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Fasting, Seeking God’s Face, and Repentance

Preached by:Pr Boris Carvalho
Preached on:March 8, 2026

Devotional (Monday to Friday)


Fasting, Seeking God’s Face, and Repentance


Based on the sermon about fasting, humility, God’s presence, and repentance



Monday — Fasting is not a ritual — it is a decision to seek God’s face


Key text: 2 Chronicles 7:14


Reflection

Fasting is not a spiritual diet, nor an attempt to convince God to do something. That idea is wrong. God does not need to be manipulated. Fasting exists to break our self-sufficiency and reposition us before Him. When the flesh weakens, it becomes clearer how much we depend on grace.


The problem is that many people only fast when everything is in chaos. But real relationship does not work only in crisis. Those who understand this stop using fasting as religious desperation and begin to treat it as intensity with God.


Practical application

  • Ask honestly: have I been seeking God, or only His answers?
  • Set aside time today in silence and say: “Lord, I do not want to use You; I want to know You.”
  • Choose a practical renunciation for this week that will help you focus more on God’s presence.

    • Prayer

    Lord, break in me every form of religiosity and every attempt to treat You merely as the answer to my urgencies. I want to seek Your face, not only Your hands. Amen.



    Tuesday — Humility opens the heavens; pride closes them


    Key text: James 4:6


    Reflection

    The sermon was direct: fasting truly begins when pride begins to break. Humility is not simply experiencing embarrassment or being humiliated by life. Anyone can go through that. Biblical humility is recognizing that you depend on God even for what seems simple.


    Getting out of bed, working, making decisions, breathing, continuing. Everything is under grace. The proud live as if they can manage on their own. The humble know that without God even the basics fall apart. That is why God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.


    Practical application

  • Begin the day acknowledging before God three things you can only do because He sustains you.
  • Identify where pride appears most in you: self-sufficiency, stubbornness, resistance to counsel, or difficulty asking for forgiveness.
  • Do one concrete act of humility today.

    • Prayer

    Father, I recognize that I need You. Break my pride, my self-sufficiency, and my false sense of control. Teach me to live by Your grace. Amen.



    Wednesday — Seeking God’s face is different from seeking blessings


    Key text: Psalm 27:8; Matthew 6:33


    Reflection

    Many people enter the autopilot of faith: praying out of obligation, going to church out of routine, fasting because it is on the schedule. This is dangerous because the person stays close to the things of God but far from His presence.


    Seeking God’s face is different from seeking miracles, open doors, or immediate solutions. Those who seek only benefits may even receive something. But those who seek His face encounter God Himself.


    And when God is the goal, everything else finds its proper place. The center of the Gospel is not my marriage, my children, my ministry, or my finances. The center is Christ.


    Practical application

  • Review your recent prayers: do they contain more requests or more relationship?
  • Set aside a few minutes today just to worship, without asking for anything.
  • Repeat during the day: “My goal is not only what God can give; my goal is God.”

    • Prayer

    Lord, align my heart. I do not want to live an automatic faith. Create in me a hunger for Your presence and not only for Your benefits. Amen.



    Thursday — Repentance is spiritual cleansing and realignment


    Key text: Joel 2:12


    Reflection

    The Gospel of grace is not permission to live with yourself at the center of everything. That distortion produces a selfish Christianity: if I feel good, I worship; if I am motivated, I serve; if it suits me, I obey.


    That is not the Gospel. The Gospel is Christ at the center, and where Christ rules, there is repentance. Repentance is not emotional theater. It is a change of direction.


    It is admitting that there is dirt in the heart and stopping the protection of what needs to die. There is still time to return. That is the beauty of grace: it confronts, cleanses, and realigns.


    Practical application

  • Ask the Holy Spirit to show one specific area that needs real repentance.
  • Name it without excuses.
  • Take a practical step of change today.

    • Prayer

    Jesus, I do not want to use Your grace as an excuse to continue doing wrong. Give me true repentance, cleanse my heart, and realign my paths. Amen.



    Friday — Tribulations do not stop purpose — they mature those who remain


    Key text: James 1:2–4


    Reflection

    Serving Christ does not eliminate struggle. That is fantasy. Spiritual maturity is not the absence of tribulation, but the ability to go through it without breaking with God.


    James tells us to consider it pure joy when we face trials, not because suffering is beautiful, but because tested faith produces perseverance. And perseverance is remaining.


    It is continuing firmly when emotions do not help, when circumstances do not cooperate, and when the natural instinct says to quit. Those who remain in God leave the season stronger, not more bitter.


    Tribulation did not come to stop you; it came to deepen you—if you remain.


    Practical application

  • Look at your current struggle and ask: is this pushing me away from God or drawing me closer?
  • Write a simple decision of perseverance for this week.
  • Thank God not for the pain itself, but for what He can form in you through it.

    • Prayer

    Father, I do not want to waste the processes. Give me perseverance, stability, and maturity. May I remain in You in every situation. Amen.



    Declaration of the week


    I will not seek only answers. I will seek the face of God, remain in Him, and allow Him to align my heart.

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