life.  He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.” (verse 35)  Are you asking God to give you things this year?  That’s not wrong of itself.  God wants to supply what you need.  But are you preoccupied with what He can give you in the way of earthly things and not preoccupied with Him?  That’s a huge mistake!  Believing in Him brings everlasting life. (verse 47)  He is the “Bread of Life” and it’s He Himself that sustains us and gives us all we need.  As you pray for the year ahead, ask the Lord to forgive you for prioritizing things and not the Son.  Seek God for more of Him and believe in the One who has the words of eternal life.  (verse 68)  It makes all the difference.

Day 7   Chapter 7

Chapter seven describes some interactions the Lord Jesus had with the Jews in Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles, a Fall feast at the end of harvest.  It has much to do with timing.  In the beginning of the chapter, Jesus’ natural half-brothers give Him some advice regarding where He should go and when.  Jesus ignores them when He says in verses 6-8 that His timing is not man’s timing.  At the right moment, He goes to the Feast and speaks to the crowds at the Temple.  (Verse 14)  The Jews challenge Him and even try to arrest Him (Verse 30) but “His hour had not yet come.”  Even later when officers were sent to arrest Him again, they returned empty handed saying, “No man ever spoke liked this man!” (Verse 46)  God’s timing is always perfect but is most often misunderstood and in opposition to ours!  He came at the right time in history and gave His life when it was just the right moment, not the time that men thought He should give His life.  So God uses time, comes at the right time and sees time as His tool to accomplish His will.  Are you yielding to His timing?  Sure, there are things that you would like to see happen this year and you should ask Him for them, presuming that they are the right kinds of things to ask for!  But are you content to believe Him and trust that His timing is the right timing?  As you pray today, let God know what you have in your heart.  But focus on Him, yield to Him and tell Him that you trust Him to time the fulfillment of every important turn of your life.

I love this Psalm!  It has so much packed into five verses that it’s difficult to pull all of its meaning out in one sitting, but here’s a beginning….

God is really the One who brings us to long lasting fruitfulness in our lives.  It’s not in how hard you work, although that’s important.  It’s not in how smart you are or how well placed you are.  What you build in your life isn’t really what you build as much as it’s the result of God’s work in building through you. People are proud creatures and as a result are insecure creatures.  There are quite a few people who are very confident that they can pull off a life of plenty, security and accomplishment.  But get them alone, at night when they should be sleeping and you’ll find even the best, worrying about tomorrow.  The universal answer to worry?  Give in to the truth that God builds what is lasting and God guards what remains.  Ask Him for wisdom in what He wants you to do and then prayerfully place today and tomorrow in His Hands.  Let Him build something lasting through you by following His leading and then, go to sleep at night resting in the fact that it’s not all up to you to pull off the perfect life.  He’s more than able to build something through you and through your children.  True security comes from the Lord.  PB

We’re finishing up a series of classes on parenting this week and in two weeks, and I must say, I’ve learned a lot!  Funny, I’ve been a parent for 31 years and there’s still more to know.  I think the most impressive part of what I’m learning is what I’m learning about myself.  There are principles, laws of parenting that I’m discovering that I never fully received in my own growing years.  I’m fast finding out that those principles need to be applied to my life more fully if I’m ever to become the man God wants me to be; and for my children to become the grownups God wants them to be.

I’m just thankful that God never stops teaching us and that He’s a Father without compare!  PB

I love Thanksgiving!  I know, I don’t have too much in the way of responsibilities for the day, the big meal or anything else for that matter.  But I do love this holiday.  We get to hang out as a family (ours has grown this year, thanks to the arrival of a grandson!) and we watch tv, eat, and converse.  And that’s the extent of the agenda, except for one thing…

Thanks.  Gratitude.  We have a porcelain plate on our mantle that simply says that one word, “Gratitude.”  And yes, we are grateful all year long in big and small ways, but Thanksgiving is our family’s big opportunity to voice it to each other.  And voice it we do.  Around the dinner table, talking on the couch and praying together.  We review what’s happened in the last year and we take a fresh stock of what God has brought into our lives.  That’s really the point.  Every good thing comes from Heaven, from God Himself.  We turn our hearts and our attention to Him and we say “Thank You!” with everything in us.  Will you do the same?  No matter how easy or difficult your situation this year?  I’ve met quite a few people in my life, all with differing circumstances.  Do you know what distinguishes the joyful and the depressed?  It’s not what they’ve been through or not been through.  It’s how much they say “Thank You” to the Lord.  Gratitude.  PB

