Surely any time God calls a church to fast, He has particular things He desires to communicate to that body and accomplish during the fast. Perhaps one thing God wants to do during this month is bring us to a place of greater unity in Shiloh.

I remember a pastor years ago (sorry I can’t recall which pastor it was!) preaching a sermon entitled “Don’t forget to take out the trash!” He went on to explain that any living body produces trash - garbage and waste that must be taken out in order for the body to remain healthy. (Imagine your house, for instance, if you never emptied your trash cans and hauled off the garbage! Yuck!)

He went on to explain that Shiloh is a temple of living stones. As such, we produce garbage on a continual basis. Sometimes this takes the form of little offenses and unintentional slights; at other times, it can be much larger disagreements and conflicts. No matter the size or the nature of the “garbage”, it must be dealt with by taking it to the Lord and asking Him for forgiveness and guidance.

Take time today to ask the Lord if there is any “garbage” you need to take out during our fast. Have you been offended by someone? Have you hurt someone’s feelings? Open your heart to Holy Spirit’s conviction and His wisdom to know how to proceed. Allow Him to bring you to the end of our 21 days with no garbage left in your heart and mind.

Alright, guys, so here is the deal. While we fast, we still need to engage this world. I would like to offer this challenge: Be the best you. Your disposition, your attitude, your facial contortions, your speech, your grunts and groans can signal to our non-believing or weak believing associates that you don’t want to engage in this fast. When, in fact, if you keep your mouth and behavior in check, no one outside of our congregation will even have a clue that you are fasting. Until they see the benefits beginning to bring visible change. “The Fruit of the Spirit” will be on display and draw others to you.

Just imagine how much fun it will be to ask Holy Spirit for a word for someone and BAM! He gives it to you… or praying with words of knowledge and building others faith to a new level. Here is just a thought: He may have been speaking to you, and you couldn’t hear because of the little time commitment on your part. BUT because you are spending all day with Him, NOW He is so much easier to hear!

Go ahead and put it to the test. He isn’t holding anything back. He has been wanting to spend this time with you.

When we fast and pray, Holy Spirit reveals the heart of God, as we see in the passage above for Barnabas and Saul. In this case, He revealed a new direction to launch them into the destiny God had planned for them. As you fast and pray, Holy Spirit desires to reveal the mysteries of God to you. Dialogue is His desire. Usually, when we pray, our tendency is to release the laundry list of things on our hearts and minds. While this is biblical, we need to take time to hear what is on the heart and mind of God. In order to hear, we need to become familiar with the still, small voice. Once we have the ability to know that voice, Christianity becomes unlike anything else. When you can identify His voice, everything you have read in His Word now becomes tangible. Every impossibility becomes possible.

There is one catch… one condition… one requirement! TIME! To hear that voice… to respond to its beckoning… to hear Him clearly, you must invest. That’s why fasting and prayer is such a useful tool to get to know Him. Think about it this way: We have to eat. This is God’s design. When we don’t eat, the body lets us know it’s not happy. Now we have a choice, I can give in and indulge my flesh, or I can take control of my flesh and make it yield to my desire to engage with God. As my body objects, it gives me a reminder that I am purposely on a journey to further connect with Papa God. And, in that connection, He fights my battles!

This rendering of scripture from The Message Bible doesn’t pull any punches. It reveals God’s heart saying, "I expect fasting to change you!" Many times when we fast, it is because we are expecting our sacrifice to move the heart of God toward our need or desire. When those hunger pangs come, the mind of Christ in you is saying, "Look to Me and allow Me to transform your heart and mind to think and act like Me… to be an ambassador for Me… to allow Holy Spirit to direct your path…to express My desires, compassion, and love."

So, instead of bending the arm of God, I can come into the understanding that this time of fasting has the purpose of changing who I am. Yielding my desires… my addictions… my old man to a concentrated time of fellowship with my Creator. Regeneration is mine! My new man can receive from God that for which He chose to spill the holy blood of His Son; ME being transformed into the image of Christ!

