Pray KNCSB

War has been the way we, human beings, gathered as nations, have settled our differences with other nations. Individually, as our forefather Cain did, we violate our way out of conflicts, real or imagined. One day we anticipate that war shall be no more as the Prince of Peace teaches us how to lay down weapons of death and pick them back up again as pruning hooks. One day the lion of war shall lie down with the lamb of peace. Meanwhile, back at the farm, war is a reality we must contend with. Contend we must and a way we contend is to pray.

Our nation is in the throes of wars and peacekeeping and peacemaking. More starkly, our young men and women are sacrificing precious lives in the belief that freedom is worth dying for and for the sake of justice rolling down like streams, that right must prevail over wrong, that self-sacrifice is oppression’s answer whether on our own soil or on foreign soils.

It’s true that nations have no friends but only interests. But interests can be the greater common good (of our nation and of the rest of the world). So we fight in the hope of gaining ground over the forces of evil. But we must not only fight. We must also pray. Long ago, God instructed his people to pray and work for peace. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And pray also to become peacemakers.

So let’s pray.

Dear God, we confess that our dependence is on You who sees humanity as the object of his love.

Dear God, we pray that Your kingdom of peace will be established upon the earth as You promised.

Dear God, we pray that Your will prevail on earth as it is in heaven.

Dear God, we pray that the hope of doing good by young men and women will not give way to despair.

Dear God, we pray that the loved ones of fighters would be able to lay their anxieties at the feet of the Prince of Peace.

Dear God, we pray that those who enlist to achieve dreams of goodness in the world, would have their dreams come true.

Dear God, we pray that those who give up their lives in the fight for freedom and against oppression would be convinced that greater good occurs when we engage the enemies of goodness and justice rather than when we are indifferent to the plight of humanity.

Dear God, we pray that we learn war no more as we sit at the feet of the Peacemaker.

Dear God, we pray that the work our soldiers do in the name of justice would not go in vain.

Dear God, we pray that in our brokenness we are relieving the greater brokenness of the world.

Dear God, we pray that American soldiers would fight with dignity and preserve the dignity of others.

Dear God, we pray that the hand of Him who is our Peace would heal the damages and ravages of war on the soul of men and women, children, and parents.

Dear God, we pray that the nations and men of war would cease to roar and wage war.

Dear God, we pray that every opportunity for peacemaking would be thoroughly exhausted and humility prevail.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.

What do you do when you are faced with sorrow in and around you? What happens in your soul when you encounter tragedy or experience a sacred moment? There is certainly no shortage of pain and hurt in our world, in our lives. And if we live attentive lives we are bound to encounter divine sacred moments or events in life. What responses are appropriate for such a time as these?

Often the Bible joins prayer with fasting as a way to respond to life’s not so happy side. Prayer is natural in such times because of real helplessness when facing such unhappiness or grave event. The psalmists, for example, often lament life’s miseries, attacks of enemies, and the distance they feel toward God. Prayer is spirit/Spirit conversation.

Fasting, on the other hand is body talk. It’s our body responding to grief and sorrow, to sacred moments. Scot McKnight says in his book on fasting that at the very core of fasting is empathy with the divine or participation in God’s perception of a sacred moment. When death occurs God is grieved. When his people sin, God grieves. When his people are oppressed God experiences sorrow. Fasting is our participation in the grief of God and of others. It is important to get at the truth that fasting is a response to events or circumstances that already happened. Fasting is not an instrument to get what we want from God. In fasting, we are gifted with the opportunity to pay attention to God, feel the compassion of God for us and for others, and live in the freedom or grace given to us to serve God by doing his will.

To illustrate how fasting is a response, consider the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement that Leviticus 23:27 speaks of. On that day Israel confessed its sins, God covered (atoned for) their sins, the temple was purified, and reconciliation occurred.

So here we see that a “grievous sacred moment or event in the life of the people of faith. On that day they confessed sin and found atonement [covering, erasure] and forgiveness.” On that day the people of God practiced a form of denial of themselves. That means they afflicted themselves or “afflicted their throats.” This is fasting: afflicting ourselves by withholding from our throats the comfort of food in response to the grievous sacred moment. The third element in fasting is the response that is the repentance that is represented by fasting bodily.

