Seeking Time Survival Guide Tip 2: If you fall, get back up!

So, you made a decision to give up something for Seeking Time. Or maybe you made a New Year’s resolution. You know the drill: “I’m going to exercise every day, eat only healthy foods, and drink lots of water. I’m giving up caffeine, chocolate, and french fries. I’m going to pray and read my Bible daily, keep a good attitude at work, give up gossiping, and say only nice things to everyone. I won’t waste my time on television and Facebook, but will use that time to catch up on all of that motivational reading I’ve been wanting to do.”

So, how’s that working out for you?

Usually it only takes about 3 days before we’ve already broken our fast or at least one of our resolutions. The question is what are you going to do about it once you messed up?

It used to be that if I messed up and ate a piece of chocolate on a day I was supposed to be fasting, I would say, “Hey, this day is shot. Might as well eat a whole bunch more. I can always start over tomorrow.” Or I would miss one day of walking and say, “Well, this week is messed up. I might as well skip the rest of the week and start over next Monday.” The problem with doing that is that it gets easier and easier to keep giving in to the flesh. I mean, why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? Or next week? Or next year?

If you have already done something you said you wouldn’t or forgotten to do something you said you should, don’t give up. You didn’t mess things up, you didn’t blow it for this year, you don’t have to wait until “next time” to do it again. Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and determine not to indulge your flesh, not to quit, and not to get under condemnation. It happens to everyone. Just decide that you are going to finish the day out strong and keep going. You can do it!

Why should Christians fast?

Fasting.

Not the most exciting word in Christian lingo, is it? It’s definitely not the word that makes you want to jump up and down while shouting, “Hallelujah!” The word fasting conjures images of pain, suffering, and lack…not exactly the hallmarks of Charismatic Christianity.

But words like Power, Anointing, and Miracles… now, those are words we can get excited over! The only problem is we cannot fully function in these without first dying to ourselves. God will only pour the power of the Holy Spirit out upon you to the degree to which you have been mortified. In order to be conformed to the image of Christ, we must first die to the image of “us.”

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.  – Romans 8:29

We must be conformed or fashioned into the image of Christ that is deposited in our new nature when we are born again.  Be honest with yourself and take a moment to pinpoint the things in your life that you know are not conformed to this image. What is it in you that is not Christ-like?  These things are called the “works of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19-21) and must be addressed in order for the image of Christ to come forth in you.

For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the
spirit you mortify the deeds of the body, you will live.  –
Romans 8:13

By definition, mortification is the process by which you become dead.  Of course, we are not literally killing ourselves in order to be conformed to the image of Christ.  Instead, we are recognizing what we call “positional truth.”  By Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, we have been given certain truths positionally in the spirit.  For example, Ephesians 2:6 tells us that Christ has “raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”  We are not physically sitting in heavenly places, but we are positioned there in that place of authority by Christ’s work.  By the same token, when the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 2:20 that he is “crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live” he is talking about the positional truth that is accomplished by identifying with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. He was simply saying that he had died to his own desires so that the will, plan, and purpose of God would take the forefront in his life.

So often, we say we want God’s plan in our lives, but we are not willing to let go of our own. In order to do this, we must surrender our carnal desires by dying to our own will. When we do this, His will becomes the driving force of our lives.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
– Romans 12:1

I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.
– 1 Corinthians 15:31

And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
– Galatians 5:24

In order to identify with Christ’s death in a positional way, we submit ourselves to the process of becoming dead to the flesh.  This is accomplished through fasting.  We know that speaking in tongues for edification builds our spirit man up and begins to address the sins or handles that are present in our soulish realm.  By adding fasting, we accelerate the process by which we are conformed to the image of Christ because we are also identifying with His physical death. This “one-two punch” of tongues for edification plus fasting makes up the foundation for the Mortification Process. This process causes the image of Christ to be revealed in us.

Is there something keeping you from victory in every area of your life? Are there parts of you that do not look like Jesus? What is hindering God’s plan for your life from coming to pass? What keeps God’s power, anointing, and miracles from flowing through you?

Now is the time to find the answers to these questions. Now is the time to SEEK God through prayer and fasting.

WELCOME TO SEEKING TIME 2010!!!

~Linda Frederick

God’s New Year Resolution

We have all heard the familiar phrase, “Time marches on”. I think now that I am in my forties, I would amend the saying to: time trots and gallops, like a freshly broken horse, looking for opportunities to travel beneath the lowest tree branch in hopes of shedding you from its back. Time does march on, and the pace at which we perceive it moving varies as our perspective changes. When we were children, it seemed time crawled along at a snail’s pace, keeping Christmas perpetually out of our reach. As we have become adults, we feel one holiday season blending into another as quickly as you blend together the ingredients of your favorite Christmas cookie recipe. It’s all about perspective.

Whether time moves quickly or slowly for us isn’t the most important thing: it’s what we do with the time we have. How do we spend our days and moments? Do we value the time we are given? What are the most important things for us to keep in mind as we approach a new year and another time set apart to seeking God?

If God were going to make a New Year’s resolution with us in mind, it might be that we would discover how important it is to keep Him in the center of all three hundred sixty-five days of 2010. Part of His resolution might be that we locate ourselves and discover that each of us are uniquely qualified offerings to be poured out within His church body and throughout our communities. The Hollywood director, Frank Capra, understood the value of a “regular, ordinary” man in the Christmas film, It’s A Wonderful Life. George Bailey looked on his “plain” life as if he had missed his purpose, but God uses an angel to remind him of the impact he had on every aspect of the world he lived in. God intends each of us to make a meteoric dent in our world, but without proper perspective on our purpose, we’ll miss many “every day” opportunities.

The entrance of the new year is always celebrated at our church with a forty-day time of seeking God through prayer and fasting. This Seeking Time gives us an opportunity to unite around our common desire to further the reach and influence of God’s Kingdom and make the new year a launching pad for new and renewed hopes. We can maximize our efforts as a church family, realizing the strength of a three-fold chord versus the individual, solitary battle against strongholds of the past. We can study more in the Word; pray more with understanding and in tongues. We can seek to find more of the truth locked up in our born again spirit, and we can purpose to embrace that truth, no matter what the truth is. As we focus on these things, we maximize every moment and wring purpose out of every single day.

At the end of this year and those to come, we will probably look back and see that the hands on the clock are smoking, the gears and springs hot to the touch, and time is racing by. But as we have purposed to keep God’s resolutions of growth and change, we will also realize that that’s just the way we like it!

~Guy Parker