Watch the video below by Jentezen Franklin to learn how fasting helps you regain your spiritual edge.

And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ. —Ephesians 1:9

Are you seeking God? How hard are you trying? Are you requiring that He meets your expectation? You say, “If God turned up, believe me, I would recognize Him.” That is exactly the point I want to make: when we feel we know God so well, we are in danger of becoming too familiar with Him. The way we must love the glory of the Lord is not that we affirm Him because we see that which makes us feel comfortable, but that we know He is God and can manifest Himself in unusual ways.

Sometimes God puts us in a place where we can’t give the reason we affirm Him. He continues to work in this way, so there are times when we have to take a stand, where we know the truth, but we are not allowed to explain ourselves. Are you prepared to be committed to Jesus Christ to the extent that you just affirm Him, even though you know you are not allowed to explain yourself except to say, “Jesus is my Savior; I am unashamed of Him”?

When we see God working in an unexpected way, we may fail to recognize Him. Sometimes theologians describe the “otherness” of God. He is different. He may turn up in a strange way. God may come with silence or by hiding His face and seeming not to answer. Sometimes the way in which He turns up seems silly. But God chooses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise.

Our reaction is, “How can God do this to me—if that’s really God?” Then explain this: Jesus, dying on a cross, how can that be God? Why does God seem so detached from the way with which we are comfortable? The answer is lest we feel too familiar with Him and become presumptuous. The proof we love God is that we recognize He may appear in a way that feels strange, and we are prepared to affirm Him no matter how much it hurts and no matter how strange it seems.

If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour. —John 12:26

The kingdom of God is built on servanthood. Isaiah gave his voice to prophesy the Savior’s coming. One angel descended from the heavens to tell a young virgin she would bear the Savior of the world and another offered his voice to proclaim the Savior’s birth. Mary offered her womb, while Joseph gave his fiancee. The donkey lent his back and the cattle gave their warmth. The earth volunteered the straw on which our Savior lay, while the moon gave its light. A star pointed the direction for the wise men bringing gifts. All these things were done in labor inspired by love because God gave His Son.

But it was the Son who gave all. He gave His life. He said, “No man takes it from me. I can lay it down, and I can take it up again.” He could have called ten thousand angels to His aid, but He willingly died for you and me. Servanthood is giving of your time, energy, and talent, expecting nothing in return. This is the kingdom of God.

Read Philippians 2. How does your life reflect the servant attitude of Jesus Christ? In what ways does pride hinder ministry and servanthood in your life?

Lord Jesus, shape my perspective on all of life
so that I may see others as those whom I serve
instead of expecting them to serve me. Amen.

Are you struggling to be thankful as you come to the end of a tough year? Then the story of Martin Rinkart will lift your heart.

Rinkart was a Lutheran pastor who ministered in Eilenburg, Saxony during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). This devastating conflict ravaged entire regions, caused unrelenting famine and bankrupted most of the combatant powers. Malnutrition and pandemic threatened almost all of Europe.

Eilenburg saw a steady stream of refugees pour into the city for three decades, overwhelming the city’s meager resources. Eight hundred homes in Eilenburg were destroyed in the fighting. The pastors of the city were under enormous strain, conducting multiple funerals daily while trying to minister to survivors.

The Year of the Great Pestilence (1637) saw every pastor in the city except Rinkart succumb to the horrific conditions. As the sole surviving clergyman in Eilenburg, it fell upon Rinkart to conduct funeral services for up to 50 people per day. In May of that terrible year, Rinkart’s own wife died.

Rinkart lived in a world palled by death and despair. Yet his faith in Christ held firm. He did not give in to bitterness. Even after living through three hellish decades he never lost his confidence in the goodness and faithfulness of God.

Pastor Rinkart could identify with Job. After losing his family, his health, his money and his position in society, Job still declared His trust in God: “Even if He kills me, I will hope in Him” (Job 13:15, HCSB). Martin Rinkart profoundly understood Jeremiah’s unflinching faith. Looking on a scene of collapsed hopes and a privileged nation that now lay pillaged, Jeremiah still declared, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lam. 3:22-24, ESV).

How did Pastor Rinkart keep his faith and his sanity? He refused to be defined by his circumstances. He determined to focus, not on his circumstances, but on the unchanging character of a merciful God. If we drop anchor on any “rock” that can potentially be removed, we will be insecure and prone to self-debilitating bitterness. But if we anchor on the Rock of Christ Jesus, our moorings will hold fast (see Matt. 7:24-27).

Set against the bleak backdrop of a protracted war, economic collapse, and his own city’s devastation, Martin Rinkart penned these words for his children as a prayer of thanksgiving:

Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom His world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still are ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed
And free us from all ills in this world and the next.

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given,
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest heaven* –
The one eternal God Whom earth and heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

No matter how difficult things may be for you right now, look up and remember: “His mercy endures forever.” Now thank we all our God.

*“Him Who reigns with Them in highest heaven” is a reference to the Holy Spirit.

While Republicans battle it out for the party’s nomination for president of the United States, pro-life groups are keeping track of the candidates’ stance on abortion.

