Greg Sharples writes:

People always get sick. It seems illness is just part of life, but when we hear about someone we are close to or someone who’s young being struck down with something serious, it can make us realise just how wrong that is! It’s a reminder of the fight we’re in! It can feel like the battle lines have been re-drawn and we’re much closer to the frontline! It is a painful place.

In those situations I find myself asking questions and getting stirred up!
 
What do we as the Church expect from the Church and from God in the midst of this? What does it really mean to be the Church? What are we part of and what are we calling people to engage with? Who are we as the body of Christ? But mainly:

How can we fight?

I long for this part of the body (Pip n Jay) to move in the power of the Kingdom! That when you come into contact with any member of this body you are in no doubt as to Gods goodness and whether or not he’s alive! I’d love there to be daily testimony of healings and miracles and people coming to know Jesus in new deeper and more dynamic ways! I long for Jesus to change our hearts so all we can do is pour ourselves out for his mission of rescuing humanity!

But surely if we just keep doing what we’ve always done then nothing new will happen. If we seriously want to see breakthrough, are intent on seeing people saved by Jesus and truly want to move in his healing power then how can we put ourselves more in the place of his love? How can we receive more of him so he can move more powerfully through us?

Richard Foster writes,

The apostle Paul said, “he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Gal 6:8). A farmer is helpless to grow his grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He puts the seed in the ground where the natural forces take over and up comes the grain. That is the way of spiritual disciplines-they are a way of sowing to the Spirit. The disciplines are Gods way of getting us into the ground; they put us in a place where He can work within us and transform us. By themselves the spiritual disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done. They are Gods means of grace...............the means by which we are placed where he can bless us.

General Enoch Adeboye of RCCG (Redeemed Christian Church of God of which there is 5million members) said during the late 80’s and early 90’s when there was a global out pouring of the Spirit what he observed from the Western church was very different to that in Nigeria! He observed that if you pass power through a circuit and you get heat and light it means there’s resistance. He felt like he saw a lot of heat and light being produced in the west! However the response of RCCG was that as a body they committed to regular fasting, as a means of breaking down resistance! Subsequently the Church has grown massively seeing many miracles!
Here are some scriptures on fasting that might prove challenging!

2 Chronicles 7:14
14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves (fast) and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Fasting is an act of submission that allows Gods healing to flow!

Matt 6 v 16
"When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Jesus challenges us to have motives of love!

Isaiah 58 v 6
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 him,
       and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
 8 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.
 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.
 11 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.
 12 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.
 13 "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
       and from doing as you please on my holy day,
       if you call the Sabbath a delight
       and the LORD's holy day honorable,
       and if you honor it by not going your own way
       and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
 14 then you will find your joy in the LORD,
       and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land
       and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob."
       The mouth of the LORD has spoken.

A righteous fast allows us to see a bigger picture and calls us to live in a new, more selfless way!

If we as a body want to see breakthroughs in terms of new followers and healing I suggest we commit as a family to humbling ourselves through regular and committed prayer and fasting. My experience has been that if you engage with God in a more sacrificial way you will experience something more of him, that a little of the resistance to his love and power, the resistance to his Kingdom will be broken down and new things will happen!

Jesus teaches us to pray “your Kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” and says “when you fast” not if! So in this year, Malcolm’s last let’s be more passionate, more hungry than in any of the years gone by! So that we might be more in a place “where something can be done”, through and in us! Let’s walk out the victory Jesus won, and know for certain that “it is FINISHED!”

I would like to invite you to commit to fasting for a day a week for 1 – 12 months. I thought fasting a day a week would be a good way for us as the body to share the responsibility and may be we’ll learn how stand stronger as a unit (you may be thinking shouldn’t this be done in secret, I think my counter to that is it’s not about one individual doing loads to impress people it’s about us as a body humbling ourselves)!

You can contact Greg with questions or to get involved here. You can also hear Greg's talk on fasting here.