Fasting (Supplement)

The goal of fasting is to draw nearer to God. Biblical fasting always has to do with eliminating distractions for a spiritual purpose; it hits the reset button of the soul and renews us from the inside out. Fasting also enables us to celebrate the goodness and mercy of God, and prepares the heart for all the wonderful things God has prepared for our lives. 

The Principles of Fasting

• Fasting is not just missing a meal.
• Fasting is not dieting.
• Fasting demands replacing meals with the reading of God's Word and prayer.
• Fasting demands dedicating time for studying God's Word and meditation.
• Fasting requires spending much time in God's Word.

The Benefits of Fasting

• Spiritual discipline
• Increased spiritual capacity
• A clear sober mind
• A pure heart and mind
• Hunger for God and His word
• Physical health
• Loss of excess weight
• Purified body
• Spiritual freedom
• Physical freedom
• Spirit of giving
• Your light shines (evil can't withstand you)
• Protection by God
• Answers to prayers
• Intimacy with God
• Increased retention capacity

The Effects of Fasting

• Fasting changes you (not God)
• Fasting doesn't move God (it moves you into better positioning)
• Fasting increases your spiritual capacity
• Fasting breaks habits and spiritual bondage
• Fasting quiets the heart to hear God's voice

Remember, your personal fast should present a level of challenge, but it is very important to know your body, your options, and, most importantly, to seek God in prayer and follow what the Holy Spirit leads you to do. 

Listed below are 4 different types of fast:

Complete Fast

In this type of fast, you drink only liquids, typically water with light juices as an option.

Selective Fast

This type of fast involves removing certain elements from your diet. One example of a selective fast is the "Daniel Fast", during which you remove meat, sweets, and bread from your diet and consume water and juice for fluids and fruits and vegetables for food.

Partial Fast

This fast is sometimes called the “Jewish Fast” and involves abstaining from eating any type of food in the morning and afternoon. This can either correlate to specific times of the day, such as 6:00 am to 3:00 pm, or from sun-up to sun-down.

Soul Fast

This fast is a great option if you do not have much experience fasting food, have health issues that prevent you from fasting food, or if you wish to refocus certain areas of your life that are out of balance. For example, you might choose to stop using social media or watching television for the duration of the fast and then carefully bring that element back into your life in healthy doses at the conclusion of the fast.

Why We Fast and Pray

Fasting has the potential for significant impact in our lives. Through fasting and prayer, the Holy Spirit can transform our lives personally and God can speak to us in new and dynamic ways. According to Scripture, personal experience and observation, when God’s people fast with the proper (biblical) motive – seeking God’s face not His hand – with a broken, repentant, and contrite spirit, God will hear from heaven and heal our lives, our families, our homes, our churches, our communities, our nation and our world. Fasting and prayer can bring about revival – a change in the direction of our nation, the nations of earth and the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

Biblical fasting is, denying oneself something for the sake of seeking and honoring God. Prayer is connecting with God; fasting is disconnecting ourselves from the world. In addition to food, you can also fast from other things that keep you connected to the world. These may include television, social media, video games and more.

The goal for this 21-day fast is that we would experience a new intimacy in our relationship with God. As we prepare to begin the fast, we should prepare our heart spiritually. The foundation for fasting and prayer is repentance. Unconfessed sin can hinder our prayers.

Why we fast
• Fasting was an expected discipline in both the Old and New Testament eras. For example, Moses fasted at least two recorded 40-day periods. Jesus fasted 40 days and reminded His followers to fast, “when you fast,” not if you fast. (Exodus 34:28; Matthew 4:2; 6:16)

• Fasting and prayer can restore the loss of the “first love” for our Lord and result in a more intimate relationship with Christ. 

• Fasting is a Biblical way to truly humble ourselves in the sight of God (Psalm 35:13; Ezra 8:21). King David said, “I humble myself through fasting.” 

• Fasting enables the Holy Spirit to reveal our true spiritual condition, resulting in brokenness, repentance and a transformed life. 

• The Holy Spirit will quicken the Word of God in our hearts, and His truth will become more meaningful to us.

• Fasting can transform our prayer life into a richer and more personal experience.

• Fasting can result in a dynamic personal revival in our own lives, and make us channels of revival to others.

If we fast, we will find ourselves being humbled. We'll discover more time to pray and seek God’s face. And, as He leads us to recognize and repent of unconfessed sin, we will experience special blessings from God.

Here are several things we can do to prepare our heart:
1) Repent: have a change of mind (heart) and direction.

a) Confess every sin, asking God to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Confess every sin that the Holy Spirit calls to our remembrance and accept God’s forgiveness. (1 John 1:9)

b) Forgive: get rid of all unforgiveness in our heart, so we can be forgiven. Remember, we can not receive forgiveness from God if we refuse to forgive others. (Matthew 6:14; Mark 11:25)

c) Remember that God is our Father and He loves us. (1 John 3:1)

2) Seek forgiveness from people whom you have offended, and forgive those who have hurt you.
(Mark 11:25; Luke 11:4; 17:3,4)

3) Surrender your life fully to Jesus Christ as your Lord; refuse to obey your carnal (flesh-ruled) nature. (Romans 12:1,2)

4) Begin your time of fasting and prayer with an expectant heart. 

(Hebrews 11:6)

5) Do not underestimate spiritual opposition. Satan sometimes intensifies the natural battle between body and spirit. (Matthew 4:1-2; Galatians 5:16,17)

If we sincerely humble ourselves before the Lord, repent, pray, and seek God’s face; if we consistently meditate on His word, we will experience a heightened awareness of His presence in our lives. (John 14:21).