The Susan B. Anthony List just announced that Herman Cain has signed its Pro-Life Presidential Leadership Pledge. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, has yet to sign on the pro-life dotted line.

“This decision is consistent with the Herman Cain we have come to know,” says Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA List. “He understands the wound abortion is to America and especially to the most vulnerable among us—people that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger labeled ‘human weeds.’”

Cain explained his pro-life convictions. He noted that he is an associate Baptist minister and is 100 percent pro-life.

“I will not appoint judges who legislate from the bench. I will appoint judges who will strictly interpret the U.S. Constitution and understand the limitations on government and separations of power set forth in the U.S. Constitution,” Cain says. “Where my powers in the Executive Branch are concerned, I will work at all times to oppose government funding of abortion. I will veto any legislation that contains funds for abortions. I will do everything that a president can do constitutionally to advance the culture of life.”

In addition to Cain, Michele Bachman, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum have also signed the SBA List Pro-Life Presidential Leadership Pledge. Thad McCotter and Tim Pawlenty also signed, but have since withdrawn from the race.

We Americans are a blessed people, but we are also spoiled. I know I am. I can get flustered over the stupidest things—like when my cellphone doesn’t get a good signal, when a flight is delayed or when my computer takes too long to load a website. Most people in the world don’t have iPhones, can’t afford air travel and don’t have computers. My impatience reveals my ungrateful spirit.

So how can we avoid this virus of selfish immaturity? Thankfulness is the antidote. It melts our pride and crushes our sense of entitlement. It reminds us that everything we have comes from God, and that His mercy is the only reason we are blessed.

As you celebrate Thanksgiving Day, I pray you will invite the Holy Spirit to convict you of any whining. Here’s a list of 10 blessings that many people in the world don’t have. Go over this list and then see if you still have anything to gripe about.

1. Got clean water? The next time you uncap a bottle of water or grab a drink from the tap, remember that one in eight people in the world (that’s 884 million people) lack access to clean water supplies. Millions of women around the world spend several hours a day collecting water. When you take a five-minute shower, you use more water than a typical person in a developing country uses in a whole day.

2. Do you have a bathroom? About 40 percent of the world’s population (2.6 billion people) do not have toilets. Lack of sanitation facilities spreads disease and is a major reason why more than 2 million people die annually of diarrhea.

3. How’s your electricity? The power in my house might be interrupted briefly three times a year because of Florida storms. But 1.6 billion people—a· quarter of humanity—live without any electricity. And, because of unreliable infrastructure, at least 2 billion people on earth don’t have any light at night.

4. Got a roof over your head? One billion people live in slums. That’s almost one-sixth of the world’s population. Of this total, 640 million children live without adequate shelter; they live in cardboard boxes, tin-roofed shacks, one-room mud huts or filthy, crowded tenements. It’s been estimated that 1.4 billion people will live in slums by 2020. Meanwhile here in the United States, between 2.3 to 2.5 million people are classified as homeless.

5. Is there food on your table? In the United States we are battling an obesity epidemic. Yet according to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are chronically undernourished, and almost 28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted.

6. Got a stove? In developing countries, some 2.5 billion people use fuelwood, charcoal or animal dung to meet their energy needs for cooking. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 80 percent of the population depends on these crude, traditional means for cooking, as do over half of the populations of India and China. The really sad part: Indoor air pollution resulting from the use of solid fuels claims the lives of 1.5 million people each year, more than half of them below the age of 5.

7. Got regular income? You may have had to take a pay cut during the recession. But keep in mind that at least 80 percent of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. The world’s average income is about $7,000 a year. Still, only about 19 percent of the world’s population lives in countries with per capita incomes at least this high.

8. Did you go to school? Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. Enrollment data shows that about 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world were not in school in 2005 (and 57 percent of them were girls).

9. Are you generally healthy? Americans face illness like people in other nations—and more than 12 million Americans are battling cancer in any given year. But many of us have access to health care. In the developing world, more than 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized. An estimated 40 million people in developing countries are living with HIV/AIDS. Every year there are 350–500 million cases of malaria, with 1 million fatalities, mostly in Africa.

10. Are you free to worship God? More than 400 Christians die for their faith every day around the world, and most of these believers suffer in Islamic countries—although the top hot spot for Christian persecution, according to Open Doors International, is the atheist regime of North Korea.

What will you be grateful for this Thanksgiving? In these tough economic times you may feel the urge to complain. Be thankful instead! God calls us to live above this negativity. When we give thanks in all things, God gives us a supernatural attitude adjustment. When we thank God for all He has given us, acknowledging that we don’t deserve His goodness, our grumbling melts into gratitude and our impatience turns to praise.

J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma. You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady. His most recent book is 10 Lies Men Believe (Charisma House).

I have so much for which to be thankful. Do you? Do you show Him how thankful you are for what He has done? How could you best build in a daily opportunity to thank the Lord?

You may say, “He knows I’m thankful. I don’t have to tell Him every day.” Please tell Him. Do you not appreciate it yourself when people thank you for something?