Why all this talk of fasting? Because the Church in North America is facing such a need to call on God in prayer and fasting in response to grievous sacred moments in our present day society and church. Our litany of sins is too long to number. But the Holy Spirit has a handle on that and in our groaning our Lord Jesus will intercede to the Father on our behalf. In order to enter fully into this sorrow (the prevalence of sinfulness, the lack of a desire for holiness even in the church), we are called upon, as the Israelites had in the past, to respond in prayer and fasting (humbling ourselves before God). Our Day of Atonement is ever present. Shall we not enter where many before us did, even our Lord Jesus Christ?

Would you consider joining me in responding to our lack of holy living or grievous sacred moments, with broken hearts? If you are able, and have no medical cause not to, would you set aside one day a week (Sundown to sundown. If that is too much, aim for one day every two weeks or a month) to fast in response to the situation we find ourselves in? I will set aside Mondays (Sundown Sunday to sundown Monday) of each week to pay attention to God, to see and feel compassion for our plight in the church and the world, and to act and receive the grace or freedom to seek God’s favor in our land. I am inclined to think that if God would answer our prayers (fasting is praying with our bodies), cover our sin, and heal us with holiness by his Holy Spirit, fasting would be part of our response.

Make us alive again to your presence, O God. Give us the vibrant faith we need to live holy lives. Give us one and all in your church to become robust sharers of the Good News and disciple making servants of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In our dire strait, awaken and transform us for Christ’s sake. Amen.

N.B. If you are reading this and wish to respond to this call to fast in response to the grave situation in the church and society today, would you be so kind as to comment by saying “I will do my best with God’s grace to join others in fasting and prayer.”

The Role of Fasting in Spiritual Awakening

Most exhorters to spiritual awakening like to mention the duet instruments of prayer and fasting. These Siamese twins are prevalent in revival talk. But how does fasting work? Biblically that is?

Confusion about fasting abound. Many writers consider fasting as an instrument to get things from God or to get God to act in response to something we need: direction in life, some answer we need desperately. In the case of revival some Christians call on us to fast in order for God to favor us with revival. This is of course well intentioned. However, it is a biblically an inaccurate reason to fast. This is not wrong per se. But to be true to the Scripture, fasting is not about getting things from God. We may get results that come after fasting but not because of it. There may be an outcome to fasting, but the outcome, whether there or not, is not the same as the reason to fast. We don’t fast in order to get something from God. Rather, biblical fasting is mainly about responding to something God is doing or to something that has already happened in life.

That something is a key to understanding the reason for fasting. I am convinced that those through whom the Holy Spirit of God used to usher in His awakenings, revivals, and transformation knew what biblical fasting is. They knew to fast because they knew the reality of society and church. They did not fast to bring revival; they fasted in response to what they saw in society and in the church. Their intended goal was to respond rather than to make things happen. Fasting to make things happen is like making deals with God: “I fast, you dispense revival.” Well, God is not in this business of making deals.

Biblical fasting is always in response to life and to God’s actions. A life well lived is never short on sacred moments, tragedies, and sorrows. A life lived in the presence of God cannot but respond to such pain. The most natural response we humans have at our disposal to deal with life’s sacredness, and pain, its joys and sorrows, is to abstain from food. Tragedy or sorrow always demands a response. Notice how we refrain from eating at the death of a loved one or in case of serious injury! Often in Scripture the response to such life events is prayer and fasting. Not for results but as a way of entering the sorrow of our lives and that of others.

We have such a prevailing condition in our society today as well as in some of our churches. A tragedy of huge proportions has taken place over several decades in our country and our churches. The situation has become intolerable. Sin is rampant in and outside the church. Our dropout rates are phenomenal. Life completely sold on God (regeneration) is rare in our midst. It’s not the norm. Many of the people who are called by God’s name are not living up to that name.

Shall we not enter into this sorrow? Shall we remain aloof to this tragedy? Shall we not embrace our divine call to enter into the action of God and respond by prayer and fasting, as our Jewish/Christian heritage teaches us to do?

