Today we are encouraged by Christ to trade in mere religion or churchianity for true and genuine devotion. Jesus wants us to trade in something false for something that is real. The Kingdom of God is what is real and lasting. God has granted to His church practices to help form Christ in us, so that we would seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Two of those forms which we look at today are prayer and fasting. This world and its masking of religion is false and passing. May we lean into something real and lasting today, the Kingdom of God.