Called to Fasting Prayer: Father, we need you today. You created this world for us to find You in it. For us to bring about Love and Joy and Hope and to Walk with you all the days of our lives. But, we need help. We can’t do it on our own. Our flesh, satan, and the cares of the world pull us away and distract us from you. We ask today that you would share with us by your Grace the tool of Fasting and Prayer, that you would call each of us into a deeper relationship with you through this practice, that you would start dissolving our excuses right now in Jesus Name. Amen. So, we are going to discuss fasting today, a spiritual discipline that should not be exalted as some magical cure but also should not be neglected or dismissed… so we need to find a balance together for the use and not misuse of this tool that the Lord gives us to deepen our relationship with Him. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word used for fasting is tsom , which means...
TLDR: Video Link Background: Paul had traveled to the city of Thessalonica after being beaten and imprisoned in Phillipi. You can read in the book of Acts, when in Phillipi, Paul and Silas had released a fortune teller girl from demonic possession and her masters were enraged and they beat Paul and SIlas with rods in the marketplace, humiliating them, then they were thrown in a dungeon called the Tullainium where the worst criminals were kept, their feet in stocks that stretch the prisoners feet apart, causing severe pain. Did they give up? Did they say, oh we must not be in the Will of God? No, an earthquake during the night broke open the jail, they stopped and witnessed to the jailer helping him and his family come to Christ, and they were released. This is when they went to Thessalonica. In Thessalonica, it’s important to understand the type of place this is. It’s like a political rally with all the parties vying for attention on every street-corner and...