Prayer and Fasting: Receiving

Welcome Graham fam! We are so glad you could watch Sunday morning online with us. Prayer and Fasting – 4 – Receiving This is our 4th week talking about prayer and fasting. Can I be honest with you guys? As I sat down right before Christmas and began praying about sermon series topics for 2024. I made lists of things that I felt the Lord leading me to speak on. There are always things that honestly I am dealing with and I get excited about researching and preaching on. But when prayer and fasting hit the paper, I wasn’t excited about it. I wasn’t confident that this would be a popular series and I worried that people would kind of check out. However, it has been amazing to get the texts, the calls, the questions, and the comments of how God is speaking to you about what we have studied so far. That is amazing to me and it is a reminder of how when we are led by the Lord that we should never rely on our confidence or what we can see but that we rely on God because he knows what we need! Thus far we have studied repentance, spiritual experiences, Direction and today we are going to talk about receiving. The truth is that we are vessels, and we were meant to be filled. In order for us to be filled, we have to be open and empty so that we are ready to be filled! Nothing is more frustrating than having a need for a bucket or a container and not having an empty one to use. (Changing oil in 450). Today we are going back to the OT once again to look at an amazing story of God leading Ezra and the rest of the Exiles from Babylon back to Jerusalem. They were a very needy and vulnerable people. Let’s see how they received what they needed from God. Scripture: Ezra 8:21-23 Points:1. Present your need to the Lord with fasting and prayer!2. Understand that you might be the only one who sees the need!– Luke 23:34a3. Practice true faith! Ending: The great thing about fasting and prayer is that it can be an individual effort. But like everything else, it is much more powerful when a group can agree on something and pursue it with one mind and one heart with the Lord. How willing are you to receive from the Lord? You are a vessel. You were created to receive and be filled. But you have to make room in your soul! There has to be vacancy available. The world has to be emptied out of you so that God can fill you. The physical has to go so the spiritual can come! Last week I talked about the prophetess Anna.Luke 2:36-37 Anna was willing and Anna was ready. She lived by faith and was ready to receive one of the greatest privileges ever known to a human being. Will you fast and pray to receive? Will you empty yourself out to have room to receive whatever it is that God has for? Ezra and his people refused to call on the King and in essence made room for God to be exactly who he is! Will you? If you would like to watch our past services, you can do so here: https://www.gcwesleyan.org/teaching/ Like and subscribe to our new YouTube channel, Graham Chapel Youth! We are producing some funny videos as well as live streaming our Wednesday night youth group: https://is.gd/grahamyouth. If you would like to give to Graham Chapel, you can do so here: https://www.gcwesleyan.org/give/ Graham Chapel Wesleyan Church is in Mayo, SC which is near Cowpens and Chesnee in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. We are affiliated with the Wesleyan denomination and have a di...