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Prayers for Safe Travels and Breakthroughs

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Micah 2:13 The Breaker [the Messiah] will go up before them. They will break through, pass in through the gate and go out through it, and their King will pass on before them, the Lord at their head.

Kristy Whittington, our resident missionary, is returning from Africa this week and should be on American soil by February 28. Could you keep her in your prayers for safe travels?

Also, our mission team leadership has received the following emergency email from our director of missions on the ground in Nicaragua. She wrote: Dear Bethany Friends, The church that was going to sponsor your team to get into the country as a group has not been able to obtain their government paperwork. The government now requires churches and non-profits to register every two months!  It’s ridiculous bureaucracy that is hard for churches/organizations to achieve. Then, when they don’t have the proper paperwork, they are technically operating illegally and the government uses this reason to shut them down. We have another option that we are pursuing but we REALLY need prayers for this to happen quickly! Thank you, Naomi

Soooo, as you can see Kristy and our Nicaragua Mission Outreach desperately needs your prayers.

Thank you and have a great week.

Breakthrough!

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Nik Ripken, in the book The Insanity of God, records the story of perseverance in the light of dark circumstances: Dmitri was a Russian pastor leading a house church. As townspeople heard of the powerful manifestations of God taking place among the worshipers, more and more crowded into Dimitri’s home to hear about Jesus. One night, more than 150 people gathered. The authorities couldn’t let this continue, so they sent Dmitri a thousand kilometers away from his family and locked him in prison. He was the only believer among 1,500 hardened criminals. His captors tortured him to force him to renounce his faith, but Dmitri held firm. 

“For seventeen years in prison, every morning at daybreak, Dmitri would stand at attention by his bed. As was his custom, he would face the east, raise his arms in praise to God, and then he would sing a HeartSong to Jesus.” The other prisoners would laugh, curse, and jeer. “They’d bang metal cups against the iron bars in angry protest. They threw food and sometimes human waste to try to shut him up and extinguish the only true light shining in that dark place every morning at dawn” One day, Dmitri found a full sheet of paper and a pencil in the prison yard. “I rushed back to my jail cell, and I wrote every Scripture reference, every Bible verse, every story, and every song I could recall.” He posted it on a damp pipe in his cell as an offering to the Lord. His jailor saw it, beat and punished him, and threatened him with execution. As jailors dragged him from his cell and down the corridor, “the strangest thing happened. Before they reached the door leading to the courtyard—before stepping out into the place of execution—fifteen hundred hardened criminals stood at attention by their beds. They faced the east and they began to sing . . . the HeartSong that they had heard Dmitri sing to Jesus every morning for all those years.” Shocked, his jailors released their hold and backed away from him. “Who are you?” one demanded. Dimitri straightened his back and stood as tall and as proud as he could. “I am a son of the Living God, and Jesus is His name!” The guards returned him to his cell and shortly afterward, he was released and returned to his family. 

The suffering servant of God, Job, stated something similar in the dark night of his soul: Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.(Job 13:15) Dimitri, like Job, was willing to continue praising God, trusting Him, even when in the midst of severe mental, emotional, and physical suffering. Dimitri kept singing – kept believing – even in his darkest hour. We all know the rest of the story: breakthrough! In the dark night of your soul, while you are searching and groping to find Jesus in His hiddenness, don’t stop singing. Don’t stop waiting, and trusting. He’s not that far. Press on into His Presence by faith.

