I never want to miss out again.
When I was 18 years old, the amazing church that I was a part of was growing in a beautiful way. The call then went out for us to build a building because there were no further venues for us to meet in. It was beautiful! Young and old, rich and poor, new believer and more mature believers all gave sacrificially to see something established for the continued ministry and building of what God was doing.
I gave…but I missed out. I missed out because I discounted myself from partaking fully in a great project. I missed out because “I was young”, or “I had very little”. Both statements were true, but they were excuses that caused me to miss out.
From that time on, once I had dealt with the regret of missing out, I decided that I never wanted to miss on another God opportunity again. Whether it meant being at prayer meetings, serving wherever I was needed, hosting people where I could or joining with the believers to pray and fast, I was there. And all these years later, I regret very little.
My encouragement to those who are partners and partaking in Life Changers is this: As we fast next week, DON’T MISS OUT! Maybe you are travelling for work, maybe you are just stressed, maybe you have got a hundred reasons why it really doesn’t make sense to go without food for three days…DON’T MISS OUT.
We are going to be pushing into God for many amazing victories and breakthroughs from salvation to healing, and you’re invited to be a part of it all.
Fasting is so much more than just going without food. John Piper says,
“Food is good. It is a gift of God and we glorify God with it in two ways, not just one way. We feast on it with gratitude for God’s goodness and we forfeit food out of hunger for God himself. When we feast we gladly taste the emblem of our heavenly food, the bread of life, Jesus himself. And when we fast we say: I love the reality more than I love the emblem.”
We are passionate about Jesus, and sometimes the best way to express that is to rest our desires on Him and Him alone. I’m not missing out this time, and I pray you won’t either!
Blog written by Mark Van Pletsen. Mark has been married to Candice for 14 years and have three amazing boys (Judah, Ben and Daniel). After serving on the eldership team of Glenridge Church in Durban, they relocated their growing family to Cape Town in 2013 to Life Changers where they have been leading the eldership team ever since.