21 Days of Prayer & Fasting
America World’s goal is to make sure that orphaned children get the opportunity for a better life. We not only help provide shelter, food, education, and medical care to orphaned children around the world but most importantly, we help them get adopted into loving families. This year 100 children have already come home. This year, as we enter the Season of Hope we are once again entering into a 21-day time of prayer and fasting. Each day has a special scripture focus as well as a devotional written by America World adoptive mom, Cheri Strange. Enjoy Day 1 below, and please continue to join us each day for a time of prayer and devotion as we focus on meeting the needs of children worldwide.
Day 1 of 21 • This day’s reading
- Revelation 21:1-2
- Romans 10:9
- 2 Corinthians 5:17
- Ephesians 1:3
- Ephesians 1:11
- Matthew 5:14-16
God’s Divine plan for utilizing you and me as instruments for bringing hope into impossible situations sounds about as genius as leaving my twin adolescent boys home alone for the weekend and handing over my credit cards. It just doesn’t seem smart. Surely there is a better pathway, one that is guaranteed to succeed. Why couldn’t God use a few millionaires, pro-athletes and movie stars with international platforms? Maybe rain down some hail to smite the bad guys and right some wrongs, or drop a few other miracles now and then to remedy the world’s catastrophic atrocities and disasters? I mean, He is God. Can’t He fix all that is wrong in the world?
Yes, He can. And He will.
Until that time arrives, His plan is you. Oh, He doesn’t need you… But He has fitted you perfectly into His plan. It’s what He did with salvation.
The Bible illuminates the ugly reality in our lives that each of us has sinned before a perfect and holy God. Our only hope is Jesus Christ. When we recognize our own brokenness, receive salvation and begin a relationship with God the Father, the Bible assures us that we are made new. We are completely transformed from the inside out, given the rights and privileges of the very children of God, Himself. That’s more than being handed a heavenly credit card without limit. It’s winning the heavenly lottery!
If you and I could embrace our Divine reality, we would approach our earthly presence differently. We would begin seeing ourselves as God’s mechanism for bringing others into this glorious existence. Our eyes could be opened to more than personal needs and desires. Life would become less about us and more about…them.
What if you and I began discerning God’s heart to extend His Hand to those in dark places or disparaging circumstances who have no help and no hope?
What if you really began to embrace the reality that you are the plan?
For the next 21 days, take your Divine reality lived out in your earthly presence a step further. Give something up. Food, caffeine, social media, Me Time, anything that would signify—I’m serious about seeking Your face and learning how I can participate in what You are doing.
Then pray. Ask God to show Himself to you and His purpose for you.
Only God knows what may come from it!