It’s VERY important for us to share the word of our testimony when the Lord gives us something to praise Him for, because if we demonstrate we won’t use the things He has done for us for His praise and glory, I’m not so sure we can count on Him to give us much more, based on Luke 16:10 (AMP), which says 10He who is faithful in a very little [thing] is faithful also in much, and he who is dishonest and unjust in a very little [thing] is dishonest and unjust also in much. And 1 Corinthians 4:2 says Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. And we know that EVERYTHING God does is for the praise and glory of Jesus, as we see in Ephesians 1:9-12 (NKJV), which says having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. So let’s not risk missing out on all of the blessings He has stored up for us because we failed to give Him appropriate praise and glory and to allow the word of our testimony to be used to overcome the devil in accordance with Revelation 12:10-11, which says Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

Many of our regular visitors and the FAM Fellowship members know I fasted over the weekend in support of one of the ladies that had a significant event coming up last Saturday and possibly Sunday, and it’s not that unusual or that difficult for me to fast for three or four days. However, Saturday morning around the time of the event in question, I was overcome with the shakes and a strange stomach discomfort, not like anything I’ve experienced before, and I really thought I’d have to eat. But I kept praying and reminding the Lord that I was fasting to loosen the chains, tear down the strongholds, and break the yokes, and that I couldn’t give up. That really surprised me, because I hadn’t experienced that in any of my earlier fasts, and then something similar happened again later Saturday afternoon. Since this was so unusual and God had laid some serious issues on my heart to fast about, I knew this was a form of spiritual warfare, which meant I also knew that if I could withstand it, there WOULD be breakthroughs. And there were!

The particular event on Saturday that initiated my fast in the first place, went a lot better than we could have expected or imagined, and definitely proved the truth of God’s promise in Ephesians 3:20-21, which says Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. God used that event to reveal to the FAM member involved that a lot of things are totally different than what she had believed, and as we know from what John 8:32 tells us, the truth has the power to set us free! Then, by the end of the day Saturday, it appeared that things would not go as we were hoping and praying for on Sunday, so there was a little disappointment about that, but we just claimed the promise found in Romans 8:28 and accepted that God would work even that for good in ways we could not know or understand. Well, we didn’t have to wait very long to see how true that proved to be, because we saw the Lord’s hand at work in an amazing way on Sunday, which could not have happened if what we were hoping for had occurred! Some of you may recall that we also fasted for three days for the salvation of one of our FAM member’s husband’s Easter morning, and that he was saved, praise the Lord! Well, as I was praying when I began that fast, the Lord gave me a word concerning him, saying that He was tearing down the walls of resistance and breaking up the ground, which I believed meant that once the seed was planted in him, it would bring forth fruit. I figured that must be a pretty good thing to pray since it came from the Lord, so I’ve started praying it and encouraging the FAM members to do the same. There’s NO doubt in my mind that what we saw in this particular FAM member’s situation is evidence that the Lord is definitely tearing down the walls of resistance and breaking up the ground, which He keeps confirming over and over again each day!

Then I received a phone call from another FAM member about an event I hadn’t been aware of, which gave her a great deal of encouragement, because her husband attended a special church event for her daughter. He even told her he had to leave and couldn’t stay for the whole event, but after he left, he came back and stayed for the rest of the service! And they even hugged each other for the first time in a very long time! So we pray that those walls of resistance are being torn down by the Lord and that the ground is being broken up!

Then one of the other FAM members had a MAJOR breakthrough in her situation involving a confession she needed to make to her husband, and had even attempted once before, but he had stopped her, saying he didn’t want to know. She really did need to make the confession though, because of how the devil was using it to torment her, but we were in agreement and prayed that if it was something that needed to be done, the Lord would create the opportunity, which He CERTAINLY did! Her husband actually asked her to tell him Saturday and told her the reason he wanted to know it now was so he could use it against her to get a divorce! Talk about a test of faith and obedience! That certainly had to be one! But the good news is that she was faithful and obedient and the conversation that followed is something I believe the Lord will use to begin the healing process in their marriage, and certainly not something the devil wanted! In response to her heartfelt confession and request for forgiveness, her husband also revealed a lot of deep emotions she was not aware of, and which don’t sound at all like the heart of a man set on divorcing his wife and leaving his family!

Then another awesome breakthrough involved a woman who is not a FAM member, but someone one of our members recently led to the Lord and who feels like part of the family just the same. She’s a widow with three children, who recently won a VERY BITTER court battle over their custody and visitation rights with her mother-in-law, who blames her for the death of her son. The FAM member had confronted her Friday night about issues of bitterness and unforgiveness, which resulted in a truly amazing and awesome praise report Saturday! That was the day the first monthly supervised visitation took place, at the cost of $250.00 for the mother-in-law. This woman was SO convicted by what she read in the Bible about forgiveness that when she got to the visitation, she went up to her mother-in-law and hugged her neck, and asked for and offered forgiveness, and told her that this would be the only supervised visitation, that from now on, she was welcomed to come to the house, and that once she felt more comfortable about it, the mother-in-law would be allowed to take the children to her home! It’s difficult to know how amazing this is without knowing all of the details, but for obvious reasons, that’s not possible here, but the results are truly amazing! The healing and restoration of that family is nothing short of a miracle. In fact, the mother-in-law has since helped her daughter-in-law find a home for rent that’s very close to the FAM member’s home. So now her family will be able to move from a two bedroom place to a four bedroom home with unbelievably low rent, and the owner is someone the mother-in-law knows and referred her to! God is just SO AWESOME!

Hopefully this testimony will encourage those of you standing for the restoration of your marriages to use one of the most effective weapons we have at our disposal in the spiritual warfare we’re waging to save our marriages, which is fasting. And you can learn more about that by reading More About Biblical Fasting.

Posted Wednesday, May 17th, 2006 at 9:46 am in Seeds Of Faith.