The sinfulness of man requires the power of God to overcome our nature, bringing us to Christ and setting us free from our sins, removing us from the kingdom of darkness and placing us into the kingdom of God, adopting us as sons of God and joint heirs with Christ, establishing both our ability to stand before the righteous throne of Almighty God as well as establishing our right to do so by virtue of Christ’s perfect righteousness imputed to our account.
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”
—John Piper
Satan wants to cause disruptions and disunity among missionaries to make their ministry ineffective, and ruin their testimonies, which if not quickly dealt with, could cause many to reject the gospel.
There can be a tendency to think of missionaries as superheroes and put them on a pedestal, but the truth is that they are just like all other Christians with every weakness and temptation that you struggle with. Like you and me, they too need to depend on the Lord so that He can work through them. God truly does use the weak and foolish of this world to confound the wise (1 Cor. 1:27).
Missionaries need your prayers.
Some examples of things you can pray for:
Dependence on God.
For strong, godly marriages.
For health problems- these can cause discouragement and might press missionaries to eventually leave the field.
For the difficulties of language and culture learning.
That the message of the gospel of grace (not works) would be clearly understood
Missionaries are often surrounded by Satanic forces through witchcraft and rituals of the local people.
Frustration that comes from with lack of privacy, lack of results, unfamiliar foods, extreme climates.
Open communication and good relationships with coworkers.
Loneliness, including separation from family and friends.
Making new friends in a new culture and language.
Missionary children- for social, educational and spiritual development.
Bible translation- Satan doesn’t want God’s Word to spread into other languages and it is a real spiritual warfare to get the Word of God into a new language.
Eight Ideas for Reaching Your Mission Field (Other Cultures in Your Back Yard)
1. Take your neighbors a plate of cookies with a tract in their own language. If you give a non-disposable plate they are almost sure to return it, possibly with a gift of their own. Then continue the relationship.
2. Get the young people of your church involved. Many teenagers are taking foreign language classes in school or have learned it at home. Challenge them to memorize their testimony in this foreign language and go from there.
3. Hand out copies of the Gospel of John in the language of your neighbors and those at work or leave in your work break room, hospital waiting rooms, laundromats and other public places for people to pick up and read.
4. Pray specifically for families and couples to be saved and discipled. The family is so important and will lead to other members being brought to Christ
5. Consider starting some informal soccer games on Saturday and involve the children or maybe even adults. Bring a cooler of cold water. Take a break, give out the water and share the gospel. In many countries, soccer (or football as it is called in other places) is a favorite.
6. If you have a ministry in your church that teaches in another language, pray fervently for that ministry to grow. We can plant and water, but it is God who will bring the growth.
7. If you speak a foreign language, volunteer to be a translator for gospel materials. You must have good grammar and spelling, but the needs are endless!
8. If you speak the language, help with outreach events, paying particular attention to those who come and speak in a foreign language.
Some encouraging quotes to help fuel your prayer for missions:
“Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God” — William Carey, who is called the father of modern missions
“If a commission by an earthly king is considered an honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?” — David Livingstone
“Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell.” — C.T. Studd
“Someone asked, ‘Will the heathen who have never heard the gospel be saved?‘ It is more a question with me whether we — who have the gospel and fail to give it to those who have not — can be saved.” — Charles Spurgeon
“Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God’s delight in being God.” — John Piper
“People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives … and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.” — Nate Saint, missionary and martyr
“We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.” — John Stott
“It is not in our choice to spread the gospel or not. It is our death if we do not.” — Peter Taylor Forsyth
Yesterday I posted about the source of our deepest hungering and desire. What do we truly desire and what does it say about our heart? You can read about that here: Prayer and Fasting (part 1). Today I want to spend more time explaining the biblical idea of fasting and prayer and then look at some practical consideration for fasting.
Jesus’ general principle regarding how to be blessed or ruined by spiritual disciplines is found in Matthew 6:1, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”
Then Jesus gives three examples of ways that we can be found guilty of practicing our faith for others to see us and admire us:
Giving (vv. 2-4) or our outward conduct
Praying (vv. 5-15) or our upward conversations
Fasting (vv. 16-18) or our inward cravings
Matthew 6:16-18 reads, “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
What Is Biblical Fasting?
