Blog

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: April 13, 2021  

• Membership Covenant Topic(s): Worshipping God in All Areas of Life
• Praying for one another (1 Thessalonians 1:2; 5:17)
  
  
• Cultural Issue: Stewardship of Biblical Womanhood
• Interceding for the Church to defend and faithfully represent God’s design for femininity as women are made in the image of God

Sing:

• Christ Our Hope in Life and Death
• Jesus Strong and Kind

Read and Reflect:

For The Church: Praying Earnestly for Our Congregants to Worship God in All Areas of Life

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:1–2

After Paul pens his historical discourse of justification by faith in Christ (chs. 1–11), he concludes with praise to God for his glorious work in salvation (11:33–36) and instructs the church to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God which is our spiritual worship. The profound mercies of God, displayed in and through Christ, serve as the motivation for offering our entire lives to the service of God. To the Corinthians, Paul said something similar, “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (I Cor 10:31).” The Christian life is meant to be lived to do all things with a view of God’s glory. Consider Paul’s appeal and how that ought to affect your own life (work, marriage/parenting, driving, spending, relationships, speech… literally everything). Our every decision, every action, every incentive is to be guided by what will promote and display God’s manifold excellence. Let’s consider what Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper said, “Whatever man may stand, whatever he may do, to whatever he may apply his hand - in agriculture, in commerce, and in industry, or his mind, in the world of art, and science - he is, in whatsoever it may be, constantly standing before the face of God. He is employed in the service of his God. He has strictly to obey his God. And above all, he has to aim at the glory of his God.” We are a kingdom of priests about our Father's business, motivated by Christ’s sacrificial love. Let’s spend time today praying and fasting for our lives to reflect the glory of God in all things for his namesake and the benefit of our fellowship. 

For Our World: Stewarding Biblical Womanhood

“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”  Prov 31:30

In our post-truth culture, confusion on gender issues is a significant conversation in our day. God’s design for biblical manhood and womanhood, masculinity and femininity, is being questioned everywhere. Last month we prayed and fasted that the Church, by God’s Spirit and word, would preserve the concept of biblical manhood. This month we are  praying and fasting for the Church to be faithful to guard the truths of biblical womanhood. Both men and women are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26–27)– equal in dignity, yet different to complement each other in our functional representation of God. God has given women (single and married) responsibilities to fulfill, such as: repenting and believing; and being baptized into Christ (Acts 2:38); loving God with all heart, soul and strength and studying the will of God (Deut 5:6; Rom 12:2); the adorning of the “hidden person of the heart” which is precious to God (I Pet 3:3–4); helping her husband (Gen 2:18:Eph 5:22–24), childbearing and rearing (Gen 3:15, 20; Prov 1:8), discipling younger women in the faith (Titus 2:3–5); and serving the church with the gifts God has provided (1 Pet 4:10). 

Prayer points:

• Pray that we would rely on the Spirit to glorify God in everything that we do throughout the course of our days. 
• Pray that our covenant fellowship would be encouraging one another to consider God in all things. 
• Pray that God would reveal the areas where we are spiritually immature and need growth, and renew us in his grace. Pray that we would continually confess these areas of sin and immaturity to the Lord and to one another.   
• Pray that we would grow in praying faithfully for one another, seeking to be a people who pray often and for all things.
• Pray for God to strengthen and protect his Church from the societal pressures and man-made wisdom of the day attempting to infiltrate the Church. 
• Pray for the Church to guard the doctrines that God has entrusted to us, like biblical womanhood. 
• Pray for godly women to fulfill the wonderful responsibilities and functions that God has designed for them.
• Pray for the women of CCC to fear and love the Lord, adorning themselves in the hidden person of the heart. 
  
  

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