40 Days and 40 Nights
Do you need a breakthrough? Some strongholds can only be handled with Fasting and Prayer. (Mark 9:28 - 29) The disciples asked Jesus, privately, Why could we not drive it out? and Jesus replied to them, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.
40 Days and 40 Nights
A conversation in prayer between me and my savior. This is what I think the number 40 means to me on this day in my life. Everything is subject the change. Smile It's the time God gives us to ready ourselves and allows us to truly focus on Him and provides much needed preparation time. Preparation to change ourselves emotionally and spiritually. The 40 days and nights gives us time to handle God's transformation and helps us claim the miracle God has for us.
For details: www.40day.com
IMPORTANT
Now, remember I pray for God's will be done, not mine. So, I may pray for one thing, but I am open to anything and any changes God has in store for my life and beyond. (Only the Holy Spirit really knows what we need and how to get us there)
Free Will - We all choose a path for our lives and I believe there are only two.
1. The World's Plan (flesh/your plan) and
2. God's Plan (Holy Spirit - God's ways are not the World's Ways (polar opposites).
Sometimes we have to step back and refocus. Ask yourself... what path are you on today? With every decision you made today, where did it fall... if you draw a line down the center of the paper... was it God's way or Your way? The decisions you made are they listed on the World's Path or God's Path? A great example: I may think I had a great day, but once I looked at the small decisions, what path did I truly follow when it came to my health and the goals I have for myself?
- Skipped breakfast, but had a salad for lunch
- Drink a small diet soda instead of water
- Eat a homemade cheeseburger for dinner instead of the Rainbow balanced meal that was originally planned, tried and trying to save time and effort
- Let the phone go to voice mail when a friend called to go walking
Embrace the Trials and Allow God to Strength You
I'm in need of a miracle. I am entering a season of trials. We are to embrace trials, they allow our faith to grow and strength our faith in Jesus. He will provide and protect us. James 1:2-4 (AMPC)
2 Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations.
3 Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.
4 But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.
I'm starting a 40 day fast from 6:00 PM - 6:00 AM, only water, my vitamins, and a protein drink. My daily bible study and prayer will focus on Taking Care of My Body and Wellness. I have to get the gluttony under control. Recently, stressful events in my life have caused me to move away from the comfort of Christ to the comfort of Food (sugar).
Did you know that it's harder is overcome a food addiction than a drug addiction? Those that suffer from food addictions have to face the addiction in the face everyday. We have to eat in order to live. Have you ever thought that the first sin was about food, Eve longing for the apple. Gluttony is the only sin that the world embraces and celebrates. Think about it... have you ever been to an event and people took pictures of the food, talked about the food, dedicated conversations to the food. For most it's a love hate relationship.
If I were to ask you to go rob a bank, would you? No, because that is not what drives you to sin. However, if I asked you to put down that wing, steak, candy bar, or piece of cake... would you, could you or would you eat the wing? I got mad once over a chicken wing. Smile
The gluttony has rob me of time, energy, and a relationship of my family and friends. I have to much to lose and to much to gain. I don't want to give up my first born rights for a bowl of soup. Genesis 25: 29 - 34, don't sell your birthright. Who do you plan to worship today Self or God?
Let's get focused together and claim our miracle in Christ Jesus. Listed below are the scriptures I will use to focus doing my 40 Days and Nights.
Action Item: I provided 20 scriptures centered on taking care of your body, healing, and weight loss. Now, it's up to you. Options are ... you can pick another 20 scriptures or repeat each one for 2 days. It's your choice. Think about ... what do you want to focus on? How can you personalize it for your needs? What stronghold are you fighting? Plus, write me... tell me day by day... what God is sharing with you. Remember I will be teaching a 4-week session starting Jan 7, 2017 at Connect Church. Class starts at
8 AM, come praise God with me as we dedicate our bodies to HIM. Amen!
Day 1: I Corinthians 6: 19 - 20 (NLT)
Remember who paid the price?
19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
Day 2: Psalm 27: 7 - 8 (NLT)
When should I eat vs. When I should pray? Don't eat emotionally, go to God instead of food, take the cravings as a sign that God is calling you to talk and spend time with Him.
Hear me as I pray, O Lord. Be merciful and answer me! 8 My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”
Day 3: Genesis 1:29 - 30 (NLT)
What should I eat?
29 Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. 30 And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened.
Day 4: Genesis 1:29 - 30 (NLT)
How should I eat? Cook your food to maintain life. Don't kill the natural nutrients in your food.
1. Raw
2. Steamed
3. Sauté'
4. Baked
Day 5: Exodus 23:25 (AMPC)
25 You shall serve the Lord your God; He shall bless your bread and water, and I will take sickness from your midst.
Day 6: Proverbs 3:7 - 8 (AMPC)
7 Be not wise in your own eyes; reverently fear and worship the Lord and turn [entirely] away from evil.
8 It shall be health to your nerves and sinews, and marrow and moistening to your bones.
(Sinews: a piece of tough fibrous tissue uniting muscle to bone or bone to bone; a tendon or ligament.)
Day 7: Proverbs 4:10 (AMPC)
10 Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of your life shall be many.
Day 8: Proverbs 4:20 - 22 (AMPC)
20 My son, attend to my words; consent and submit to my sayings.
21 Let them not depart from your sight; keep them in the center of your heart.
22 For they are life to those who find them, healing and health to all their flesh.
Day 9: Proverbs 16:24 (AMPC)
24 Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the mind and healing to the body.
Day 10: Proverbs 17:22 (AMPC)
22 A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. (Forgiveness is the remedy)
Day 11: Proverbs 18:9 (AMPC)
9 He who is loose and slack in his work is brother to him who is a destroyer and he who does not use his endeavors to heal himself is brother to him who commits suicide.
When you don't care for yourself, it's like committing suicide - that's hard to hear
Day 12: Jeremiah 30:17 (AMPC)
17 For I will restore health to you, and I will heal your wounds, says the Lord, because they have called you an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no one seeks after and for whom no one cares!
Day 13: I Corinthians 6:13 (AMPC)
13 Food [is intended] for the stomach and the stomach for food, but God will finally end [the functions of] both and bring them to nothing. The body is not intended for sexual immorality, but [is intended] for the Lord, and the Lord [is intended] for the body [to save, sanctify, and raise it again].
Day 14: Philippians 4:13 (AMPC)
3 I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency].
Day 15: Romans 6:14 (AMPC)
For sin shall not [any longer] exert dominion over you, since now you are not under Law [as slaves], but under grace [as subjects of God’s favor and mercy].
Day 16: I Corinthians 15:34 (AMPC)
34 Awake [from your drunken stupor and return] to sober sense and your right minds, and sin no more. For some of you have not the knowledge of God [you are utterly and willfully and disgracefully ignorant, and continue to be so, lacking the sense of God’s presence and all true knowledge of Him]. I say this to your shame.
Day 17: 3 John 1:2 (AMPC)
2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in every way and [that your body] may keep well, even as [I know] your soul keeps well and prospers.
Day 18: Matthew 6:25 (AMPC)
25 Therefore I tell you, stop being [a]perpetually uneasy (anxious and worried) about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink; or about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life greater [in quality] than food, and the body [far above and more excellent] than clothing?
Day 19: Galatians 5:16 (AMPC)
16 But I say, walk and live [habitually] in the [Holy] Spirit [responsive to and controlled and guided by the Spirit]; then you will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh (of human nature without God).
Day 20: Hebrews 12:1 (AMPC)
Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us