Read Isaiah 58:6 over and over during this fast and look for opportunities to let its guidance bring that great transformation that is already yours as the Scriptures say in Hebrews 10:14 (The Message Bible). As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it! Then He sat down right beside God and waited for His enemies to cave in. It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect Person to perfect some very imperfect people. By that single offering, He did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process.

“Then the fire of the Lord fell…” Isn’t this what we are expecting? Isn’t this what we are desiring? Isn’t this what a few of us are experiencing? I want to talk about testimonies, and their importance. Every one of us have experiences with Papa God daily. Holy Spirit is guiding, positioning, and arranging divine appointments for the people of God. However, we just go on with OUR business, scurrying to the next thing.

One of the main focuses of this fast is to hear His voice more clearly… more intensely… more frequently. That even “that still small voice” would be so amplified, that even the busyness of life could not hinder our hearing. We want that voice to be the voice that cancels out all the other noise of life. Just know that no matter what is going on, His voice will always steer straight. His voice will always be the most relevant thing in the room. His voice is complete in communicating His desire.

It is my prayer that as we focus on hearing, acting on that hearing, and then shout from the rooftops “Look what the Lord has done”. As we make hearing our priority, we can spur on others! Holy Spirit is going to reward our seeking with finding. Always remember the Scriptures tell us;

Hey, wait a minute, this sounds like every Christian responding to the pastor’s plea from the pulpit. We in the western church have found our comfortable place in the pew, where we need and receive feeding every week. We say, “I’m learning, I’m growing, I’m being transformed”… yet we seem to be glued to our seats, justifying, “Someone else will go out and do the stuff.”

Back to that voice… that loving voice… that voice that not only loves you unconditionally but loves others also. Moses was enlisted in the army of God for a purpose. That purpose was entirely to fulfill God’s purposes. Straight up, Moses didn’t want the job. But, once he accepted his assignment, he flourished. It was the fear of the unknown that paralyzed Moses and caused him to plead with God to send someone else. Oh, that VOICE!

You might say, “I want to hear His voice, but what if He wants me to do something I’m uncomfortable with?” Just like Moses, you are perfectly suited, perfectly equipped, perfectly prepared for what God has in mind for you. He is a “Good, Good Father” and would never leave you hanging. I remember hearing that still small voice calling me pastor. I was not impressed with that call, yet now I can’t see myself doing anything else. Pastoring is what He called me to do. He prepared and equipped me for the task.

In Chapter 4 of this Exodus accounting, Papa gets stern with Moses. Tired of Moses’ attempts to escape God’s purpose for his birth, Papa says:

Queen Esther struggled with what she was being told she must do. And even though God is not mentioned by name in this book, it is a sure bet that God is the voice that called to Mordecai to enlist Queen Esther to be the hero of the Jewish people. What Mordecai instructed her to do could have cost her life… BUT GOD!

Many times when called to respond to the leading, we stop and count the cost. Most of those times we ask ourselves a familiar question… ‘Is that me or is it God?’ Once we learn to hear the voice of God, and have tested and know it’s Him, something fabulous begins to take place. We read about it in Romans.

Peter, John… uneducated and untrained men. This title would soon be assigned to them by the Rulers of the people and the Elders of Israel. Many of us feel that, when we speak of the things of God, those words describe us. But the Scriptures continue to report that those same Rulers and Elders realized they had been with Jesus!

During this set aside time of intense fellowship with YOUR Godhead some pretty amazing things can take place.

You are going to get as much out of this fast as you put into it. I can guarantee you that Papa God is ready to meet you. Now there is no condemnation, no rebuke, no shame in how you decide to move fast these 21 days. You could fast entirely for 21 days and not seek Him and find you have been on a diet. But if you choose to engage with the Spirit of God you will find Him ready and willing to share with you what He is thinking, what He is feeling, and of course you can (just by being in His presence) understand the length, width, depth, and height of His love for you.

