Teach Us to PrayExemplo

YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD

"Our Father"... there could not be a more powerful two words to begin a prayer by! "Our Father" puts forth the identity of our Holy, Loving, and Gracious Heavenly Father as the starting point of all prayer; what naturally follows is our identity as Children of God. As the Apostle Paul puts it, "The Spirit you received brought about your adoption to Sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father!'"

We embark on any spiritual discipline, such as fasting, because of who He is and who we are in Him. Through our adoption, we are set free from sin, and now, we may seek through the guidance and grace of Our Father to be made holy and receive eternal life (Romans 6:22).

As sons and daughters, we are free to seek holiness, but the fight is not over. "For in my inner being, I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me" (Romans 7:22-23). Paul identifies an internal struggle between seeking God's law and being a prisoner to sin. What we feed grows, and what we don't feed will eventually wither away.

This is why we fast. We might break free of our enslavement to the law of sin and instead become more devoted to Our Father's law and reap holiness and eternal life. Paul makes it explicitly clear that feeding the flesh is death; feeding the Spirit is life (Romans 8:6).

To fast is to say with our whole bodies, “Abba, Father! Give me life and help me to choose You and deny myself pleasures, even despite the pain.”

- Zach Larsen