seek week
January 6th - January 12th
Seek Week: Monday, January 6th - Sunday, January 12th​
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Dear Church,
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This is your pastor, welcoming you to Seek Week, starting January 25! Let’s continue to keep the main thing the main thing. One of our nine culture codes is “we pray,” and with that in mind, we begin a seven-day fast this Monday.
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Corporate Gathering Schedule
We will gather each morning at 6:00 a.m. for Bible study and devotions, focusing on scripture to deepen our understanding of fasting. At 6:30 a.m., we will begin corporate prayer. You’re invited to join us for either the Bible study at 6:00 a.m. or prayer at 6:30 a.m., Monday through Saturday. We’ll break our fast together on Sunday at church. The link to join in for the morning: https://bit.ly/47lU21Y
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Seek Week Overview
Seek Week is a sacred time set aside to deepen our relationship with Jesus and repent, removing sin from our lives. While daily prayer is already a practice in our church, Jesus reminds us in Mark 9:29 that some things are only accomplished through prayer and fasting. As we commit to these seven days, let’s invite God to do a new work within us. Revival starts in our hearts and radiates outward. Seek Week will build spiritual momentum, elevate the atmosphere of our church, and prepare us for the amazing things God has in store.
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What is Fasting?
Fasting is the practice of turning down something to focus our attention and energy on God. While we can fast from things like social media, TV, or shopping, biblical fasting specifically involves abstaining from food to draw closer to Him. Below are a few types of fasts to consider. Please take a moment to review them.
When combined with prayer, fasting opens the door for miracles. As Jesus said in Mark 9:29, some things can only happen through both fasting and prayer.
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Preparing Your Heart
As you prepare for this fast, I invite you to follow my example by confessing your sins to God. Pray often, “Lord, search my heart,” and invite Him to cleanse areas of your life that need healing.
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Fasting Methods
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Complete Fast: Only liquids, typically water, with light juices as an option.
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Partial Fast: Abstain from food during certain times of day (e.g., 6:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. or sunup to sundown). Feel free to adjust the hours to suit your schedule.
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Selective Fast | Daniel Fast: Remove certain foods, such as meat, sweets, and bread, while consuming fruits, vegetables, water, and juice.
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Let’s press in together through prayer and fasting, expecting God to move in powerful ways!
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Onward in the name of our Lord, Jesus.
Pastor Tim
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“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”
— 1 JOHN 5:14 (NIV)
Facts about fasting
FASTING
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Please remember that every person is different and you should only choose what is a healthy and safe choice for you.
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The goal of fasting is to draw near to God.
It hits the reset button of our soul and renews us from the inside out.
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BELOW WE HAVE PROVIDED A FEW SUGGESTIONS OF FASTS:
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Selective Fast
This type of fast involves removing certain elements from your diet. One example of a selective fast is the Daniel Fast, during which you remove meat, sweets, and bread from your diet and consume water and juice for fluids and fruits and vegetables for food.
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Complete Fast
In this type of fast, you drink only liquids, typically water with light juices as an option.
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Partial Fast
This fast involves abstaining from eating any type of food in the morning and afternoon. This can either correlate to specific times of the day, such as 6:00 am to 3:00 pm, or from sunup to sundown.
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Soul Fast
This fast is a great option if you do not have much experience fasting food, have health issues that prevent you from fasting food, or if you wish to refocus certain areas of your life that are out of balance.
For example, you might choose to stop using social media or watching television for the duration of the fast and then carefully bring that element back into your life in healthy doses at the conclusion of the fast.
Scripture References About Fasting
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Matthew 6:16-18
New International Version (NIV)
16 When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
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Matthew 9:14-15
New International Version (NIV)
14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.”
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Luke 18:9-14
New International Version (NIV)
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
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Acts 27:33-37
New International Version (NIV)
33 Just before dawn Paul urged them all to eat. “For the last fourteen days,” he said, “you have been in constant suspense and have gone without food—you haven’t eaten anything. 34 Now I urge you to take some food. You need it to survive. Not one of you will lose a single hair from his head.” 35 After he said this, he took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all. Then he broke it and began to eat. 36 They were all encouraged and ate some food themselves. 37 Altogether there were 276 of us on board.
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Nehemiah 9:1-3
New International Version (NIV)
1On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. 2 Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors. 3 They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the Lord their God.
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“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;"
When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach.
I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.
That your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
For forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.
Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.
But I, when they were sick— I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting; I prayed with head bowed on my chest.
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.
And then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.
“Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”
Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
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