Even though God can see your heart whereas people cannot, you need to tell Him. God also knows what things you need before you ask Him (Matt. 6:8), but He still wants you to tell Him, and when you pray that is what you should do.

We have a curious way of asking the Lord for what we need (even though He knows the need). We should also remember to thank Him (even though He may well know we are thankful).

How can we be so sure we are thankful if we do not go through the trouble of remembering to say thank you to the One who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph. 1:3)?

We all know people who annoy us by their lack of gratitude and appreciation. It is surely true that those who remember to say “thank you” are more thankful than the ones who forget to say “thank you.” God loves to hear us say “thank You” to Him and to each other. I believe that there are three principles behind thankfulness: God loves gratitude; God hates ingratitude; and gratitude must be taught.

A good parent will teach his or her child to be thankful, to show thankfulness, and to express it. God, the perfect parent, has taught this in His Word. With great care and patience He taught the children of Israel to be thankful. He was grieved when they were unthankful. Jesus taught the same thing, as did the apostle Paul.

The biblical doctrine of sanctification is to be seen as the doctrine of gratitude. Sanctification is the process by which we are made holy. It is becoming more and more like Jesus. But why be sanctified? Answer: to show we are thankful. This is why the reformed doctrine of sanctification has been called, literally, the doctrine of gratitude.

You can read more and purchase R.T. Kendall’s book, Just Say Thanks!, which this article is derived from, by clicking here.

R.T. Kendall was the pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, England, for 25 years. Born in Ashland, Ky., he was educated at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Oxford University. He is well known internationally as a speaker and teacher. He is the author of more than 40 books, including The Power of Humility, The Word and the Spirit, The Sensitivity of the Spirit, The Anointing, Just Say Thanks! and Total Forgiveness.

Recording artist and singer Beckah Shae says one of the most underutilized weapons Christians have is their voice. The Dove-award nominee isn’t referring to her soulful crooning; she’s talking about speaking out against injustice. Every day, she notes, children go hungry and young girls and boys are trafficked for sex—not because there aren’t enough people to change that, but because those who are aware of the problems aren’t vocal enough about them. 

“This is the most powerful thing for me—to be a voice. I have a powerful platform right now,” Shae says. She uses her voice in numerous ways, including to create contemporary Christian albums such as Destiny, her most recent. She is also a spokesperson for Kids Alive, which fights poverty, and for A21, which rescues girls from sex trafficking.

The songstress says she was both heartbroken and elated when she visited Kenya to see the work Kids Alive was doing during the drought that has created a hunger crisis in east Africa. She witnessed the ministry helping to rescue orphans who had been physically abused, then meeting the spiritual, physical, educational and emotional needs of the children who had nowhere else to turn.

“It’s more of a family-type setting. They make it like a family so it’s not like an orphanage,” she says. 

Shae and her husband, a music producer, sponsor a child with Kids Alive. She is committed to helping—and using her voice to tell about the injustice and the work being done in Kenya to change it.

“It’s not about everything we do,” Shae says, “it’s about [our lack of] doing anything.”

Beckah Shae’s favorite quote:

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”
         —Martin Luther King Jr. 

On a crisp and sunny Saturday recently, hundreds of bikers from around the Carolinas descended upon the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C., with gifts strapped to their motorcycles for the Fourth Annual Bikers with Boxes event. The group is an annual supporter of Operation Christmas Child, an outreach by Samaritan’s Purse that last year alone gave 8.2 million underprivileged children Christmas shoe boxes. 

“We’ve just really been thrilled that this has been an annual event and that the bikers have embraced it,” said Diane Wise of the Billy Graham Library. “Bikers are the most generous group of people.”

Applause welcomed each pack of riders arriving at the library parking lot, their loud engines barking and revving. Some cruised up with just a few friends; others rolled in by the dozens from their churches. But they all came with one goal: to give the love of Christ to children through hand-selected gifts that were crammed into the shoe boxes stowed on the backs of their Harleys and Kawasakis.

“It’s a really great cause,” said Bert Lilly, who rode from Rock Hill, S.C., with other bikers. “You want to put so much into it: toothpaste, toothbrush, balls, crayons, flashlights, batteries, soap. But you realize you only have so much space.”

It’s not unusual for churches to rent school auditoriums for worship services. The Bronx Household of Faith just wants the same rights other community groups have to assemble in public schools during off hours. But school officials who preside over the New York borough are allegedly discriminating against the group because it would use the facility for religious services, the church claims.

The New York City Department of Education consistently rejected Bronx Household’s request to meet at a school building for weekend services until a federal district court in 2002 issued an injunction prohibiting the department from keeping churches out. Now the U.S. Supreme Court may decide the matter. It’s a case that could have far-reaching ramifications for churches across the nation that wish to hold meetings in public schools.

“The government cannot target religious services for exclusion from public buildings when they are open to other similar types of meetings,” says Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence. 

“The U.S. Supreme Court has definitively ruled that the government cannot limit access to generally available public spaces merely because government officials disapprove of a form of expression. Equal access means equal access, and that includes religious services.”