Simply defined, fasting (for all reasons) is to refrain from food for a period of time. Biblical fasting is always accompanied with prayer. I am speaking of biblical fasting here, because several religions practice fasting, and people fast for medical and other purely non-religious reasons.
Fasting in the Bible is required only in the Old Testament, for the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29-34; 23:26-32). This “self-affliction” was to accompany the offering of sacrifices for the nation of Israel. It was a national day of mourning for their sins. As such, eating was inappropriate.
Since Jesus Christ has become our final sacrifice (Heb 10:12), we do not need a Day of Atonement. Therefore, the only obligatory day of fasting has been removed for Christians. So, fasting is not required by God.
Why did people in Bible fast?
Although there was only one obligatory day to fast, voluntary fasting was(and is) acceptable to God if done with the right heart attitude. Some examples of the reasons people fasted in the Bible were:
When Mourning: 2 Samuel 3:35 tells us David fasted after the death of Abner.
When in Grave Danger: Esther 4:16 shows us that Esther asked for prayer and fasting before she approached the king.
When Repentant: Jonah 3:5, 7 explains how the Ninevites repented before God in sackcloth and ashes for their sins, and God forgave them.
When Facing Important Decisions: Acts 13:2-3 says that before the church at Antioch sent away Paul and Barnabas for their mission trip they prayed and fasted.
When Facing Intense Trials: Matthew 4:2 tells us that as Jesus prepared to begin his ministry, he was led into the wilderness where he fasted and prayed for forty days and was tempted by Satan.
How should Christians approach fasting?
First, remember that fasting is not obligatory, but voluntary. We are nowhere commanded to fast, although we may do so when we desire. The Pharisees fasted two times a week (Lk 18:12), but this was a tradition of men, not a requirement of God.
Also, remember this important truth if you become puffed up in your fasting: of the two men in the Temple that day that Jesus spoke of in Luke 18, one fasted, and the other went home justified! Fasting does not justify us!!
Second, we must fast with the right intentions. Matthew 6:16 shows us that there are some who practice religious activities to be seen by others.
If you fast, ask yourself why you are doing it?
If you fast, are you letting yourself look tired or haggard so people will ask you about it? The Pharisees loved the attention they received. They even went so far as to rub ash on their faces to look more sullen and sickly. It’s the same with all our spiritual disciplines. Do you do them to be seen by men?
If you fast, are you trying to earn God’s favor? Fasting is not a bargaining chip for God. It’s not “I skipped food for three days Lord. YOU HAVE TO HEAR ME NOW!” Fasting doesn’t mean that if I give up meat, God will do what I say.
Finally, when we fast, we should see it as an opportunity to put all of our focus upon God, and not as an opportunity to pull attention to ourselves. Jesus pointed out that the Pharisees drew attention to themselves with their sullen look. Instead, fasting ought to be seen as a time to look at the Giver of every good and perfect gift. We can forget about God sometimes, and when we fast, we take our eyes off of the gift of food and cast our eyes toward heaven to find communion with our Lord. This is why the Pharisees were such hypocrites. They took something which should have given God attention and used it for their own attention.
Some final considerations regarding fasting:
Fasting does not need to be a fast from food only. Some of you may not be able to fast from food for medical reasons. Perhaps you are weakened from sickness or you need to take medications or your doctor has said, “No fasting.” That is ok. God knows how weak our frame is!
Fasting, although primarily abstaining from food for a time of dedicated prayer and worship with the Lord, is not only described in terms of food. If you look at 1 Corinthians 7:5 it refers to a different kind of fast for married couples. Notice that this fasting referred to here is for a set time and for the purpose of prayer. It should be short and purposeful by agreement of both so as not to give an opportunity for temptation for either the husband or the wife.
Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “Fasting if we conceive of it truly, must not … be confined to the question of food and drink; fasting should really be made to include abstinence from anything which is legitimate in and of itself for the sake of some special spiritual purpose. There are many bodily functions which are right and normal and perfectly legitimate, but which for special peculiar reasons in certain circumstances should be controlled. That is fasting.”
