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Insight's to the Word with Pastor Teague!
Today is our second day of a five week church wide fast. I am so excited about this fasting journey. We have called this fast to accomplish two things:
1. Personal intimacy with God.
2. Congregational unity and intimacy with God.
One is accomplished through personal discipline of prayer, study and application of the Word and the other is accomplished through corporate worship and the application of the Word to the activities of the entire church. The genesis of this process starts with the denial of self. Nothing difficult to understand about this principle – deny yourself. Jesus taught this principle and made it very clear.
Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.
I don’t think you can get much clearer than this. If you truly want to be a follower of Christ – not just a professor of Christ but a follower of Christ – it starts with self-denial. First we have to have a “present desire” to follow Him. This is fact of heart – “if anyone wishes to come after Me”. The heart has to have a passion to follow Him. Second, the denial of self and all of our earthly and worldly interests. In other words nothing supersedes our relationship with Christ. Absolutely nothing. Paul made brings to the forefront of our relationship with Christ when he writes in Colossians 3.2-3 that we are to set our affection on things above and not on the things of the earth. A true disciple of Christ will crucify the flesh and the lusts thereof (Galatians 5.24) and simply dedicate himself to the cause of the Gospel.
Next step is to take up our cross. Take up that which is our lot in life. Take up a failure as much as a success. Celebrate our pain as much as our healing. Take up our appointment with life. Jesus denied Himself totally with not only accepting the cross – but dying on the cross. To take up our cross is to not just talk about it but actually take it up, pick it up, carry it, endure it. Whatever condition we have been led to in our life journey of faith – we take it up. We accept it and we move into it with forward motion faith.
Last but not least – we simply “follow Him.” We exemplify the life of Christ. He endured His cross (Hebrews 12.2). To follow Him is to endure our cross and move into victory.
Fasting takes us deeper into the arena of self-denial. I trust your second day of fasting will be one step toward many successful steps of drawing closer to Him. Personal intimacy with Christ which will lead to congregational intimacy with Christ. The results will be powerful and life changing for us all.
Pastortimteague's Blog 
I like to think I share that closeness you describe, however as I start day 2 of my fast I want more, a deeper relationship, as the commercial says there is always room for J-E-L-L-O. Thats the way I feel about Jesus there is always room for more. Do you ever think you reach a point where you achieve the ultimate closeness, or that deepest relationship where you need no more??