This morning I was reading in the book of Ezekiel.  Have you ever read it?  Ezekiel is a priest who has been “relocated” by the Babylonians to ancient Persia.  While he’s there with the others who have been moved there with him, he gets a call.  The Lord calls him to be a prophet, but not just an ordinary one.  Ezekiel is given out-of-the-ordinary visions and demonstrations of God’s messages to His people.  Some people stop reading the book near the beginning; it just seems too fantastic to relate to modern day life.

It’s really a very practical book.  For example, I was reading Chapter 18 today, which reveals God’s heart regarding repentance.  Verse 31 says “Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.  For why should you die, O house of Israel?  ‘For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,’ says the Lord God.  ‘Therefore, turn and live!’ “  That was directed toward His people, Israel.  And what does that say to us?  Examine our lives and hearts.  Turn away from what’s wrong.  And let that be a process that continues in you indefinitely!  The Lord doesn’t want death and trouble to be our lot.  Repentance is meant to be a long term part of our walk with God.  And when we do, He renews our lives.  PB

I was reading in Proverbs 10 today and noticed that it comments about what comes out of your mouth in a few places in the chapter.  (Verses 11,19-21, 31-32)  Verse 11, the first mention, says this: “The mouth of the righteous is a well of life, But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.”  As I thought about it, it seemed so true; what comes out of your mouth has everything to do with your heart.  If your heart, your life, has been transformed by God, your expressions will reflect that transformation.  You really can’t help it!  If you have peace with God, a sense of security with Him, a new life, what you say and how you say it will bear the marks of what your insides are like.  The  truly “wicked” hardly speak at all (their mouth is covered) and when they do, it’s violence revealed.  Violence of intentions, violence against someone else’s identity, their person, or actual threats of physical violence.

So listen to yourself.  What do you hear?  Are your communications a “well of life?”  If they aren’t, there’s something in your heart that God wants to change – for the better!    PB

Have you ever felt like God was calling you to change, but the change was so large, so new, that it seemed like jumping off a cliff? From time to time in my life, I’ve felt that way. This is where God asks us to trust Him. I know you’ve heard of the old hymn which has, as a part of the chorus, the line “leaning on the Everlasting Arms.”
I’ve heard it said that trust in God is leaping off the right cliff, knowing that those Everlasting Arms are just past the brink and ready to catch you.
If God called you to do something new, would you do it? If it meant going beyond your comfort zone and saying something to someone, could you open your mouth and trust that He would give you the words? If His path took you a way you’ve never been before, would you go?
I believe the key to great accomplishments and change are found in the prayerful, trusting, leaps into new territory. I’m going to try to take a few new leaps myself; care to join me? Blessings, PB

With going away to minister this weekend, I’ll post the next installment of the fasting devotional here a few days early.  Fasting and prayer are precious to God!  Do it in secret, don’t look like you’re fasting, don’t brag about it, and God will “reward you in secret!”  His Blessings, PB

Day Eight

Nehemiah 1.7

We love it when God speaks! His voice is like nothing else and when He speaks we are changed by what He says. We most often, however, want Him to speak to us in special, personal and outward ways. Have you ever seen people line up for a word of personal prophecy? It’s hard to keep folks away when there’s an opportunity!

Nehemiah was convinced that God had spoken to him and to the whole nation of the Jews, yet God’s voice was disobeyed. And it wasn’t the voice of the prophet that he referred to. He referred to God’s Word given to Moses; the written Word! Have you ever looked at the Scriptures and breezed over what you’ve read, yet poured over a prophetic word spoken to you by a prophet? Ask God to give you a new respect for His Word, the Bible. Make a plan to read the Bible through this year. And plan on how you’ll obey His Word as you ask Him to make it alive to you.

