Welcome to Day 2 of our 40 Days of Prayer and Fasting, and to the second day of our 5 days of waiting on God.
I hope you have been maintaining a posture of waiting. This season will be wasted if you do not put your heart in a posture where you are waiting on God, waiting on Him for correction and transformation.

Continuing from where we started yesterday, God announced to us that we are stepping into a season of building, a wilderness season. As we’ve learned, this season does not denote something bad; not every wilderness is judgment. Sometimes God Himself leads you there.
He led the Israelites through the wilderness because they were not ready for the promised land. There was a shorter route, but God took them the long road to change them, to take Egypt out of them. If they had faced any difficulty too early, they would have returned to Egypt.

We see places in Scripture where God Himself is the One who leads people into the wilderness, and all of it culminates in Jesus, who, like the children of Israel before Him, was led into the wilderness before He started His earthly ministry, and there He was tempted and tested.

Interestingly, He was tempted for forty days, just as Israel was tested for forty years. He passed through the same temptations that the Israelites passed through, but where they failed, He passed.
And those tests revealed three things:
1. His complete surrender to the will of the Father.
2. His loyalty and His rejection of shortcuts.
3. His rejection of idols, and of anything that stands in the way of His commitment to the Father.

So the wilderness is the place where God reveals these things and where He wants to fix them.
Many of us have experienced seasons of struggle, seasons of repetition, and usually it is by the mercy of God, because God wants to prepare and furnish you before the next season of your life. If God allows this current version of you into destiny, you might destroy it before you can even grasp it. So, God intentionally repeats those seasons.

Sometimes also, God expects that you do not wait for Him to take you through the wilderness before you know that you need to put yourself through an intentional wilderness. He expects this because if God has to take you through the wilderness, it would be because it is emergent. An emergency would warrant this, so God expects that you take yourself through an intentional wilderness. That is the concept of retreats. That is what this fast is. It is preventive care. Take Uzziah for example. 

2 Chronicles 26:5
New King James Version
5 He sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God; and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper.

As long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper!

2 Chronicles 26:15-16
New King James Version
15 And he made devices in Jerusalem, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and large stones. So his fame spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped till he became strong.
16 But when he was strong his heart was lifted up, to his destruction, for he transgressed against the LORD his God by entering the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense.

He was marvelously helped. And the strength that God’s own help produced became the thing that destroyed him. Meaning, even the things God gave you can destroy you if you choose them over the God who gave you, if you forget the protocols that got you where you are.

Uzziah’s heart was lifted up, and he transgressed against God by burning incense on the altar of incense.
In the end, he entered the wilderness, but not by his own will. Hence, it is better that you take on preventive care now than having to go to the emergency room.

Finally, there are a number of things that God does in the wilderness:
1. He humbles you into dependence.

2. He tests you to show you what is in you.
This season would truly reveal to you whether God is really your God. It will show you your weaknesses and excesses and reveal what needs to change in your life.

3. He becomes your supply directly.
Don’t go about your day without blessing God, thanking Him and receiving from Him. Let the word be your food. This season feeds your spirit while dealing with what feeds your flesh. In this season, you have to make Him your desire again. Let Him remain your source.

4. He speaks.
In these forty days, shut down the noise and let God speak. Be sensitive to God’s instructions and direction.

5. He prepares.
The end goal of the wilderness season is a better YOU. You must come out as one ready to live for Him. He deals with whatever issues you’ve been managing and prepares you to come out better.

6. He cuts covenant.
There would be opportunities to make agreements with God in this season. Take advantage of them.

7. He gets Egypt out of you.
Egypt is that self-preservation, the self-sustenance that has plagued you. This season is a season of refining, where you let go of whatever it is that will hold you back in the next phase of your life and ministry. Be open to corrections and instructions.

8. He forms your company.

9. He commissions.
The wilderness season always ends with a commissioning, an assignment. In the wilderness, God reveals His plans for His people. Be sensitive.

Be expectant in this season. The Lord has much for you to receive. 

Pray this way:
Lord, I am yielded in this season. As I wait on you, let the benefits of the wilderness begin to find me.

With Love,
The Catalyst,
Pastor Michael Ipaye.