We are finishing our 21 days of fasting and till here God is with us! I hope you were confronted for the way you live, the way you think and act.
At the beginning We learned that we have to be connected with God in time of crisis! How do you should be connected? By prayer and fasting.
Later, We learned how to be hunger for God, for the living bread that comes from heaven, Jesus Christ.
2 weeks ago, we learned about how to be desired by God. It happens when the things of earth are detestable before our eyes, when we seek The Lord with all our heart, we become desired by God.
Last Sunday, we learned what happens when we fast! It’s powerful the way that God moves in us while we are spending time in his presence, we become holy, we can listen God’s voice through the Holy Spirit, easily.
And now God put a word in my heart and I’d like to share with you about the true fasting and the result of the true fasting!
When I began to write this message, I got fear, because it’s so strong, it’s serious! I want to ask you: Pay attention! Put your min and heart on the Lord and be ready to listen His voice inspiring you to get the key of this 21 Daniel’s fasting!
Are you ready?
The theme is: THE RESULT OF TRUE FASTING!
Isaiah 58:1-12 says:
“Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarrelling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? “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? 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? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. 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, 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. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”
When we look to this chapter of Isaiah, we see that there was something wrong with people from Israel. They were fasting for the wrong thing, they expected only the blessings, and not for More of God, they were fasting anyway, they fasted but they kept their lives sinning against God. They didn’t allow God changes them.
First lesson we get here: Appearances are deceiving!
You can be a religious person and don’t be spiritual!
You can come to the church but you may not have relationship with God.
You can know the bible, but you may not know about the God of bible.
You can know about life, business, feelings, but you may not know about The Author of life.
You can be a good person before your eyes, you can till fasting, but you may not have Jesus in your life.
The People of Israel were religious, they seek the blessings from God and they didn’t seek The God of blessings! They wanted only God’s hands, but they didn’t want God’s presence!
They offered to God expecting blessings, only it! But God rejects offers like that, when He is not the most important goal!
Look what happened with Caim. God rejected his offering, because He was not the Centre of that offering!
Before God receives our offering, he looks to our heart, to see the motivation, the purpose of our sacrifice.
The condition to receive God and his presence is to seek him with all your heart!
So, let’s read the verse 1:
58:1 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.”
Do you know what means shout it loud, in the text?
It’s means: Cry out desperately! Shout loud to everybody hear it! Make noise, like a trumpet, get attention of everybody! God has an important message to tell us.
I’m here to wake up you, and you will have to wake up your soul! I cry out the word of God to you and I tell you: Be brave to recognise you’re nothing and you have to change the way of your life. God used Isaiah to wake up Israel and bring them back to repentance! I tell you, in Jesus’s name: It’s time to change your life. The time has come to be transformed for God. You have no more time to keep the life as the same you’re living! That is what the prophet was saying to Israel!
Talk about cry out! Be courageous! Tell to your soul what you’re doing wrong and fix it! Tell to your family what you have to change, tell to the world the God’s words!
Cry out! Shout in a loud voice!..
Vs 2 to 5 says:
People were singing against God, but they still seek God, they thought they were in God’s presence everyday but they didn’t change the way they lived for….
The bible says they were fasting, they were offering, they were called People of God, it their heart were far away from the Lord!
It’s like: You come to the church every Sunday, you listen God’s commands and after that you remain the same person. You don’t change the way you think, you don’t put in practice the message you’ve heard here….but you still are a son of God! It’s a religious person!
Isaiah 29:13 “The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.”
We are learning that fasting changes us, fasting helps us to understand that our prayer should be: let your kingdom come and your will be done! It’s not my will but your will father!
God told to Israel that fasting without a broken heart, with no transformation inside of you, it’s not enough!
The world of God says: Psalm 24:3-4
“Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god.”
Are you ready to climb up the mountain of the Lord? Do you have clean hands and a pure heart?
After God showed to Israel they were doing wrong, just as a religious people, with no heart in God, no desire for God, God spoken about the true fasting He was expecting from them.
Look verses 6-7:
“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? 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?”
Wow, people from Israel were listening from God about the true fasting! The true fasting is it when you fasting before God and change your actions! You have to see the fruits of the Holy Spirit growing inside of you.
God said:
The fasting I have chosen is an action! You have to act in a different way! Act!
Loose the chains of injustice (verb loose – An act)
Untie the cords of the yoke (untie..
To set the oppressed free and Brake every yoke! (Brake…)
And also… “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?”
God is calling us to act!
I’m telling you: it’s time to move, to live the true fasting!