Day Nine

Nehemiah 1.8-10

In these verses we hear another part of Nehemiah’s prayer. He ‘reminds’ God of what He said, who the Jews were to Him and what He had done for them in the past. Did God need reminding? I’ll let you answer that for yourself! This was interaction with God on the basis of God’s Word, taken to God in prayer and believed on in faith. God seems to love it when we ‘remind’ Him of His Word. We are changed by rehearsing what is unchangeable. Faith rests on what God has said and done and has promised for the future. Link what you are asking of the Lord to God’s promises in His Word. Stand on His revealed will and believe that what you seek is connected to what He wants. Faith pleases God and stands on what He has revealed about Himself and His will.

Day Ten

Nehemiah 1.11

Nehemiah, so far, has done all his responding to the burden of his heart with prayer and fasting. There have been no specific requests for anything until the end of his prayer. Somewhere in the middle of his praying the Holy Spirit began to speak to him about direction. He asks the Lord for His ear to be attentive to further prayer, to hear the prayers of the Jews, to let him prosper “this day” and to grant him mercy in the sight of “this man,” King Artexerxes. He began to see that his position as a cupbearer was the beginning of the answer that the Lord wanted to bring. Specific direction arrives in the middle of our personal prayer life. So many times we think and ponder and analyze before we get into God’s presence and pray. God wants to give you specific direction for your specific requests but they will come while we’re on our knees, concerned about Him alone. Are you looking for specific direction? Answers that defy logic? Continue to get in God’s presence, be honest, be confessing, be full of faith in Him and His Word and then ask for specifics. God loves to give them.

Day Eleven

Nehemiah 2.1

Notice the time frame of the beginning of this chapter. “…it came to pass in the month of Nisan…” Compare it to the beginning of the first chapter. “It came to pass in the month of Chislev…” Nehemiah began to pray in the ninth month of the Jewish calendar year, Chislev, or Kislev, as it is now spelled. This chapter records the first outward evidence that God had heard his prayer, and when did it happen? On the first month of the calendar year, Nisan. That means that Nehemiah waited about 4 months to see the Lord’s hand move in response to his prayer and fasting. Counting on instant results? Don’t! God’s timing is perfect and He answers prayer when we pray it, only we see the results later. Sometimes much later! Don’t be surprised if God takes months to answer what you agonize over in these three weeks. Praying is like sowing seed; it comes to harvest in another, but the right, season.

Day Twelve

Nehemiah 2.1&2

In response to your prayers there will come surprising responses from Heaven. You might ask the Lord to change something very important and have an expectation as to how He does it. God will most likely not address your needs in the way you expect. He likes to take care of the “how” of His answers because, well, He’s God! Nehemiah was just doing his job here at this point, four months after his heartfelt prayers and fasting. On this nondescript day the king looks at him and says “Why is your face sad, since you’re not sick?” No one was allowed to be sad in the king’s presence and Nehemiah made sure he was always smiling and positive when he was on duty. Nehemiah was petrified! It could mean his head would be the price of this slip. However, this particular day God initiated His answers to prayer by the unexpected; He let Nehemiah look sad to the king! Don’t expect God to answer by the method of your choice. Look for the unusual, the unexpected, to come about in answer to your prayers and even if it seems scary, trust that He is at work.

Day Thirteen

Nehemiah 2.3-4

Nehemiah is nearly frozen in fear. The king has seen that he showed sorrow in his face and asked why he was feeling that way. Nehemiah could have done a few things, but chose to take a leap of faith. He understood that this unusual circumstance was from God, but couldn’t have known how it was going to turn out. So he blurts out his heart’s burden to the pagan leader of the most powerful nation of the world at that time. He admits he’s sad, tells the king why and pauses. The result? God’s favor! Artaxerxes said “What do you request?” Take a leap of faith, based on your prayers this year. Expect that God’s favor will follow when you see Him change circumstances in a surprising way. God really is on your side when you concern yourself with what concerns Him. Favor follows your prayerful actions every time.

