A
reminder for today
And
there by the Ahava Canal, I gave orders for all of us to fast and humble
ourselves before our God. We prayed that he would give us a safe journey and
protect us, our children, and our goods as we traveled. For I was ashamed to ask the king for
soldiers and horsemen to accompany us and protect us from enemies along the
way. After all, we had told the king, "Our God's hand of protection is on
all who worship him, but his fierce anger rages against those who abandon
him." So we fasted and earnestly prayed that our God would take care
of us, and he heard our prayer. (Ezra 8:21-23)
We are blessed with another day and another opportunity
to bring about change in our lives. I believe that to be able to fully live a
life of change we need to make sure that we have a clean relationship with the
Lord. It does not help if you still carry baggage from your past that you have already
asked forgiveness for and most important you need to forgive yourself. Jesus
gave His life so that you can start with a clear past and no burden of sin that
will hinder your progress.
Ezra mentions three things here that I would like us to
take and make part of our journey towards a life of change.
One – Ezra gave orders that they must humble themselves
before God. This is so important to our success on our journey. You see you
need to humble yourself before God accepting the fact that you are reliant on
Him and that you need to trust God with everything in your life. Most important
of all is that you need to trust God’s voice.
Two – Ezra said that God’s hand of protection is on all
who worship Him. It is something you need to believe. It does not help if you
know God’s hand of protection is on you but you live a life of fear. Fear can
be many things; fear of challenges, fear of friendship, fear of love, fear of
death, fear of truth, fear of pain, fear of punishment and fear of heartache. There
are many more, but basically we cannot live in fear if we live a life of
change.
Three – Ezra said that they fasted and prayed earnestly. I
have written to you before about the importance of fasting and the importance
of prayer. In Scripture, we can see that Moses, Jesus, Paul, and the early
church lived by a pattern of fasting and prayer. Nowadays, it is very rare to
hear or see people fast. We have forgotten that fasting is part a weapon of
warfare, and the reason it is not practiced is because we don’t believe it can
produce results. God is telling us to humble ourselves through fasting and
prayer because we need to remember that everything we have comes from God.
Therefore, we are dependent on Him and not in our own strength.
Come with me today as we place the burden of the past in
God’s hands as we trust Him with all our fears and commit to fasting and prayer
as we humble ourselves before the Lord our God.
Lord, please hear our prayer as we place all that hinders
us from a pure relationship with you, in your hands. Take away all our fears
and help us to trust you completely as we strive to live a life that will bring
change to ourselves and to others. Lord open our hearts and minds so that we
can fully comprehend how you are constantly at work in our lives. Help us to
forgive and to forget and set us free from whatever it is that the enemy still
uses to hold us back. In Jesus name.
Have and awesome day dear friend of Jesus
Cheers