You are fasting food, drinking, sweets and it’s all right! But the true fasting you do all this things and more: you have to ACT! You have to show you are different!
Fasting must be accompanied by a practice of justice and kindness towards your fellow. It’s not ahead fasting and speaking badly of others, not ahead fasting and oppressing others, putting a heavy burden on people, not ahead doing things that sadden the heart of God…
So, in the true fasting…
-You have to loose the chains of injustice
Sometimes we are unfair, unfair before God, unfair in our offerings, tithes, we are unfair with people, with our family.
The bible says: Isaiah 64:6
“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”
God, have mercy on us! We are unfair!
If you commit some injustice with someone in your job, in your family. Go and loose the chains! You have to fix it now!
If you shout with someone, if you speak bad things against a man, woman, you have to act! If you are unfair before God, ask for forgiveness and change the way you’re acting!
Go and loose the chains of injustice. Maybe you don’t know, but this situation may hold you and you won’t be able to grown in faith! Take care, be brave and ACT! Loose the chains!
In the true fasting…
We have to untie the cords of yoke
Yoke here means oppression, a heavy weight in your life or in the others.
And I ask you: What kind of heavy cords are you facing?
What kind of oppression your family is facing? Fear, trauma, anguish…? God is telling to you: You have to act. Somethings God won’t do for you. You have to do for yourself with his help!
For example: You are being oppressed for one people or situation. It has been a big problem in your life. You could not sleep, you could not live a good life because of that situation.
God is telling you: Untie the cords of oppression! Go and do it.
Brothers, I like to resolve problems! If someone comes to me and ask something, usually I have na opinion about that and most of the time is: Move right now! Do it! Don’t waste time being manipulated for some situations! Sometimes we are prisioners of our thoughts. Our mind becomes a jail and we can not get out from there, with bad thoughts, bad dreams, bad memories from the past! Act! Go to Jesus’s presence and be strong to untie the cords of yoke of your life. Help others to do the same! Don’t be slave of the oppression! Go and act!
Untie the cords of yoke today, amen?!
In the true fasting…
We have To set the oppressed free and Brake every yoke!
The true fasting comes accompanied with freedom! Hallelujah!
Do you wanna be freedom today?
The bible says: Isaiah 61:1
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,”
You have the right word in your mouth! You can proclaim freedom for the captives, you can be free!
To be free you have to brake every yoke of slavery!
What kind of slavery do you have?
You can look to your acts and see what you usually do and is not right before God. Maybe you are slave of lie…you lie, or you have addiction, you fall in the same sin for years….and God is telling you: Set the oppressed free! Get freedom to you and show the way to your neighbour.
Jesus told:
““Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28
Hallelujah!!!
If we do this true fasting, look the result that we’re gonna receive from God:
“Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. 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,”
Praised be God!
The result of the true fasting is:
Your light will break forth like the dawn!
Did you see the sunrise early in the morning?
I know you live in Ireland and here sun is hard thing to see. Maybe you watch it on the move…go to YouTube and search sunrise rss…it’s a joke!
When the sun comes, the flowers open, the darkness go out, and a new day starts. A new day starts.
God has something new for you after this fasting, church!
Like the sunrise, the sun will shine again in your life!
Psalms 30:5 “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
Hallelujah! The night is going away from your life. Do you believe? The light of Jesus will shin upon you and you’re gonna be blessed by his power! He will guide you through his light!
God is doing something new among us! It’s starting a new day, a new time to Shalom Church! A new time full of Direction from God, guidance, signs, power of the Holy Spirit among us!
The result of true fasting:
Your healing will quickly appear
You are waiting a miracle for years. It’s time to by faith get it from God and live it for now on! It’s time to see your healing coming upon your body, over your soul! We believe in the God of miracles!
The result of true fasting:
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
Every prayer, God will answer us! If you do the true fasting, you’re gonna be able to receive the right answer from God every time you pray.
Vs. 8,9 If you want your voice to be heard in heaven, don’t be religious, just practice religious rituals, but be just, be people of Christian beginnings, take care of the poor, orphans, love your family, take care and care for the house of God.
Just one more verse and we finish it.
Look the result of the true fasting:
“Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”
What is broken in your life and needs to be restored? What is in ruins in you life? God wants to make you a strong rebuilder, you are called Repairer of Broken walls!
If you are broken, if your family is broken , the walls are gone, they were destroyed for the attack of enemy, bring it to God’s presence right now. He is calling you a rebuilder, a repairer, Restorer! Ask strength for God to live all these results of true fasting. You’re gonna be able to see your life being restored, and you will be able to be a rebuilder of the strong foundation of your house, your family!