Day 15: Friday 20th Jan

James 4:8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

What simple but powerful words James writes here. Often we expect God to make the first move in our lives. We say “Where is God in my situation? Why isn’t He speaking to me?” – but the question is, have you been seeking Him?

As we fast and pray we are humbling ourselves before God to seek Him; we are drawing near to Him and God responds to those who draw near to Him. He is a motion-sensitive God – as we move, He moves. And as Samuel says, Those who honour Him, He will honour!

Prayer Points:

Pray for marriages and for singles, for the healing of hurts and unforgiveness within marriages, for restoration of love and healing of wounds. Pray for strong marriages grow even stronger. Pray for singles that they will be purposeful in their season of singleness, for self-control and protection from wrong relationships, for God’s guidance in choosing the right partner.

Day 14: Thursday 19th Jan

Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

What great words that Jesus spoke! Often in our lives we hunger for different things like cars, money and financial stability, but we do not always get what we want. However, when we hunger and thirst after God He will fill us!

As we continue on this fast, let’s carry on pursuing Jesus. We don’t just want to be filled but we want to be overflowing with God so that our lives can be an instrument to touch others. When we truly seek after Him, we will find Him!

Prayer Points:

Pray for people in professions, for medical professionals, teachers, police officers, councillors, for all those who have influence, for creative inspiration for new ideas and inventions, for wisdom and understanding in decision making.

Day 13: Wednesday 18th Jan

Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

Here Paul is urging us to present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice. One of the things fasting does is exactly that. We are laying our bodies before God and presenting it as a sacrifice.

In the Old Testament, when the sacrifice was brought to the priest he would cut it open and lay it on the alter. As the sacrifice was cut open all the gory bits and all ‘muck’ was taken out and then burnt as a sacrifice.

During this fast as we offer our lives to God, ask him to purge you of all your gory and ‘mucky’ bits. Let God remove the things that don’t belong in our lives. Then He can start to use us in ways we could never imagine!

Prayer Points:

Pray for our C groups, M groups and K groups meeting midweek. Pray that people will have a hunger for the Word, a desire to fellowship and to go deeper with God. Pray for the growth of all these groups.