Day 1: A Day of Examination
2 Corinthians 13:5
Examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it. Test and prove yourselves [not Christ]. Do you not yourselves realize and know [thoroughly by an ever-increasing experience] that Jesus Christ is in you—unless you are [counterfeits] disapproved on trial and rejected?
Fasting is a spiritual discipline that places us in an environment where God can work in our lives. It helps us to eliminate fruitless activities that eat up our time and enables us to fill that time with prayer.
As we begin our fast, I think it is important that we first begin with a day of self-examination. As we seek to draw close to Him, we must remember the promise of the Scripture
James 4:8 — Come close to God and He will come close to you.
We must remember it was first His desire to re-establish relationship with us when He sent His Son to die for us. And, it is by His desire for us and His drawing in us that we would want to come closer to Him.
Philippians 2:13 (Amp) — 13 [Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.
So as we begin our fast, let’s remember that for everything we desire, He has first given us that very desire. It is by His grace that we are saved and it is by His grace that we grow more into the image of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Ask Holy Spirit to reveal what it is that needs to be removed from your life during the next 21 days. Ask Him what is in you that is unlike Him. Then bring it before Him to heal and remove. He is faithful to forgive and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. (I John 1:9)
Be sure and journal what the Lord is doing in you during these next 21 days. You will be amazed how much He will do in you when you choose to partner with Him.