Day Fourteen

Nehemiah 2.4-8

Nehemiah continued to depend on the Lord, as evidenced by his “flare prayer” launched up under his breath but with his whole heart: “So I prayed to the God of Heaven.” Notice that Nehemiah had dependence upon God and a plan that God had birthed in his heart, ready for action. I need you to send me to Jerusalem, I’ll be gone this long and I need letters from you and resources from your forests. In this time of prayer and fasting, God will give you a plan that comes from His heart for what He has ahead for you. It will emerge from your prayers, your heartfelt, faith-filled times with Him. Write it down, run it by those in spiritual authority, hold it in your heart and at the right time, implement it. But don’t leave God in the dust of your actions; as if you could! Stay reliant on God in continuing relationship with Him. Put the Lord of the plan before the plan itself, but have the plan ready for action. Prayer and fasting has very real results.

Here’s the first seven days of a devotional written for our fast!  I’ll post the next seven days next Sunday, the 10th…

A 21 Day Devotional…

The Introduction

This fast and our prayers over these three weeks are meant to be a journey. We all have various burdens on our hearts, problems we face or important considerations for the year to come. Some of us have needs we’ve brought before the Lord many times before and have not seen them budge thus far. As we follow the story of Nehemiah, let’s determine, like he did, that we’re going to believe the Lord and find His answers for even the thorniest problems. Like Nehemiah, the concerns we have may have been around for years. Can we trust that this will be the year of fulfillment and relief?

Some of the background of Nehemiah…

This book is set during the time that the Jews are emerging from captivity. God had warned previous generations of Jews to turn away from idolatry and godlessness but they wouldn’t listen. The result was that an enemy country, Babylon, and their king, Nebuchadnezzer, came and conquered Israel. They took captive many of its people, bringing the best and brightest to Babylon. After many years and many stories of God’s continued love and faithfulness to His people, God used a subsequent foreign leader to send willing Jews back to Israel to rebuild the temple, re-establishing the Jews in their own land. At the same time, many Jews stayed in the country(ies) of their captivity, now settled in those societies. Other Jews were able to travel back and forth from Israel to Persia and related to both groups. It’s here that we find Nehemiah, one of those who stayed in Persia, in an honored and trusted position in the Persian government: he was the cupbearer to King Artaxerxes. As such, Nehemiah tasted all the food given to the king, preventing the king’s assassination by poisoning, but also arranged the inner circle details of the king and queen’s personal service. He was “set for life” in this important position.

It was at this point in his life that Nehemiah was confronted with a problem that he could not ignore. Its solution would require that he go to God with the issue, trust God as he petitioned the king himself and leave his tidy life behind. The risk he took threatened his very life and the rewards would benefit the entire race of the Jews…Would he be the one God would use in his day?

Day One

Nehemiah 1.1&2

Nehemiah, the son of Hachiliah, was hard at work in the center of society. He was a Jew, of a priestly heritage, in a position of influence in the most important city of the day. He didn’t get there by accident! God had put him there by virtue of circumstances beyond his control and by Nehemiah’s faithfulness in those opportunities. You are where you are by those same two factors! Today, thank God for the position(s) He has given you in life. Are you young, are you old, are you prominent, are you obscure, are you influencing thousands or are you influential with just a few? Wherever you are you can be faithful in what He has brought to you in life. Ask the Lord to give you an appreciation for His sovereignty regarding your situation and a resolve to be trustworthy where you are this year.

Day Two

Nehemiah 1.1&2

A friend and relative of Nehemiah, Hanani, along with some other men, came to visit him. In the background of Nehemiah’s heart was what Christians like to call a “burden.” It was a long term concern of the heart, and it came up during the visit because it was always just under the surface and found opportunity for expression in the conversation. For Nehemiah, the state of God’s people was his great concern. It popped up whenever and wherever something touched his heart strings. What is your particular burden? What is it that pops up whenever someone has a deep conversation with you? We’re all meant to be concerned about poverty, sickness, and especially someone’s salvation. But in your heart there’s a God-given burden, something special that you are to pray over and take action on when the right time comes. Ask the Lord to help identify your particular heart concern today and during the fast.

