This past Monday night about 35 people showed up at 10:00 at night to seek God in prayer. We prayed for our 8:08 community, Christ Community Church, and Omaha as a whole. However, in the midst of those prayers there was just a sense of wanting God to show up and commune with his people. When God converges on people who are desperate for him there is just something unexplainable and overwhelming about it.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:14-21

Phil is one of our 8:08 Small Group Leaders. These are some thoughts that God has stirred in his heart during a season of fasting.

Well, as some of you may know, I have been fasting for a little while. I just want to premise this all by saying that in fasting, we don’t earn wages by laboring for our Boss, but rather, it is a prescription from the Great Physician (credit to John Piper). God is free to do what he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants. But, particularly in Isaiah 58:3-8, God gives us a prescription for change through fasting.

Now, to many, especially in the Western church in the 21st century, fasting is not only rarely thought about, but even seen as extremist and fanatical by many. In speaking about fasting in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “And when you fast…” Like praying, Jesus assumes his followers will be doing it. I’m not here to argue that everyone should be fasting, but just pointing out that’s it not abnormal, and our Master expected it.

God laid it on my heart to fast for a specific amount of time for a specific people group. During my fast, however, my focus has been enlarged to the entire city of Omaha. Omaha is a dark place, though, with many idols: sex, partying, and money just to name a few. The fast that God finds desirable are for these causes: “to loose the bonds of wickedness,” “undo the straps of the yoke,” “share your bread with the hungry,” “bring the homeless poor into your house” (Isaiah 58:6-7). My stomach yearns to see self-appointed, hand-selected bondages be cut! I long to the name of Jesus loved, revered, honored, and exalted in every corner of the city–rich and poor. In verse 8, Isaiah goes on to say, “Then shall your light break forth like the dawn.” May the Church’s–the universal Body of Christ, every saint bought buy Christ’s blood–may the Church’s light shine in this city. I think of Psalm 37:6, where it says, “He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.” In Omaha, it is definitely midnight. May that change! O God, make it as bright as noon!

Honestly, looking back before I started fasting, my passion was, meh, so so. I didn’t even really notice it either. School and work and relationships just were in constant motion. I was always, minus Sundays, busy doing stuff; and good stuff too! Since, I have been denying the most instinctual, basic function of any animal, things are different. I am not slowing down (besides on Sundays) by any means, but I feel electrified really, like the power has been turned up. Everything in my walk has been intensified 4x or 5x.

“This, O Lord, is how hungry I am for you,” I say. And indeed, I am filled me! At the same time, I hunger for more of Jesus! It’s a weird but wonderful mixture of being totally satisfied yet burning for me. My prayers are charged with more intense passion. My audible worship through music is more frequent and joy-filled. God is speaking to me and leading me in very specific ways, when normally I can’t discern between God’s voice and my own thoughts. The Holy Spirit convicts me of sin almost instantaneously.

There is a certain, indescribable satisfaction that fills every cell in your body when Jesus is truly elevated above everything else. Before my fast, I would wondered, why is it that this intense euphoria comes and goes? Why can’t it just be constant? Well, God answered my question. It’s embarrassingly obvious. Sin. When I am not totally and completely satisfied with Jesus, something else is occupying my mind, and I am looking to that to satisfy. Recent examples are playing soccer, FIFA 2010 for Xbox 360, a touchscreen mp3 player, and the list goes on and on. The Holy Spirit told me, “You need to repent of your idolatry as soon as it starts to happen, and then you will be constantly satisfied with me.” So, I asked him to convict me every time it starts to happen. And he does. And overall, I have been walking and driving around, intensely satisfied with my great God: Jesus.

And then I think, “Man, what if…” What if the Church was as hungry for Jesus as I am right now? I am no one special, either. I’m not super spiritual. I don’t have a secret. I’m just a young, sometimes cowardly, ex-pothead who was saved by grace. I don’t control my body’s cravings: physical or spiritual. My body tells me when I’m hungry for food, and God tells me when I’m hungry for Jesus. Fasting is just a prescription written by the Doctor of doctors when you see the symptom: “Why am I not that hungry for Jesus?” Fasting, with the right attitude and heart, is one remedy. Honestly, I can’t even imagine what God would do through us. Paul says that God “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20). If the Church really started craving for Jesus with the frequency, normalcy, and the precedence that we crave for food. . .

Hey everybody we had a great time experiencing God on the Fall Retreat this year. We went to Hidden Acres camp in Iowa for the weekend to hear Ed Noble speak with the Salt Company college ministry from Cornerstone Church in Ames, Iowa. Ed spoke about a series of stories centering around the life of Elijah. One in particular is from 1st Kings 19 where Elijah hears from God in a cave inside a mountain. The Bible says that Elijah heard a violent wind that tore rocks from the mountain, saw an earthquake and a fire, but the Lord was not in any of these. Instead the Lord spoke in a gentle whisper and said, “What are you doing here?” It strikes us as an odd question considering God had sent him there(See 1st Kings 19:1-9), and he certainly knew the answer Elijah would speak. However, I believe there is a deeper meaning as to why God asked such a question. It is said of Elijah that he was a man that lived in the ‘Face of God.’ Yet, I think if we are honest many of don’t live in the face of God; we put on faces when we come before God. We put on the face of bible knowledge, or the face of excuses, or the face of choosing to be ignorant. We think if we use some spiritual jargon, or quote something out of a book then somehow our prayers will be heard in a more eloquent light. If you do not think this is true, then the next time you pray in a group watch how many times you listen to people and how many times you try to conjure up a clever prayer that everyone will say ‘amen’ to while somebody else is praying. The point of God’s question to Elijah is for him to open up his heart and be brutally honest. Sometimes being honest doesn’t sound right or is messy, but God is more interested in changing your heart than turning you into some great speaker of prayers. Now I’m not saying it is appropriate to go bleed on everyone with problems, but I think it is very valuable to not only be honest with God but to have people in your life as well that you are honest with. Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart.” That means giving every piece of what you consider to be God, all your hurts-every single one of them, and then waking up the next day to repeat the measure. Perhaps a good way to answer the question, “What are you doing here?” is by saying, “I am here because…God now you fill in the blank.”
For Further reading check out 1st Kings 19:10-17