The first aspect of a call to fasting is to see the reality, the bleak reality of nominal Christianity (Christian in name only). The reality that says I can call Jesus savior but never mind him as Lord. The reality that says I’ve got my ticket stamped for the train whose destination is heaven, but never mind the ride there. I’ll just grin and bear it, if I can. Cheap grace is living without self-denial, without willful sacrifice, without intentional dying to our selves. This is the broad path and gate.

Spirit of the Living and Loving God, fall fresh on your Church!

Spirit of the Living and Loving God, fall fresh on me!

Melt the dross of my sin and cleanse me from within.

Give me eyes to see, the brokenness in and around me.

And seeing, help me to enter into the sorrow, the tragedy,

In fasting response to Thee.

I think much more about myself when I should be more mindful of others? I cause pain to those I love. I chicken out when it comes to standing up to those who hurt others. I act stupidly but I blame others. I make a mess in my life by having unhealthy appetites. Why is speaking badly of others so at home on the tip of my tongue? Why is my soul so broken?

Dare I ask it? Why is yours? Neither you nor I are the first to struggle with answers to our experience of pride.

When asked what is wrong with the world, G.K. Chesterton responded with this shortest essay ever written: “I am.”  The reason he was so sure of his response is because of a realistic view of his own sin, which is first and foremost a power inhabiting our physical bodies. Long ago, one of the early Christians told us that sin “tends to make that which is cease to be.”

Jeff Cook sees sin as a parasite in need of a host, which we willingly supply. As a power sin cannot exist on its own. Just like the demons in Jesus’ parable, they take up residence in the house of a willing host.

Early in the life of the church all kinds of saints tried to understand the reality of sin and its manifestations. So they created lists of the most essential elements of sin. One author called these elements “wrong thoughts”. Others prefer to see them as challenges to our faith. Another named them deadly sins. History finally settled on naming seven of them: Pride, envy, sloth, greed, lust, wrath, and gluttony. From these spring all other sins we commit. Rape, violent acts, gossip, adultery, and murder come from anger or wrath or envy or lust. Cheating and hording come from greed. You get the idea.

Why do some call these seven sins the deadly sins? Well, cogitate with me for a moment. For example, a person who is totally possessed by pride, or his heart is strongly grasped by it, will be affected at the deepest levels of his being by his arrogance. Pride’s tentacles extend to all aspects of his life. The way he perceives everything (his whole worldview) is tainted and affected by his high view of himself and low view of others.

Do you own shares in the common stock of pride? Are you a member of the club? Is pride in your life? We all naturally love ourselves; self-love is mandated by our Lord “love your neighbor as yourself.” But when I exaggerate this love of myself or pervert it into contempt for others, I am full of pride. Pride or arrogance is a debilitating, death-thirsty, self-inflicted disease, gone on a rampage in us.

If pride is leprosy, I pronounce myself unclean. Who can deliver me from this deadening sin? Thanks be to God. He owns the business of grave digging and has a monopoly on bringing the dead back to life from the dark tomb of pride.

The proud think they contribute more than they do. They believe they are more important than they really are. Because their own self blinds them, they are unable to recognize the contributions of others. They believe that if they think highly of others somehow they are thinking less of themselves.

One who knows wrote: “Pride is the cause of the most damaging fall for the soul. It induces the Christian to deny that God is his helper and to consider that he himself is the cause of his own virtues” (Evagrius of Ponticus, 345-399 AD). Another, who struggled with pride for a long time wrote: “pride made the soul desert God, to who it should cling as the source of life, and to imagine itself instead as the source of its own life” (Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 AD).

Jeff Cooke adds: “The more I make my life, my well-being, my enlightenment, and my success primary, the farther I step from reality. Thus the hell-bound do not travel downward; they travel inward, cocooning themselves behind a mass of vanity, personal rights, religiosity, and defensiveness” (The Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes, p. 34).

The elder son in the prodigal son story is the epitomy of this kind of pride. It destroyed his ability to connect with his father, his brother, and even his own soul. Pride is the one sin that makes everyone ill and especially the one who has it.

