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Each day during the fast, there will be a set prayer focus in addition to our personal prayers. 

Today our prayer focus is the Holy Spirit. 

  • Pray for infilling or refilling of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8 & John 15:26)
  • Pray to receive and operate in spiritual gifts in our church body (1 Corinthians 12:1-11) 
  • Pray that the Holy Spirit will help each of us walk in step with the Lord (Galatians 5:16-26)

An encouragement from Pastor Hayes:

Matthew 4:1-4

1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”4  Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

There is a lot we could unpack in these verses, but I want us to focus on the very first line: “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit.” When we study this passage, we usually focus on the ending—the temptation and the victory. But before any of that happened, Jesus obeyed. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, and He followed.

Many of us would have asked, “Why would You lead me to nowhere?” And the Judean wilderness truly felt like nowhere. It was filled with boulders and rock, a hard-packed stone floor that reflected the sun’s heat back upward. Water was scarce. Wildlife was scarce—more lizards and locusts than lions. It was desolate. It was uncomfortable. It raised the question: Why?

But Jesus knew something we often forget—the Spirit always has a purpose.

Because of that obedience, Jesus became the second Adam—the One who did not fall to the temptations surrounding Him. Where the first Adam failed in a garden filled with abundance, Jesus stood firm in a wilderness of lack. Obedience opened the door to a victory far greater than the moment itself.

Jesus walked away from that wilderness with the knowledge that He had overcome the enemy.
What if you could walk away with that same confidence after joining us in a fast?
What if the devil didn’t intimidate you anymore?
What if obedience led you to a victory bigger than you ever imagined?