This means that food may not be a big deal for you, but perhaps TV or internet distracts you from the Lord and prayer. Maybe its sports or something else.
RememberAbraham? In Genesis 22:1-2 what does it say Abraham loved? What did he hunger for? He longed for the promised son Isaac. And God gave him a good gift in Isaac. But now God asks him to sacrifice what he loved. Did he love God more than Isaac?
Abraham set his eyes to obey the Lord. He took Isaac up the mountain and he bound him and took the knife to slay his beloved boy. But look at vv. 11-12. “now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son…” Abraham’s love for God was greater than his love for Isaac.
Now let me ask you, what do you hunger for most? Who’s in charge? Is it your hunger or God? It is easy to say that it’s not food, like the drunk who says he can give up his liquor anytime he wants, but he just doesn’t want to. What controls you so that you don’t want to give it up?
Dear friend above all else, hunger and thirst for Christ.
In his book on fasting entitled A Hunger for God, John Piper wrote, “What we hunger for most, we worship.” I once put that quote up on Facebook, and some friends wrote comments about how it made them think of food! You hunger most for food. We laugh, but that is too true, isn’t it? “What we hunger for most, we worship.”
Some hunger for sexual desires, like Amnon in 2 Samuel 13 who longed so much for his beautiful half-sister Tamar that he became physically ill until he fulfilled his lustful desire and raped her.
Some hunger for possessions, like King Ahab in 1 Kings 21, who longed for Naboth’s vineyard, but who wouldn’t sell it to him and so the king sulked like a child. To give him what he wanted, his wicked wife Jezebel had Naboth murdered and Ahab’s lust for this property was finally fulfilled.
Some hunger for marriage, like King Solomon who according to 1 Kings 11:3, gathered for himself 700 wives and 300 concubines not caring about the fact that many were pagan women who eventually led his heart astray from the Lord.
So Piper is describing what the Bible so clearly teaches: What we hunger for most, we worship. But we need to be careful here, don’t we? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 8:8, “Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.” So the issue is never what we eat or what we do not eat or whether we fast or whether we do not fast. The issue for Jesus always is our heart, is it not?
So then, why should we consider fasting? Why have Christians for centuries decided to set aside eating a meal (or several days of eating) to dedicate themselves to prayer instead of satisfying their hunger? It is because fasting moves our attention off of the gift of food and on to the Giver.
Again, John Piper states for us the danger of forgetting this distinction and the danger for our souls if we do not stop and examine ourselves and our hunger:
“The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18–20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable. Jesus said some people hear the word of God, and a desire for God is awakened in their hearts. But then, “as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life” (Luke 8:14). In another place he said, “The desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Mark 4:19). “The pleasures of this life” and “the desires for other things”—these are not evil in themselves. These are not vices. These are gifts of God. They are your basic meat and potatoes and coffee and gardening and reading and decorating and traveling and investing and TV-watching and Internet-surfing and shopping and exercising and collecting and talking. And all of them can become deadly substitutes for God.”
John Piper, A Hunger for God, 14-15
You see, fasting doesn’t commend us to God. But it is a tool for us to test our heart attitudes about God. It does test our love and our hunger for God to see if we love Him more than these other things. Tomorrow I will look at Matthew 6 and describe what biblical fasting is, why people in the Bible fasted, and how we as Christians today should approach fasting and prayer.
““Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.“For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.“Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone?“Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”
(Matthew 7:7–11, NASB95)
I suspect that we all have struggled at times to be consistent in our prayer times. In Matthew 7:7-11 (quoted above), Jesus is in the middle of his great Sermon on the Mount. In chapter six, the Lord gave an amazing lesson on prayer. But as you listen to what Jesus is teaching in the Sermon on the Mount the more you see that radical dependence that you and I need in prayer.
We need prayer because he calls us to forgive our enemies (Matt. 6:14-15).
We need prayer because he says when we fast, it is to be with a humble heart (Matt. 6:16-18).
