Third, take your problems to the Lord.<\/i> In the midst of his crisis, Jehoshaphat \u2018set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast.\u2019<\/i> Prayer is often the last thing we think of. Why? Because we want to work our problems out on our own. A deacon approached the pastor one day and said, \u2018Pastor, we\u2019ve got a problem we can\u2019t solve. We\u2019ve tried everything and nothing works.\u2019 The pastor said, \u2018Well, I guess all we can do is pray about it.\u2019 The deacon replied, \u2018Pastor, has it really come to that<\/i>?\u2019 <\/p>\n
When you\u2019re facing life\u2019s battles, prayer should be your first<\/i> resort, not your last! And sometimes when the problem doesn\u2019t yield to prayer alone, God leads you to add a second element: fasting. Ever tried it? Fasting isn\u2019t something mystical and mysterious; it\u2019s about focus! It\u2019s saying: \u2018Lord, I can do without many things, but I can\u2019t solve this problem without You. So instead of being preoccupied with TV, or food, or social media, I\u2019m going to spend time seeking Your face.\u2019 <\/p>\n
Cornelius, a Gentile, fasted and prayed for four days, asking God for direction. As a result, God sent Peter to his house to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, and in the process changed the course of history (see Acts 10). In order to know whom to appoint to leadership positions, the New Testament church fasted, prayed, and asked God for guidance. And as a result, one of the most dynamic evangelistic teams of all time, Paul and Barnabas, was born (see Acts 13:2\u20133). When you get serious enough to fast and pray about your problem, God will show you the solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Third, take your problems to the Lord. In the midst of his crisis, Jehoshaphat \u2018set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast.\u2019 Prayer is often the last thing we think of. Why? Because we want to work our problems out on our own. A deacon approached the pastor one day and said, \u2018Pastor, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}