Lent: A Season of Drawing Closer to GodShembull

[IMAGE CONTENT] Week 1 Fasting For Ministry Read: Jonah 3:5–9; Luke 2:36–38 SOAP : Jonah 3:5; Luke 2:37 > The people of Nineveh believed in God, and they declared a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. She had lived as a widow since then for eighty-four years. She never left the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. Into the Text This week, we’ve looked at how fasting is a personal practice. We’ve seen how doing so aligns our hearts with God’s and makes room for Him to work in our lives, but fasting is not only a personal spiritual discipline. Fasting can bless others God has placed in our lives, and fasting can be a way for us to worship God with other believers. Shortly after Jesus was born, His parents took Him to Jerusalem to be circumcised. There, they met a woman named Anna. Anna was a widow and over one hundred years old. She had spent the majority of her life at the temple worshiping God, fasting, and praying. Her discipline and commitment to God, and to spiritual disciplines like fasting, enabled her to listen and respond to God’s prompting. When Mary, Joseph, and Jesus arrived, she blessed them and those around them by prophesying who Jesus was. When Jonah visited the city of Nineveh, he warned them of God’s coming judgment. The people responded and repented. They immediately fasted and put on sackcloth, hoping God would see their repentance and turn from His wrath. Fasting was a means by which the people of Nineveh aligned their hearts to God. They saw the wickedness in their hearts and removed it. Their fast was a physical representation of their spiritual reality. While our fasting should not be done to show to others or to impress them, the result of us drawing closer to God by fasting will encourage those around us. When our hearts are aligned with God’s purposes, when our motives for fasting are to grow in our relationship with God, He can fill our hearts with His love for others and make us a blessing in ways we may not even see or know. Ask God to work in your life so that you can bless and encourage those around you today.