Refraining from eating and drinking is an act of worship, that is good for our soul. When we fast, we exchange what we need to survive for what we need to live - more of God. Here are five spiritual benefits to fasting: 1) A soul cleansing. 

As we seek God, and mediate on His Word, we are able to cleanse our mind, having it (the soul, mind) renew by the Word of God.  

2) A new desire for God.
When we acknowledge (through fasting) that we need God to live, we can begin to desire God in a new way. When we realize we need God more than we need food, we can start to understand what the Psalmist meant when he wrote, “Like the deer that pants after water, my soul longs for You.” God is the sustainer of all life, and wants nothing more than a closer connection with us. As we fast, we can quench that new desire for more of Him in our lives. 

3) A deeper praise. Because the body does not have to do the work of digestion, it has more energy to focus on other things. In the same vein, since we are not consumed by what we are going to eat next and when, we have more energy to devote to God. While we’re experiencing a new desire for Him through fasting, we should also emit a deeper praise as we think about everything God is to us and all He has done. 

4) A sensitivity to God’s voice.
The New Testament prophetess Anna is praised in the book of Luke for being a devoted servant to God and His temple. Because she regularly fasted and prayed, she was able to hear the voice of God speak clearly to her the day that Jesus was brought into the temple to be dedicated. She knew He was the Christ and told everyone who would listen about His arrival. When we detox our spirit and become consumed with desire and praise for God, we become sensitive to His voice. Like Anna, when God speaks to us in the midst of chaos, we can hear His voice, and know what He wants us to do because we have trained our spirit to hear Him through fasting, prayer, study and praise. 

5) A new satisfaction.
When we finish our fast, we will be renewed, full of energy, detoxed, with a new desire, a new praise, and a sensitivity to God's voice. We will find that the absence of food was small in comparison to what we gained. Physical food never fully satisfies, because in a few hours we'll need to eat again. However, when we're fed from seeking God and doing His work, we will discover a new satisfaction that we've never experienced before.

As we pray, we must remember these priorities in prayer given to us in Matthew chapter 6:
1) His Name
2) His Kingdom
3) His Will
4) Our need
5) His Forgiveness
6) Our deliverance
7) Our praise

Remember: Fasting and praying are acts of worship!!!

We cannot go back; we cannot stay here; we must go forward!!!

A Prayer for our Pastor

Father God,

We thank You, that our pastor is faithful and that You preserve and strengthen him; that he will abound with blessings, and not grow weary in well-doing; You who began a good work in him will perfect - complete it, until the coming of Jesus Christ. He is Your workmanship, created in Jesus Christ, and equipped to do your will. Father, work in him what is well-pleasing to You.

Our pastor is gift given to us by You. And, we are thankful and grateful for Your gift to us.

Let all grace abound toward him, having sufficiency in all things, and an abundance for every good work.  Because he has sown bountifully, he will reap bountifully, and whether he plants or waters, You Father, will give the increase.

Let Your Spirit rest upon him; the Spirit of wisdom and understanding; the Spirit of counsel and might; the Spirit of knowledge, and let him be filled with godliness.

 

We pray, that he will continually triumph in Christ, diffusing the fragrance of His knowledge in every place; that all blessings come upon him, because he obeyed Your voice. Instruct him and teach him in the way that he should go; reveal Your deeper things to him by Your Spirit.

Let him be a vessel of honor, sanctified and useful to You, prepared for every good work; shepherding the flock willingly, eagerly, while being an example to us. Let his speech and preaching be in demonstration of Your Spirit and power. And, let him be instant in and out of season to preach the Word. Every place the soles of his feet tread, give it to him. 

He is strong and of good courage for You. Lord, go with him, and as he waits on You, strengthen him in his heart, and grace him to set in order things that are lacking.

I lift up our pastor and cover him with the blood of Jesus; sickness and disease shall in no way come near him, because he is redeemed from the curse of the law; with long life satisfy him and show him Your salvation; every desire of his heart in righteousness, grant it to him.

Father, let the gifts and anointings on his life be manifest. Bring forth the things that You have spoken to his heart, as he gives himself to prayer and the ministry of the Word. 

This is our prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

A Corporate Prayer for our Church

Father God,

We humble ourselves under Your mighty hand. Forgive us for our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

We draw near to You with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let Your Word dwell in us richly.

Fill us with the knowledge of Your will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that we may live and conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of You, fully pleasing You, and being fruitful in every good work. 

We are being renewed in the spirit of our minds; we put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with and forgiving one another; we dwell together in the unity of the faith, recognizing those who labor among us, esteeming them highly in love for their work's sake.

We pray we all speak the same thing, with no divisions among us, standing fast in one spirit, striving together for the faith. That we're not carried about with various and strange doctrines, but, we study, rightly dividing the word of truth. That we're not murmurers, complainers, walking after our own lusts, but are rich in good works, ready to give and willing to share.

We pray that the whole body be knit and joined together and that every part does its share causing growth to the body; as each one of us has received a gift, let us minister it, looking out for the interests of others. Let us all fervently love one another with a pure heart, so that we do not lose the things we have worked for.

Help us become serious and watchful in our prayers, redeeming the time, for the days are evil; running with endurance the race that is set before us; setting our minds on things above and not on things on the earth; pressing toward the goal for the prize of Your upward call in Christ Jesus.

Putting on the whole armor of God that we may stand against the devil; that we will speak forth Your Word with great boldness and that You will stretch forth Your hand to heal, that signs and wonders may be done in the name of Your Son Jesus.

This is our prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.