Fast Like DanielSample

How's Your Heart

Faith aimed at the wrong target is worthless. Faith focused just on yourself, your well-being, your blessing, and your ease of life is faith misplaced. It will not bear good fruit. 

I could seriously share countless stories of individuals who have sat in my office, looking from the outside like they had it altogether. However, when their lives were unraveling, they had to admit they were clearly aiming at the wrong thing. Not only were they aiming at the wrong target, they admitted to their deception, faking it to make it, and that they had no real relationship with God. They were pretty fruit trees—with no fruit.

Not only were they not producing fruit, their root system was shallow and lacked the necessary ingredients to sustain them. Their pretty little fruit tree was about to die a horrible death of starvation. Their faith was a pseudo-faith, a faith built on fake granules of sand. All show and no go.

God isn’t into appearances. He does not look at the outside; He looks at the heart. In today’s reading, you’re going to see what He told the Prophet Isaiah—He’s calling His people out for their hypocrisy. They acted like they were doing the right thing, but their hearts were far from Him.

How’s your heart? Here’s how you can judge it: ask God to examine it, and look for His fruit in your life—things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control. 

Now, I’m not talking about doing something to earn anything from God. But I am saying that faith without accompanying action is dead.

My intention is not to make you feel guilty at all, because there’s no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. But I do want you to examine yourself—and be willing to face the tough answers. 

If your fast has been a religious exercise, it’s not too late to repent, revisit, ask for forgiveness, and ask God to make your fast about producing good spiritual fruit instead of being a religious exercise. If you’ll do this, “then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday,” God’s promise in today’s reading.

I look forward to hearing the fruit God is producing in your life! Please share your stories and experiences from this fast by visiting www.fastlikedaniel.com or emailing stories@f astlikedaniel.com.