Jesus Fast Guidelines

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We are amazed at the response of tens of thousands who are joining together for The Jesus Fast. Prayer and fasting are gifts from God to reset the compass of our hearts toward Him and focus our intercession for a breakthrough. I believe these next 40 days will shake the nations and prepare us to be sent into all the world to proclaim the Good News! I know many of you are doing your very first extended fast.  Praise God for your obedience!  Please read over these guidelines from my website and prepare your heart and body in these next days leading up to the fast.
With this call to enter into extended fasting, we must prepare ourselves adequately so that the fast can honor God and fulfill its purpose. I want to share some thoughts from our own experiences to help and encourage you.
 1. Seek medical advice if you are older or have health challenges 
2. Fast and pray to humble yourself and purify your worship – In Fasting we are not trying to get something from God; we are seeking to realign our hearts’ affections with His. We do holy violence to the “pleasures which wage war against the soul,” opening the way for a greater submission to the Holy Spirit. Lust is a perverse form of devotion. Fasting enables us to cleanse the sanctuary of our hearts from such idols.
 3. Take time to pray and read the Word – This may seem obvious, but busyness and distractions can keep you from devotions. Reading books with testimonies of victories gained through fasting will encourage you. Register at TheJesusFast.com to schedule your fast and receive encouragement by email.
 4. Have a clear target for prayer focus – Without a vision (a clear, prophetic prayer goal), the people perish. During a fast, I have four or five prayer goals I have clearly articulated. When I am not deeply motivated by a clear goal, I usually fast until breakfast! Write down your vision so you can run with it.
 5. Do the fast with someone else – Two are better than one! We encourage young people to talk this through with their parents before starting the fast. Parents and kids should consider fasting together.
 6. Do not give in to condemnation if you fail – The “to fast or not to fast” dilemma can be a major tool of the enemy. Even though you may fail several times, God always extends grace. Hit reset and resume right where you left off.
 7. Husbands and wives, consider sexual abstinence for the sake of prayer (1 Corinthians 7:5)
8. Determine the length in advance of the fast, not after you start• – A total fast is without water. This is extremely hard on the body. Do not go beyond three days.
• A water-only fast is a very challenging but deeply spiritual experience. Many people can endure forty days on water alone, though this is dependent on one’s weight and metabolism.
• A fruit and vegetable juice fast allows you to enter into fasting but still gives enough energy to function. Most people can do a forty-day juice fast. Out of consideration for their health and metabolism, I encourage teenagers to drink juice and protein drinks to sustain them.
 9. Prepare physically – Two days before your fast, limit your intake of food to fruit and vegetables. Fruits are natural cleansers and easy to digest. Stop drinking coffee before the fast. Prepare yourself for mental discomforts such as impatience, crankiness, and anxiety. Expect physical discomforts. You may experience dizziness, headaches and different kinds of pains. The headaches are not necessarily a sign to stop fasting. Your body is working to cleanse itself of impurities.
 10. Prepare for opposition – On the first day of your fast, you can bet doughnuts will somehow show up at the office or in class. Your spouse (or mom) will suddenly be inspired to cook your favorite meals. Take this as encouragement from God to press ahead! Many times you may feel increased emotional tension at home. My fasts are just as difficult on my wife as they are on me. Satan tempted Jesus on His fast, and we must expect the same. Discouragement may come in like a flood, but recognize the source and take your stand upon the victory of Christ.
 11. Fast in secret – Do not boast about your fast, but do not go to extraordinary lengths to mask it when people inquire; if necessary, just let them know you will not be eating. The bigger deal you make of it, the more attention you draw. Be discreet, be transparent, then move humbly along.
 12. Break the fast over several days with fruit juice and/or light soups
On a light juice fast or a water fast, your digestive system shuts down. It can be dangerous if you eat too much too soon. Break such a fast gently with several days of diluted, nonacidic juice, then regular juice, followed by fruit and vegetables. When breaking one of my early water fasts, I ate too much too quickly and almost needed hospitalization. Be careful!
 13. Feel free to rest a lot and to continue to exercise
14. If you are pregnant or nursing, do not fast, PERIOD
15. Expect to hear God’s voice in the Word, dreams, visions, and revelations – Daniel prepared himself to receive revelation through fasting (Daniel 10:1-3). Scripture also speaks of a fasting reward (Matthew 6:18). Expect God to fellowship and communicate with you in special ways.
 16. Breakthroughs often come after a fast, not during it – Do not listen to the lie that nothing is happening. It is my conviction that every fast done in faith will be rewarded.

30 Days For A Breakthrough

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Today we continue on the theme of 30 days for a breakthrough. I shared yesterday on the subject of Esther waiting 30 days before she was summoned to the court and about our breakthrough with the Supreme Court. Today I will share my testimony of what praying for 30 days did for my son. The significance of 30 days may not be a biblical foundation assuring us of a breakthrough in prayer, but it has been a significant number in my own life. I share it only as a possible point of faith as we enter into the 30th day of our 40 day fast.

Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.”22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 1st Kings 17:21-22

“As we look at all the unholy chaos in the world at the close of the twentieth century, we sense that new levels of faith and prayer will be needed to reach this next generation – something close to raising the dead. Elijah’s revolution is a prayer revolution. Before he prayed for a fire to fall from heaven, he prayed to raise a fatherless child from the dead.”  -Lou Engle ‘Fast Forward

In the Bible, the first person raised from the dead was not a king or a priest or a general. It was the only child of a poverty-stricken widow who had been on the verge of starvation not long before. Elijah took the boy to the upper room, laid him on the bed and stretched himself over the boy three times, crying out to God for his life. The “upper room” of prayer is still God’s answer for dead individuals. May “upper rooms” arise all over this nation, where saints would stretch themselves out in prayer for a dead generation in order to turn them back to God! It took perseverance to raise that dead boy back to life.

One family’s “upper room” prayer changed the life of my dear friend Che Ahn. While still a teenager, Che threw himself into the rebellion of the 60s. As a Korean hippie and drug pusher, a turn was needed. A young girl in his neighborhood saw Che and told her father about him. This family felt a burden for his salvation and at every mealtime, they prayed for him. Soon afterward, Che encountered Jesus in a remarkable way. Since then, he has led thousands to Christ. 

Many years ago I had lost my teenage son’s heart. I longed for him and I know he longed for me, but we couldn’t find each other. He was headed in the wrong direction and I feared darkness would overtake him. I was desperate to see change and breakthrough in his life, so I set my face to fasting 31 days on only water, stretching myself out over him (so to speak) in prayer. On the 31st day, my son came to me and told me that he was having dreams of revival and of the coming of the Holy Spirit; it was the breath of life entering to his spirit; it was the beginning of me getting my boy back from the dead; it was a 30 day breakthrough. It took Elijah three times to spread himself over the boy, and it took me 30 days of prayer and fasting. 

Dear brothers and sisters, let’s go to the upper room and stretch ourselves out over our children, over immovable obstacles, and over spiritual veils that hide His face from our hearts. Let’s believe God for a miracle in this 30 day window. If we don’t see a miracle, we still believe and we will never stop praying until heaven has lit up our darkness.

Prayer
Father, we pray for the spirit of Elijah to come on a generation of mothers and fathers who want their kids more than the world wants them. Release a mighty grace of fasting on fathers and mothers who will stretch themselves out over their kids struggling with sexual confusion, drug addiction, lack of purpose, or sickness. Release an Elijah revolution in our day stronger than the death culture of suicide. God, I pray in this 30 day window that all across the world, many of us that are fasting will celebrate breakthroughs and shout praises to the God of miracles. Amen.