Back to Peter and John, but Jesus… Jesus gave the Comforter… the Counselor. By name in John 14:26 – “The Helper.” Yes, believe it could have been you that said, “Silver and Gold I do not have, BUT what I do have…!” We must believe that we DO HAVE… HIM!!!

What is that voice I am hearing? As you spend concentrated time in His presence, He is going to speak! It may sound like a thought that just popped into your mind. It could sound like something you have never even given thought to before. It could be a strange unction you just got. It could be an audible voice. However He speaks to you, respond the way Samuel was instructed to respond. aAnd if that voice you heard… felt… received, is Holy Spirit, He will confirm it.

As you exercise your ability to both hear and identify that voice, each time will get easier. So as you hear Him telling you to do something, your posture should be to lean into whatever it was. “How do you lean in?” you ask. Here is an example… Let's say, He says, “I want you to give a certain amount of money to the person I will show you.” The way to lean in would be to have that amount of money available and then wait for Him to identify the person to you. Another example could be… You are estranged from a person and He asks you to make amends. You should pray for Holy Spirit to go before you and prepare that person’s heart for reconciliation. Then ask for His timing and a divine appointment.

I have known many who finally decided not to care what others think of them, but to give themselves wholly to worship. Not one has ever been rebuked by anyone who truly loves Jesus. And no one has ever decided to revert back to a stance of “proper behavior” for church! The proper behavior for the Church is to give yourself completely to Him. Yes, I know that looks different for every person. The analogy of a football game has us standing up and shouting for our team… how much more for our King!!!

As we connect with the King of kings during this time of intense fellowship with Him, in the privacy of your closet, practice cheering and singing, laughing and, yes, even dancing in his presence. Bill Johnson said he would go into the Sanctuary, close all the doors and windows and twirl like a ballerina… until he lost his fear of being seen.

Oh, to be seen by God as a person pure and blameless and of complete integrity! Newsflash… You are seen that way. Jesus has made you Perfect while being Perfected. His purity… His integrity… His righteousness! You are being conformed into His image!

We have a few things to notice here. God’s reasoning for speaking of Job in this manner was because He fears God and stays away from evil! We cannot partner with evil and partner with God! We can only be on one team. When we choose to inhabit evil places, with our bodies or in our minds, we choose to shun God and welcome the enemy. In a word we don’t FEAR God.

We are told in the book of James chapter 4:

Humble… submit… resist evil… come close… repent… and watch what He will do. During this fast, ask the question King David asked in the fear of the Lord. “Search me O’ Lord and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, see if there is any wicked way in me, lead me in the way of everlasting.” And prepare yourself for an answer you might not expect.

Whatever the answer is… REJOICE! for you have heard the heart of God as Holy Spirit will bring conviction, conviction brings a Godly sorrow, Godly sorrow brings repentance, then repentance brings right standing, right standing releases the Joy of the Lord!

Many Christians find themselves paralyzed, for the most part ineffective in the Kingdom. They won’t let go of one thing that causes them to shrink back, and believe they are not worthy to be used by God. They believe the lie that what Jesus accomplished through His suffering, His death on the cross, His descending into hell to drop off the sin of the world, His Resurrecting to life and ascending into Heaven to sit at the right side of the Father… WAS NOT ENOUGH!

When we choose to hold on to the very sin we have been forgiven for, that is exactly what we are saying. We have all done things that we are ashamed of, that we WERE guilty of, things that we don't want anyone to know about. We have an enemy that has in his tool box those memories and chooses to remind us over and over “Look what you did!” He knows what the result will be if you let him get away with that. You will be an ineffective Christian, and he has accomplished his goal! He doesn’t care that you are saved and dwelling in eternal life, he just doesn’t want you taking anyone else with you!

When he reminds you of your forgiven list, don’t receive it. Run into the arms of Christ. Thank Him for your forgiveness! Embrace Him in the purity He provides! Know you are an heir to the throne of God, and a co-heir with Christ.

