What’s It All About?
What is Focus 40 all about? There are a lot of people asking questions. Focus 40? Forty days dedicated to prayer and fasting? What’s up with that? What are we supposed to do? How do we do it? What is everyone else doing? Why now?
You may be asking similar questions. Perhaps you have never fasted before or it has been a long time since you have personally fasted. Maybe you are wondering why the Church of God is talking about fasting all of a sudden. Simply put, Focus 40 is about you and I spending some intentional time reconnecting with God. The transformation Team working with the Church of God Strategic Value “Refresh” is convinced that a season of prayer and fasting will help us “connect” with God in
fresh ways. “Refresh,” which speaks of our relational connectivity, begins with our personal and intimate connection with God.
Imagine what could happen if the Church of God began to pray and fast at the same time, to call upon God, to seek his face through prayer and fasting? How might God respond? Biblical fasting partnered with prayer has a way of aligning us with God’s will for our lives. An individual fast has many physical and spiritual benefits. Focus 40 is designed to be a specific time for the Church of God to pull away from the many distractions, voices, and noise associated with our daily lives and intentionally call upon our Lord. This is a time the church is encouraged to call on
God and to hear from him. The forty days immediately leading up to Easter 2011 have been designated for the Church of God as such a time. Our belief is that God will hear our collective cries and respond to his church with a sense of renewal and revival.
How you choose to participate and for how long is a personal decision between you and God. Very few can or should consider a total food fast for a full forty days. Before such a consideration is made, you should check with your personal physician. However, there are a variety of ways you may decide to participate in the forty days set aside from February 29 to April 8, the forty days leading up to Easter 2012.
Fasting: A Biblical Perspective
Read these words from God as spoken by the Old Testament prophet Isaiah:
“Here is the way I want you to fast. Set free those who are held by chains without any reason. Untie the ropes that hold people as slaves. Set free those who are crushed. Break every evil chain. Share your food with hungry people. Provide homeless people with a place to stay. Give naked people clothes to wear. Provide for the needs of your own family. Then the light of my blessing will shine on you like the rising sun. I will heal you quickly. I will march out ahead of you. And my glory will follow behind you and guard you. That is because I always do what is right.” (Isaiah 58:6–8 NIrV)
Some significant promises of broken bonds, deliverance, provision, blessings, healing, and direction are given as a result of intentional time set aside to be with God. Could you use any of that in your life?
Additionally the prophet Joel says, “Turn to Me with all of your heart, with fasting, with weeping,and with mourning” ( Joel 2:12 NKJV).
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