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 Sown, but my hope is that you would be energized and encouraged toward the act of fasting today.

There's a power in 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 and full surrender to anything that the Spirit

might speak. Welcome to the

first 15 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 is no room for the great.

Fasting is a powerful tool for placing anything that entangles us to the depravity and longings of 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

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