Your Breakthrough
Many of us are in a period of fasting and praying during at least part of the month of January. The Christian’s purpose for fasting is really so that we may turn from the world and from our flesh, in order to turn and draw closer to God. We want to hear His direction and seek His blessing to overcome whatever challenges and obstacles we are wrestling with in our lives. In Isa. 58:6-19, God instructs Israel regarding His requirement for the kind of fasting that He wants to see from them. Importantly, God’s desire is for them to abstain from mistreating others and to engage in loving those who are oppressed or in need. I pray this week that you will seek God’s direction for how you can extend His love to those around you who may be suffering or in need and in the process, receive the blessing you have been praying for. Amen.
Listen to Tasha Cobbs singing “Put A Praise On It”
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? (Isaiah 58:6-7) God instructed Israel regarding what He desired from them. He was concerned with those that they have oppressed and mistreated. Israel had treated people unjustly and kept people “yoked” (in bondage, destitute) by their actions. God told them that instead, they were to extend themselves to give shelter, food and clothing to those who are hungry, homeless and naked. They were not to turn away from helping those who are related to them either, as their selfishness and greed even extended to the mistreatment and oppression of their won flesh and blood. Whatever you have done to the least of God’s children, you have done it unto the Lord.
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday. (Isaiah 58:8-10) Once Israel had turned from mistreatment and oppression of the least among them, and instead extended the love of God toward them, then God promised that there would be breakthrough in their own situation. When we fast, we do so because we are seeking God to help us achieve a breakthrough in some situation or aspect of our lives. God said that when Israel fasted, they had to (1) stop hurting His children through oppression and practices that kept them yoked, and (2) start acting righteously toward the oppressed, hungry, homeless, and naked. If Israel did both, then they would have breakthrough, because the Lord would hear their cry and and answer their prayers. God promised that they would experience the light they needed in the darkness of their lives, and their breakthrough would be so dramatic that even in their midnight (darkest) situations it would shine through like the sun at noonday. Some things in our lives can only be changed when we pray and fast!
During this new year, many are engaging in fasts. Some are doing fasts that require abstinence from certain foods. Some are doing fasts that require them to abstain from or cut back in the use of technology. Whatever the fast, when we do it unto the Lord, we are turning from the desires of the flesh and me must turn to listen to what the Lord desires of us. Only then, will our prayer and fasting bring about the power of God to act on our behalf and provide the breakthrough that we desperately need. If you are facing something as daunting and impenetrable as the “walls of Jericho” in your life right now and you need it to come down or be moved out of your way, then listen to what God desires for you to do in your life. Fasting and prayer will help you to block out the noise of the world that your flesh is responding to and instead hear what the Lord is saying to you. And when you do that, you will hear Him saying… He’s ready to give you your breakthrough!
Blessings,
Rev. Glenn
