http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=07D8043C2C4AB3D5

If I might add that sleep is a precious gift from God to us, it is God’s grace. There are so many dimensions to sleep not only the natural but it also has profound spiritual meaning. I have been reading the book: “Humility” (CJ Maheney) and quite a large portion is about sleep.

Concluding: a proud person is not able to get himself to sleep. We must, after day of hard work, submit our labor to God. Your 8 hours of work has ended and now it’s time to rest and regain strength! Even God rested after His creation was completed. We must trust God even if our work is not finished that He will take care of us!

Laying down in your bed and rest, that idea alone is most praiseworthy! Then closing your eyes and putting yourself completely in the care and protection of God is a very act of worship. We must trust God in our state of vulnerability that He will watch over us and in the morning wake us up again.

Furthermore I think sleep is discipline! It is taking up the responsibility to take care of your body, the temple of the Holy Spirit. God has made the day for working and the night for sleeping! Thus sleeping is being obedient to God’s purposes!

I have seen some people completely wasted after days without sleep and then turning up in the Sunday worship service. How are you suppose to function or even give the best of yourself to God??!? Jesus says: Love to Lord with all your heart, all your soul and all you strength! How are you suppose to that when you’re totally wasted?

Today is the last day of 40 days fasting. I will continue longer till the very last one has ended on Feb 12 at 2pm. And on the same day at 3 pm we are going to have a big celebration.

These past few months (for me it started already beginning of December 2010) I have been rethinking my passion for service in the Kingdom. I was exhausted. I was looking at people and circumstances and the fruit was not what I was hoping for. The offering I made seemed worthless. I was very drained out. Life seemed purposeless. But these few months God has revived my soul and has given back my passion, my calling. What happened? Finally I went back to the Source of Life, my Source of Power.
Today the Lord gave me again a beautiful Psalm: May He remember all your sacrifices and accept your burnt offerings. May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. We will shout for joy when You are victorious and will lift up our banners in the name of God. May the Lord grant all your requests… Some trust in chariots ans some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20:3-7).
After these 40 days challenges would not stop, people whom I have invested in will disappoint me, but some will be my encouragement and my pride because eventually they will learn to feed on God, they will learn to take their spiritual food from God and one day they will be the nourishment for other people’s souls. They will be my crown of service in the Kingdom. These are the words from a pastor’s heart.

I would also like to talk about another exhaustion: not spiritual, but physical exhaustion. I think that too many people don’t go to the bed early and are exhausted. A very wise brother told me that he read in an article that people are wired to sleep at a normal human time, when you go to bed at 4-5am in the morning and wake up late in the day, it doesn’t mean you are fresh and restored, even though you get your 7-8 hours sleep. Therefore you are always exhausted and have trouble with sleeping, because you are always living on a jetlag (that’s what a sister said). Also another sister mentioned: don’t cancel your obligations because you cannot manage your time and go to bed too late… be responsible! When you are always exhausted and become alive somewhere late in the afternoon, maybe it’s time to rethink about your sleeping pattern. Though this is a physical exhaustion, it can eventually lead to spiritual exhaustion.

One more day to go and then the 40 days of media fasting is going to end. How would your life look like after these 40 days? Are you going to go back to the life before? What have we learned from this? I have heard some people thinking to play games the whole day, go back to facebook immediately. My nephew fasted a week on media. It was very hard for him. He is only 8. Yesterday was the last day for him. My sister asked him what he is going to do after this. Maybe he should think about his media usage. He said: yes mum, I will. Maybe we should also think about our media usage? Are we controlling media or is media controlling us?

Feb 12th we are going to have a big celebration to open this year 2011 with a year of consecration from 3 to 9pm. We are going to have time of sharing, worship, prayer, food (please take 10 fingerfood with you) and a ceremony where we will bring a gift to King Jesus. Ask God what He wants you to bring. You are free to bring whatever you wish. Everyone will come in white as a symbol of holiness. Bring also a cushion to sit on.

We live in an instant cup noodle society. We are geared towards instant gratification and we treat God the same. If He doesn’t answer us before the prayer expiration date, then we say I don’t feel God. But do we spend enough time to build a relationship with Him. Can you build a relationship with someone if you talk to him so on and off and always on the run? Of course not, so why do we think we can do that with God?

In these 40 days we have created room and space for God. But how do we go from here? I think we need to make some adjustments to our lives. The psychologist David Greenfield has made a questionnaire.
- I internet regularly longer than I planned
- Friends or family sometimes complain about my internet behavior.
- Internet helps me to get rid of unpleasant thoughts.
- Internet costs me my regular sleep.
- I often say, “a few more minutes.’
- Sometimes I try to cut down my internet behavior.
- If I am not online, the internet sometimes plays in my head.
- I get irritated when someone bothers me while I’m surfing the web.
- I feel down and nervous when I’m not on the Internet.
If you have answered yes to three questions, it’s time to cut back and take some measurements.

Other suggestions:
- fast regularly on media
- fast 1 day a week on media
- delete some applications on your smartphone
- delete the beeptone on your smartphone (for everytime you receive an e-mail)
- use safetynet to put a daily limit on your internet usage and to block some sites. It’s for children, but sometimes we do need to put some boundaries on ourselves. You can use it free for 30 days and then you pay €29 per year. Yes, it costs you something, but in return you have some accountability and most important more time with God and with people.

vandaag is onze laatste dag met media vasten en we hebben het onderling nog niet met iedereen geshared, maar we hebben wel in deze dagen enkele mensen gevraagd hoe zij hun media vasten hebben ervaren.

