As we continue our week on seeking God, today we're exploring what it means to seek God through fasting.

This may be a new or even unpleasant topic for some, but my hope is that you

be energized and encouraged toward the act of fasting today. There's a power and surrender and

self-sacrifice for the sake of more of God.

And I pray that you experience that power as you learn more about this important tool God's

given us to seek Him.

I'd encourage you to open your heart today in full surrender

to anything that the Spirit might speak. Welcome to the First of Team Podcast. podcast. Our verse for today comes from Ezra 823 and reads,

so we fasted and implored our God for this and he listened to our entreaty.

In his book A Hunger for God, John Piper writes,

if you don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God. It is not because you have drunk deeply

and are satisfied. It's because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world.

Your soul is stuffed with small things and there's no room for the great.

Fasting is a powerful tool for placing anything that entangles us to the depravity and longing to this world in proper perspective.

It builds for us a seat at the table of God, where we can drink deeply of the wonders and satisfaction found and restored relationship with our Heavenly Father.

May the Lord reveal to you the places in your heart which need to be realigned as we look at all God longs to in us through the gift of fasting.

Matthew 6, 16 through 18 says,

and when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their

fasting may be seen by others.

Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and

wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Heavenly Father

who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

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