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Throughout each month in 2021, we will be praying and fasting through our membership covenant; asking God to help us hunger for his glory and be faithful to fulfill the things we have committed to each other as church members. These are commitments he has called us to live out together according to his word. Likewise, each month we will be praying and fasting for significant cultural issues of our day and asking the Lord for his truth and righteousness to be known throughout the world. 

Fasting Together: February 9, 2021

• Membership Covenant Topic(s): Stewardship of God’s Resources for His Glory
  • Ministries
  • Missions
• Giving regularly (1 Corinthians 16:2; Proverbs 3:9).
• Oversight
  • Pray that we would steward God’s money faithfully 

• Cultural Issue: Stewardship of Marriage for His Glory
• Interceding for the global Church to steward God’s beautiful design for marriage

Sing:

• Speak O Lord (Getty)
• How Firm A Foundation (Sovereign Grace)

Read and Reflect:

For The Church: STEWARDING GOD'S RESOURCES 

“Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.” 1 Cor 16:1–2

Jesus says we cannot serve both He and money since we can only have one master (Lk 16:13). Christ calls us to not store up treasures here on earth but to store up treasures in heaven, “for where our treasure is, there our heart will be also (Matt 6:19–21).” How we view and handle money reveals, in many ways, our inner motivations and beliefs.  In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he instructed them to collect money for poor Christians in Jerusalem (I Cor 16:1–4). In 2 Corinthians, Paul commends them for beginning this collection (2 Cor 8:10; 9:1–2) and urges them to finish the collection (9:5). Paul provides the churches in Macedonia (e.g. Philippi, Berea, and Thessalonica) as great examples of faithfulness as they gave joyfully unto the Lord in spite of great poverty and during great affliction. In fact, they pleaded with the apostles for the privilege of sharing their “wealth” with other believers in need (v.4). How is this type of generosity possible? The message of the good news of Christ had taken deep root in the Macedonians hearts and they were responding out of gratitude to God for the unfathomable gift he provided them in Christ (2 Cor 9:15)! We see Paul urging the Corinthians to think on the gospel of Christ as the Macedonians had, which naturally effected the reason they gave toward gospel efforts. The Macedonians knew that "though [Christ] was rich, for our sake he became poor, so that [we] by his poverty might become rich (2 Cor 8:9)."  May this truth grip us as we continue growing in generosity and stewardship as God has been generous to us in Christ. 

CULTURE: Stewarding Biblical Marriage

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should  submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Eph 5:22–27

In his book Counter Culture, David Platt says, “The primary reason the gospel is not clear in marriages across our culture is that the gospel has not been clear in marriages across our church.” In Ephesians 5’s context, Paul is referring first to the mystery of Christ’s cleansing and sanctifying of the Church. Paul links this cosmic truth in Christ to our daily marital relationships. What has been completed in Christ is to be practiced in our daily relationships as we seek to love and serve one another, and so glorify God and promote his design to all of creation. Men, we are to die every day that our wives may live. We nourish them with the word, we are to love them sacrificially, and we are to give up ourselves for them as Christ did the Church. Ladies, you are to follow and promote his godly leadership, as you would follow Christ himself. It is pleasing to God that you respect him and the responsibility that God has given him to lead you. The Church must steward God’s design for the institution of marriage. When marriage is healthy, the church is healthy, and the world sees God’s glorious design for the sacred institution of marriage. 

Prayer points:

• Pray that we would consider our money and resources as belonging to God as they are rightfully his and not ours. 
• Pray that we would (steward, spend, and give) money faithfully. 
• Pray that we as individuals and as a church body would be cheerful and faithful givers.
• Pray that we would steward God’s resources for ministry and mission, and that God would direct us to spend his funds wisely and faithfully.
• Pray for marriages at CCC to be faithful and godly, displaying God’s wisdom and design to a world that has thwarted his design.
• Pray that our Husbands, by God’s grace, will faithfully serve and love their wives for God’s glory. 
• Pray that our Wives, by God’s grace, will faithfully respect and love their husbands for God’s glory. 

Helpful fasting resources:

• A Hunger for God: Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer, John Piper
• "Fasting for Beginners" by David Mathis (Desiring God)
• "How Do I Delight Myself in the Lord?" by John Piper
• Fixing the Mind: A Guide to Meditation

Fasting from (ideas):

• Food
• Technology 
• Entertainment 
• Social Media/News