Er zijn een aantal mensen van ons die begonnen waren op 1 feb en daarna zouden er weer enkele mensen zijn die zaterdag zouden beginnen en vandaag zouden eindigen samen met ons. Uiteindelijk is het laatste groepje niet zaterdag begonnen, maar vrijdag…. Thank YOU, Lord!!!

Ik heb in deze 6 dagen naast media vasten ook deels gevast wat eten betreft…
Tijdens deze dagen hoorde ik God’s stem zooo duidelijk.
Vroeger had ik de boeken 1 Samuel en 2 Samuel eens gelezen en het deed me niets.. Ik zag het als geschiedenis boeken… Hoe Saul koning werd en daarna David, maar in deze paar dagen heb ik deze 2 boeken weer gelezen en ditmaals moest ik bij heel veel hoofdstukken huilen.

God wilt dat wij Hem gehoorzamen, daardoor gaat onze zonden niet gepaard met gehoorzaamheid. Als wij God willen gehoorzamen, dan zullen we met eerbied onze oude “ik” af moeten leggen en voor al onze zonden (zelfs voor al onze diepste geheime zonden) om vergeving moeten vragen…

Gisteravond hadden we een meiden sleep-over.
Heerlijk die quality time met de meiden…
Lekker sushi’s gemaakt en samen gegeten, maar ook samen quality time met God gehouden. Hierbij hebben we ook spiritual cleansing gedaan…
De Heilige Geest was echt gisteravond aan het werk geweest.

Praise the Lord for He lives!!!!
All honor and glory to Him our King & Saviour….
Hallelujah….

“Laten we al onze zonden voor Hem brengen met eerbied, want offers van mensen die Hem niet eerbiedigen, daar heeft God een afkeer van.”
~ Spreuken 21:27 ~

The 40 days of media fasting is going to end soon. But I believe that God doesn’t want this to stop. He wants the fire to be kept burning. The first burnt offerings were lit by fire from heaven (Leviticus 9:24). The priests had to keep this fire going to represent the continual consecration of the people to God. Isn’t it a coincidence (of course not, it’s God =) that on Feb12th we are going to open 2011 with a year of consecration.

On Dec 16th, 2010 I got a vision and saw myself standing before Intratuin. Suddenly I saw layers of stacked timber and leaves dancing on their tip. First I didn’t understand…and suddenly it hit me that they look like flames and it reminded me of the vision of Dennis on May 20th, 2010. I believe that through the 40 days of media fasting, God brought fire in our midst (I don’t want to run ahead of God what more He might bring, but I do want to be in expectation) but He wants us to keep it burning. That’s going require us to make sacrifices. Are you willing to adjust your life? Are you willing to tell God that you are ready to be offered as a sacrifice to Him?

“Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar” (Psalm 118:27). You must be willing to be placed on the altar and go through the fire; willing to experience what the altar represents-burning, purification, and separation for only one purpose-the elimination of every desire and affection not grounded in or directed toward God. But you don’t eliminate it, God does. You “bind the sacrifice . . . to the horns of the altar” and see to it that you don’t wallow in self-pity once the fire begins.

Isn’t great after we have gone through the five offerings of Leviticus, that writings like this become so clear and vivid before your eyes. If you are willing to be offered as a sacrifice for Him, then bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar. It’s not going to be easy, because the world, your friends wouldn’t understand, but know why you are doing this. If you are willing to tell God you are ready to be poured out as an offering, God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.

Today at the birthday of Nikki, a small group of people stayed behind and we had such a sweet fellowship. A sister told me that she’s going to tell her friends the truth when they are busy with their smartphone. Why meet when your thoughts are with your virtual friends? And a brother told me that he cancelled his unlimited Pathe card. I know this is huge because I know their Sundays rituals (church, breakdance, food and movie). The world is not going to understand…

It’s like what apostle Paul said: Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:1-2).

But you know why you are doing this. If you are not going to bow down for the world, but you are going to facedown (Leviticus 9:24) for Him, God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be. This is not head knowledge, I speak this out of my own experience of these past two years, God is more that I ever dreamed He would be. He is my all in all! Amen!

Hij had over het vasten verteld aan iemand die niet gelooft, en die persoon zei dat Media-vasten een makkie is, want het is geen eerste levensbehoefte, zoals met vasten op eten.
Maar ik ben overtuigd dat het “Media” echt een gevaar is voor ons. In minder dan 30 jaar tijd is het zo explosief gegroeit dat het overal om ons heen is. De TV, games, het internet… Allemaal dingen die VOORAL jongeren mee bezig zijn. We groeien ermee op en voordat we het weten is het belangrijker dan eten en drinken.

Het is makkelijk te gebruiken, makkelijk toegang en je kan heel veel van genieten zonder veel te doen. Voordat je het weet neemt het zoveel tijd dat je de belangrijke dingen vergeet… Ik vind het heel veel lijken op drugs.

Ik ben zelf van dag 1 begonnen en in begin had ik echt veel tijd en wist ik niet wat ik moest doen, maar nu heb ik het eigenlijk gewoon druk. Ik heb het druk met lezen, naar de sportschool gaan, met familie en vrienden zijn, stille tijd nemen, huishouden doen en op tijd naar bed(!).
Ja, ik heb het even druk, maar wel om de goeie redenen.

I was wondering what’s next after the 40 days of media fasting, but I know more is yet to come. There are many plans coming, huge plans which are going to ask sacrifices of you, of Life Access. If it doesn’t cost you anything, it ain’t a sacrifice. Stay in tune because we will announce the plans these coming weeks.