Day Three

Nehemiah 1.3

Hanani answered the question posed by Nehemiah by telling him the truth. Using words like “great distress and reproach” to describe the state of the Jews couldn’t have been easy for Hanani. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to gloss the situation over? He knew his friend would be moved to tears, but he stated the facts: “The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.” I’m sure he used all of the grace he could muster for his friend, but in the end it was the truth he told. Is there someone you need to be truthful with? Is there a situation that requires that you say what needs to be said even though you know there will be an emotional price to pay afterward? Or if you’re one of those tell-it-like-it-is people, do you need to add grace to what might be a difficult truth? Ask the Lord for the wisdom, opportunity and the grace needed to speak the truth in love, especially the situation you may be currently facing.

Day Four

Nehemiah 1.4

Nehemiah heard the answer that he didn’t want to hear. It was painful to realize that the burden of his heart for God’s people was now bringing him to near emotional collapse. Is there anything in your life that makes you sit down and weep? There should be! We hear so many disaster and horror stories in the news and see them played out in theatres so often that we find ourselves numbed to what should move us. Apathy is so prevalent that people have been found watching crimes being committed and yet do nothing to stop the crime. Christians, who have God’s Spirit, should be moved by what moves Him. Ask the Lord to heighten your concerns for what concerns Him. Let the Lord move you to tears about the plight of man and allow Him to cause your heart to be broken over specific situations of His choosing.

Day Five

Nehemiah 1.4

Nehemiah didn’t pick up the phone and call his network of contacts. He didn’t search his mind for the most logical response. He didn’t call in favors or check his bank account to see how much he could contribute to the cause. He fasted and prayed before the God of Heaven. This is really what we’re doing in these first days of 2010. We have a laundry list of concerns: our families, our friends, our neighborhood, our state and nation, our own personal lives. Is our first response to difficulty that we get before the Lord? Commit yourself to bring your burdens, your problems, the people and things you care most about, to the Lord. Let Him be “First Responder” to the most pressing of needs this year.

Day Six

Nehemiah 1.5

Nehemiah’s prayer is recorded for us. It’s so significant that God wanted us to read it! And like the Lord’s prayer that begins with “Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Your Name,” this prayer begins with a rehearsing of, and praise for, the God of Heaven. He told God that He is great and awesome, that He keeps His covenant and has mercy ready for those who love Him. Did God need to hear that? No, but Nehemiah needed to remind himself and say it all over again to God. It was the expression of his faith and knowledge of the One who rules in Heaven. What is God like in your mind and heart? Is He the “God who listens every once in a while” or the “God who might care a little bit about people other than me” or “________” and you fill in the blank? In your prayers, remind yourself of who God has revealed Himself to be: the God of Heaven and Earth who loves and listens to my faith filled prayers in Jesus’ Name.

Day Seven

Nehemiah 1.6

Nehemiah was a pretty high powered guy. He had a position that I’m sure many envied. He was respected by everyone. And yet he was a humble man. As a matter of fact, he admitted to sins that he likely didn’t commit personally, but lumped himself in with his rebellious ancestors and disobedient contemporaries. He saw himself for what he was: a part of a family of people who, by and large, left God in the cold. What have you been like? A liar? A thief? Idolatrous? Nehemiah, like all of us, knew he wasn’t worthy of God’s attention. But he was honest and humble. God doesn’t want the dressed-up you. He wants the real you. We can’t make God listen to us because we’ve got anything worthwhile to give to Him. He listens because He’s gracious and merciful through His Son Jesus. And when we’re honest about ourselves, humbly coming to Him, we’re coming the right way. Ask the Lord to help you see who you really are, admit who you are and what you’ve done. Humble yourself, you aren’t worthy. Let Him shine the light on your true self and yet believe that He is the God of all mercy and will hear you.

It’s really just Him!  God has given us His Holy Spirit because we need Him.  The state of the world, the challenges to reach lost people, transform our neighborhoods and society around us is much too much for us.  The filling of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the power of God to change lives and hearts by the Holy Spirit is what is needed, now as much as in the early New Testament days.  The Spirit, the Word and unified believers can and will bring needed change to human lives and society.  Open your heart to the Holy Spirit!  His Blessings, PB