"In the beginning God." That's how the actual story of the Bible begins. Anytime you have
God in your beginning, God's going to start working. He's going to create things. One of
the best decisions you can make in your life is to start your day with God, start your year with
God. People have New Year's resolutions to lose weight, to get married, pay down debts and all
of that is great. But one of the best decisions and habits you can make in this coming year is to
spend the first month with the Lord. Give that whole month to God, in seeking Him, and one of
the ways you can do that is through prayer and fasting. Now Christian life is like walking up
the mountain. It's a little bit challenging. It's difficult. It's not comfortable or convenient. But
something happens when you walk up the mountain, you get to the top. You cannot slide down the
mountain to get to the top. You have to climb, you have to hike. You know God actually tells Lot,
when He gets him out of Sodom, He says, "I want you to run up the mountain." You know Abraham
brought his son to sacrifice on the mountain. We see that Moses encountered God on the mountain.
We see Jesus was transfigured on the mountain. He actually went to heaven from the mountain,
and He's coming back and His feet will land on the mountain. The mountain is always symbolic of
your relationship with Christ. It's a lifestyle of denying yourself, picking up your cross. It's
a narrow path of following Jesus. So this coming year, I want to invite you to climb the mountain.
I want to invite you to hike the mountain with us, by taking 21 days to set apart yourself to
seek God through prayer and fasting. What is fasting? Fasting is abstaining from food for
spiritual reasons. Fasting is not a diet, fasting is not starving nor is fasting a hunger strike.
Fasting is not to squeeze God out of something He doesn't want to give us. We don't move God
through fasting, we actually we get moved through fasting. It's a way of humbling ourselves before
God. Jesus fasted, many men and women of God in the Bible fasted. When you fast, you're putting
the king's stomach off the throne, you're putting your appetites down. The sensitivity to the Lord
gets increased, your hunger for God gets restored. A lot of times there's a breakthrough that comes
in our life as we fast. So during this 21 days of Fast Forward Challenge, I believe the Lord wants
us to accelerate our spiritual life through prayer and fasting. Prayer connects you to the Lord,
fasting disconnects you from the world. And as you do that, you will begin to see the Lord move
in your life. There are a few types of fasts that you can take. One is the complete fast. No food,
just the water or liquids. The second one is the Daniel fast. It's when you eat specifically no
meats, no sweets, no dairy. Just the fruits, vegetables and water. And the third kind of
fast is the partial fast. It's when you fast from sunrise to sundown for 21 days. And the
last one is the non-food fast, especially for those people who are pregnant, young,
nursing mothers, with medication, when you're fasting something like TV or other things. Even
though it's not a technical fast but it's still a sacrifice to the Lord, and God sees that and He
will honor that. So join us for this 21-day Fast Forward Challenge to humble ourselves before God,
press in into God's kingdom. Put God first in this coming year and see God bless the rest of the year
with His blessings. Go to pastorvlad/fastforward and accelerate your spiritual life today. Let's
climb together the mountain of God. Let's hike together the hill of the Lord, with pure hands,
clean hearts, humbling ourselves before God, putting God first in this year and trusting to see
what He's going to do for the whole year. You know one of the things that pushes me toward fasting
is that I'm always excited and anticipating what God's going to do after the fast. I know what He's
going to do if I'm not going to fast, and seek Him and pray. Well same thing is going to happen. But
Jesus fasted and after that we see there was a launch of His ministry. A lot of men and women
of God see huge breakthrough in their life through fasting. Fasting doesn't have power, God has power
but God chooses to release that power when we humble ourselves, seek His face, pray and fast.