There are several nuggets of gold to be extracted from the scripture above. Obviously the first sentence is our goal… our desire… our yearning! It’s a joy to realize that the Godhead (Father, Son, Spirit) is always available, never too busy to interact, and desires to communicate with us as the object of His affection. As we exercise the muscle of communication, we will develop an ever-evolving ability of our constant presence in the throne room, hearing, discerning, responding and implementing the will of God in our area of influence.

I have always been intrigued by this statement about Joshua not departing from the tabernacle. This is New Testament behavior!!! We want, desire, and need the Moses experience, having intimate access to our Creator. But on the day of Pentecost with the infilling of Holy Spirit, Moses and Joshua’s experiences were combined. We never sever the connection. As we respond to the desires, we step into action. In a matter of speaking the throne room is in you, and it goes where you go. This literally means you are never out on your own.

As you respond to Papa God’s leading, practice a continuous dialogue as you go. Ask questions and tell God how you plan to implement his plan.

This will become second nature as you examine the possibilities with which you were created. Realize the throne room is not a crowded place. It is a safe place to learn, question, and celebrate victories… however, there is no condemnation for failure. I am so excited for the growth I see in myself and in you. Believing is seeing!!!

Peter, James, and John witnessed an awesome display of the Father. Not only did they get to be firsthand observers of the Transfiguration, but they heard the audible voice of the Ancient of Days. Keep in mind this was before Holy Spirit was deposited into the redeemed of Christ. With your reception of Christ’s deliverance and salvation, Holy Spirit is in you, 24-7, to communicate from your spirit to Jesus, at the right hand of the Father, interceding on your behalf as well as revealing the will of Papa God as you journey into eternity.

• Press in to hear… once you are hearing, press in to conversing. Yes, we need to listen, but this is also a place to communicate. God wants to hear your thoughts from you!
  
• Press in to discern… As you discern, press in to respond. Just like a marriage seminar, say to Holy Spirit; “This is what I hear You saying, am I hearing properly?” This action will also confirm our ability to hear and identify His voice!
  
• Press in to evaluate… As you evaluate, press in to hearing one voice, not being distracted by another. Remember the enemy can only imitate, but you can be confident as you seek in repetition.

As you can easily see, this corporate fast has one major objective… communication! To hear… to discern… to communicate… to execute… and to reevaluate are all elements of communication we must master to be all Jesus paid for us to be!

I pray this short devotional is both beneficial and fruit-bearing. Enjoy this time as you reflect on our Wonderful Maker!

Some may read the scripture above and conclude if they are not called to be an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, or teacher they don’t really bring anything to the body that helps it to function. On the contrary, there are many essential positions that aren’t included in the above list. Without each puzzle piece in place, we are not complete. For instance, we have all experienced Shiloh’s lack of a drummer and maybe we’ve noticed when there is no one to work the nursery or someone to lead the Teen Ministry.

We need people passionate about keeping the church building clean, and others excited about manicuring the lawn. Taking ownership of Shiloh in your specific area of interest… that place where you flourish and respond to God by saying, “I will give my all where You position me,”… enables others who are just filling the need to step into their place in completion of this body.

So here is the question: Where is your place in the body? You can get a hint by asking the question, “What am I passionate about?” Most people I have asked this question have responded with, “I don’t know.”

In your conversing with the Godhead,

• Ask for your passions to be revealed.
• Ask for your place in the body to be identified.
• Ask God to ignite joy within you to serve in this, your body.

