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Week 1 - Introduction
Happy New Year! And welcome to the 21 Days of Prayer & Fasting for 2024. This year’s theme is Surrender. Every day during this spiritual journey, we’ll surrender multiple areas of life to God using Scripture & prayer. To guide us on this journey, simply open your email each day for the next 21 days as we:
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- read a section of Scripture,
- consider a brief “devotional” thought written by a member of the Riverwood family,
- then pray through the provided prayer (but feel free to add your own prayer).
Some days, we give you a suggested idea of something more you might do to help you surrender a certain area*. Other days, feel free to journal or write out your own prayer.
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Over the course of this three-week journey, we’ll be praying for God to help us surrender to His Will, His Ways, and His Word. This week, we will focus on surrendering various parts of our hearts and thoughts to God’s Will for our lives.
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So grab your Bible, turn the page, and let’s begin to surrender.
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*A QUICK HEADS UP: We will be fasting from food (whether one meal or the entire day - your choice) as a church family on Monday, January 8, when we consider the topic Surrendering Food. If you need to do anything in preparation, use this week to prepare.
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Monday, Jan 1 - Surrender Your Self
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DEVOTIONAL: “Surrender YOUR SELF”
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Many people like to think of Jesus as a really nice guy who showed kindness and love to everyone He met. Yet, one of Jesus’ most famous quotes doesn’t sound all that kind and comforting.
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“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)
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Alright… hang on a second… If you are familiar with that quote, you probably skimmed it. (It’s okay, if I were in your place, I would have skimmed it, too!) But that’s no way to start these 21 Days of Prayer. So let me encourage you to re-read that verse, but this time really take it in.⬇
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“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)
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In other words, to follow Jesus means giving up everything for Him.
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That’s what we want to help you do over the course of these 21 Days. Every day, we will encourage you to consider an area of your life to fully surrender to Christ.
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To aid in this journey through Scripture and prayer, we encourage you to incorporate fasting. While we will be fasting from food as an entire church family next Monday (you can choose whether you do one meal, two meals, or the entire day), I want to encourage you to do something additional. Perhaps you can fast one meal each day for the entire three weeks, take a break from social media, say no to TV or video games, give up alcohol or sugar, or choose to not purchase anything besides essentials for these three weeks. Fasting (i.e. surrendering) something during these 3 weeks will help you “deny yourself” so you can be spiritually prepared to surrender your self more and follow Jesus.
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Heavenly Father, I ask that you empower me with your Holy Spirit to surrender any and every area you want me to hand over. Let me hold nothing from you, but willingly and happily deny myself so I might be more like you. So Father, do in me whatever you want and need to for your glory.
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Call or text a friend, asking them to fast with you.
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