We need prayer because he warns us of the lure of material possessions and how they can steal away our affection for the Lord (Matt. 6:19-24).
We need prayer because Jesus told us that we aren’t supposed to get anxious, that he would provide for all of our needs (Matt. 6:25-34).
We need prayer because we aren’t supposed to unfairly judge others, but rather we need to examine our hearts to find healing and forgiveness for our sins first (Matt. 7:1-5).
We need prayer because we need to discern when those we preach the gospel to are so hard-hearted or against our efforts that we need to move on, all while keeping our own hearts tender and hoping that they will come to repentance (Matt. 7:6).
So, coming to chapter 7, it should be very clear to the reader how much prayer is needed. So, as Jesus begins to teach on the need to take every request to the Lord who is good and gives to his children, we see three ways in which we need to be persistent in prayer:
1. “Ask” your heavenly Father.
Every one of these five verses speaks about asking, and all of them point to the fact that if we ask our heavenly Father, he will answer our needs. Implied in asking is the need for humility. We ask when we do not have. Those who are self-sustained and have no need for God will not pray. And those who say they need God but do not pray, show by their lack of prayer that they do not truly believe that they need God. The prideful take care of themselves. The humble submit to the Lord’s will as they go to him in prayer.
2. “Seek” the Father’s will.
This reminds us of Matt. 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
The desire to be dependent upon God progresses from asking God in humble dependence to growing in prayer while seeking God’s will. Seeking gives us a visual picture of looking for something that is not clearly before us.
“We are seeking to uphold the world [in prayer], to save it from the curse of God, to protect the creation, to attain the ends of Christ’s death, to save ourselves and others from damnation, to overcome the devil, and demolish his kingdom, to set up the kingdom of Christ, and to attain and help others to the kingdom of glory. And are these works to be done with a careless mind or lazy hand? O, see, then, that this work [of prayer] be done with all your might!” – Richard Baxter in The Reformed Pastor
“Those that are about to undertake this work [of prayer] should do it with the greatest seriousness and consideration of the vast importance of the work, how great a thing it is to have the care of precious souls committed to them, and with a suitable concern upon their minds, considering the great difficulties, dangers, and temptations that do accompany it. It [prayer] is compared to going to warfare.” –Jonathan Edwards in The Salvation of Souls
3. “Knock” with persistence.
The verbs in verse 7, “ask”, “seek” and “knock” are all present imperatives. That means that they are commands that we are to continue to do, not just once, but persistently. That is why “knocking” is such a good picture of our need to be persistent. Jesus calls us to knock on prayer’s door persistently.
Some of you might ask “why?” If God hears our prayers, and we pray once, why doesn’t he just answer? Why does he make us pray so many times? It isn’t because he didn’t hear us the first time, or that he isn’t able to answer us the first time. He often doesn’t answer immediately for our benefit:
By praying persistently, God teaches us dependence. A person who prays once or twice and then tries to fix it themselves shows that they do not depend upon God. Delayed answers cause us to grow in dependence.
By praying persistently, God teaches us to seek his will and not our own. Sometimes we pray selfish prayers. When we pray over and over, we are forced to think about whether what we are praying for is truly God’s will. If not, we may change our prayers, or we may humble ourselves and submit to God’s will even if it is not ours.
By praying persistently, God teaches us patience. God is not on our clock, yet his timing is perfect. He hears us, but the timing of our answer to prayer is not so important to him as teaching us patient dependence upon him.
Persistent prayer requires greater faith and a focused sense of need. Have you found that your prayers are short-lived? Is it because you move on to do it in your own strength? Do you see how often that has made matters worse? Commit yourself to go to the Lord for all your needs, waiting patiently for him to answer you.
Maybe you have found that your prayers are short-sighted. You pray, but not for the great things God has called us all to do. You haven’t prayed for a great harvest of souls. You haven’t prayed for the salvation of your family member whom you believe will never get saved. You haven’t prayed for that obstacle to faith to be removed. You’ve prayed short-range, short-sighted, “safe” prayers. My friend—we have a big God. Pray big prayers. Don’t lose sight of what is eternal.
Always Reforming 