It is easy to read the Bible and take for granted that when it makes a statement such as, “…You do not need that anyone teach you...,” that we have a very minimal part to play to make it real in our lives. On the contrary, just as he stated in 1 John 2:20 (“you know all things”), John tells us that the anointing we receive from God guides us into truth. We are guided into truth on a one-on-one level, God confirming it to our hearts. That is, if our hearts are conditioned to listen and respond. One of the main purposes or goals of this fast is to better hear the voice and urging of the Lord. Just as important is to respond quickly to what we have heard. John’s message is simple. Because of the anointing of the Holy Spirit given to all believers, they possess the resources for knowing the truth. This is not to say that teachers are unnecessary, because one of the resources for knowing the truth is the reminder given by teachers like John. In your time of interaction and conversation with the Lord:

• Listen and even ask for revelation that requires a response from you.
• Practice immediate response, such as, when Holy Spirit directs you to pray for someone, step out immediately and pray with them.
• As you press in, relax and realize you are on a journey. The more you exercise hearing and responding, the easier it gets.

I find that as we practice being immediate in our response to the urging of Holy Spirit, we begin to look for opportunities to engage with Him in doing His bidding. It even becomes a game as we notice someone (anyone) we can ask Holy Spirit; “How about that one? Do You have something for them I can deliver?” As we ask and He responds “Yes, do or say this.” you will find yourself excited to be His ambassador to the world!

The word “go” in this scripture is an action verb. It is a command to do something, to accomplish a task. We can lull ourselves to sleep on this issue, thinking we’re “not called to go.” But let there be no doubt in our minds that this scripture applies to us just as much as it did to the apostles. The totality of scripture makes this act of going very clear. In fact, we have a need to believe this is why we are alive… to be Jesus with skin on, here and now. Making disciples isn’t just a job for the pastor.

Ask God to give you understanding, courage, desire, and peace as you go.

Ask Him to break your heart for what breaks His: This is the greatest prayer we can pray. Every move of Jesus was in response to what He HEARD and SAW from the Father. He took what He HEARD and SAW, wrapped it in the compassion of the Godhead, and literally changed the world. Now, that sounds like a tall order for little ole you and me… but, this is exactly what Papa planned for us! …to be His hands… His feet… and His mouthpiece. So if I may reiterate again…

Yesterday we looked at the word “go”. Today we renew our focus on responding to the word, the desires, and the commands of God. We, as the western hemisphere church, have gotten lazy. We tend to look to others to do, as we concentrate on our living in a world that is pretty dysfunctional. In fact, our own country, which was once thought of as pearl of the earth, is headed down a path of destruction. There is only one solution, and God has made it very clear that it is our job to implement it.

He is counting on you and I, and all others “who are called by His name” to respond. I believe if we will obey (and I use this word purposely because it is a command), we will see the hand of God move in ways we have never experienced before.

Are you called by His name, not by the world, but by Him? If so, then you must find that place of humility that says, “My righteousness is as filthy rags.” Realize that in His oneness with you, He has allowed you to put on the righteousness of Christ. Pray, seek His face, not His hand, that you may repent and turn from wicked ways that have ensnared you and become habits. As we are forgiven and cleansed, He will heal our land. Notice that He is not addressing the world systems or the world’s population. He is addressing those who have committed themselves to Him.

Now therefore go into your prayer room… repent… turn… and from a place of righteousness in Christ pray for our leaders, our country, and our world. God is counting on you to do your part. What is your part? You will have to listen and respond.

Make no mistake. If we jump ship, we will be scrutinized for not staying with the status-quo. In this scripture accounting of the day of Pentecost, we witness the world’s reaction as one of disbelief and intrigue. That same response will be found today. So why should we pursue Him… His love… His filling? Simply because this is why we were created! As we lean into understanding the fullness of being one with the love of our lives, we find a heavenly dwelling with which the earth and its constants cannot compare. In fact, as one with God, having mastered the art of listening and responding, we become His ambassadors to this new world. As you embrace that which many avoid, know that your reward is awaiting you. I can just imagine the Father preparing for our fast and our desire to communicate with Him. He knows the possibilities of what could take place. He sent, through Jesus and Holy Spirit, twelve men to change the world. Just think of what He could do with this body of believers with us all in 100%! What seems like small advances in your desire to hear and understand will culminate in wisdom and authority as you navigate God’s path for you!