When you find pride in yourself, or in others, you will also find much private thinking, much time spent alone because of disdain of others, and much lone ranger activity; a tenacious unwillingness to submission to authority of any kind.

Christianity in North America suffers today because millions of individual Christians have decided to go it alone without the church. Believing they are right, they do their own thing without any accountability, any submission to authority, deeming themselves captains of their own souls, masters of their own ships, with the determination to seek their own destinies apart from tradition. Pride moved into their neighborhood, and emerged as a virtue. Jesus and me and a few others and to h… with the rest of you… If an implosion of Christianity were to take place in the West, history will judge pride as the fuse that lit the downward spiral.

The antidote of pride is humility, the subject of the next article. Until next month, think through with Jesus about the damage to your soul that pride is wreaking (read Luke 15:11-32; Luke 16. There are great lessons about pride here). Walk a little with the master immersed in His words in these great texts.  Look full into His wonderful face. The things of pride may grow strangely familiar.

It is no secret to anymore that the Christian faith has stopped spreading in the West (Europe and North America). However, Christianity is gaining ground on other continents. A plethora of prophets have given a plethora of reasons for this lackluster advance of the Christian faith to keep up with the increase of population in the West. Many blame a lukewarm faith in the church, a loss of first love for God and for people. Frankly speaking, the blame game is not a solution nor does it pave the way to a solution. Truth be told, holiness among us and among all the people of God of all times has always been in short supply. Recent polls of the holiness of the people of God, if we are to trust the polls to some extent, confirms the paucity of holiness among us. Our holiness is mediocre at best and “Be ye holy as your Father in heaven is holy” is foreign language to many of us. This problem is perennial. For generations on end, we have taken a minimal approach to living our faith. We have satisfied ourselves with so little of God and so much of us. We have settled for the least we can do, the least morality, the least devotion, the least intimacy with God. We do just enough to get by. I am being confessional, not accusatory.

Is there hope for Christianity to come back from the grave of irrelevance? Can we rise again from the ash heap of compromise to new heights of living for and with God? Will we know again a movement of the Holy Spirit that will transform our hearts, and our communities once more? The answer is of course yes. But not by human might nor by human  power but by My Spirit says the Lord. The Holy Spirit did it before time and again. We too, in our generation, as generations before us did, must raise desperate voices to our Mighty God who is able to reform, re-awaken, and revive his people.

There is urgency to this call. How long shall we wait to see the next generation of Christ’s people team with new life from the moment they enter the kingdom of the heavens? How long must we hope, O God, for a fresh visit of your unmistakable Spirit? When will we notice that if you left us, we would continue our work without noticing your absence? How long will we blame society for being lost when we’re no longer willing ourselves to be found?

We are your people, the sheep of your Nebraska and Kansas pasture. We are tired of not seeing the maximum good you can do for us, in us and through us. We are your people, and we are tired of grazing on dry grass when green pastures are promised. We are your people; called by your name, now bow before you in humble confession. We have not cared, as we should. We have not prayed, as we should. We have not sacrificed, as we should. We have not died to ourselves, as we should. We’ve carried the feather cross of convenience when the weighty cross of repentance and prayer are needed. We have exchanged the real cross for a pretend, shadowy cross of our own invention.

What shall we do to live again? We mustn’t pretend we have answers. We have none. We mustn’t be sure of our solutions, You alone know the problem. So our first task in being awakened, revived, and transformed is to wait on you with some measure of hope, some seed of faith, some anticipation that we are still in your plan of expanding Your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Cast us not, O Gentle Savior, hear our humble cry. While on others You are waiting, do not pass us by. This we know, this is our plea: You are The Answer, Our Friend, and you have the Answer. Blow like the mysterious Wind, Savior, Savior, blow in the Wind. We claim as your people claimed so often before us that those who wait upon God get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles, they run and don’t get tired, they walk and don’t lag behind. We rest in this: You desire to transform us more than we do. We hope and pray, we cling lest we drown from the weight of our sin. Have mercy on us, O Lord.

May the confession of my lips and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O God of mercy. Amen.