Keys to Effective Christian Life – Prayer and Fasting
Prayer is indeed a powerful thing, for it brings us into contact with God. However, if you desire to see your prayer life, take a quantum leap, add fasting to it.
Those who spend time fasting and praying will attest to the fact that things which they had prayed about, actually manifested after they applied the spiritual principle of fasting. Fasting works.
Many religions in the world are involved in fasting with various types. However, fasting for Christians is somewhat different. Religious people fast to get God’s attention, and they try to get a position with God. Fasting Christians to uphold our position bought through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Fasting is abstinence from food for a specific period, while the attention given to seeking God, through His Word and prayer. It is not just staying away from food, but rather, it is using the time we would have been engaged in the temporary to seek the eternal. In other words, fasting, God’s way, is not just, not eating. It is using the time to pray.
There are various kinds of fast spoken of in The Holy Bible:
We can engage in a personal fast, which is a personal decision to seek God by this means.
Then again, we can engage in a proclaimed fast, which is fasting as a group, a local church body, or even a nation before Almighty God.
Then there are varied manners we can use in fasting. We can do a total fast, which is no eating, and only the drinking of water. Alternatively, we can engage in a partial fast, which is the putting aside of certain foods of pleasure for a particular period.
As it pertains to the time and length of the fast, it is dependent upon what kind of fast you engage in. For instance, with a personal fast, the person fasting determines the length of the fast. When it comes to a proclaimed fast among others, the length of the fast may be decided by the pastor, if it is a local church body, or by the leader of the group.
In the Holy Bible, some people fasted from in the morning to six in the evening. Then some fasted, like in the days of Queen Esther, for three days. The Lord Jesus Christ fasted for forty days. Daniel did a partial fast for twenty-one days. There is no strict rule as to how long you may fast. It depends upon how you seem led by the Holy Spirit.
The main thing about fasting is that the purpose of the fast must be established before you begin the fast. What is the reason you desire to fast before the Lord?
You can fast:
- To spend more time drawing closer to the Lord.
- To pray concerning a particular situation or circumstance.
- To experience a breakthrough from an ungodly habit, addiction, or problem.
- To become more sensitive to the Holy Spirit.
- To cast out demons.
- To seek God for the gifts and manifestations of the Spirit.
- To be filled with more of God.
- To find God’s plan and purpose for your life.
- To discipline the flesh, enforcing its spiritual position of mortification.
- To change an atmosphere.
- To get answers from the Lord concerning a particular situation.
- To bolster your faith in God for the miraculous.
Fasting is an effective way to approach God. Fantastic help for hungry Christians who want to seek God. Jesus taught us how we should fast. Invaluable tools help us become stronger in God.
I believe that the church should give more time to fasting and prayer before the Lord. Even if it is a partial fast, or only from six in the morning to six in the evening, we should engage in this spiritual activity called fasting. We can always work our way up.
But if the truth be known, we can come to a place of desperation, where we need God to give us an answer, or where we just get more hungry for His will, plan and purpose for our lives, that we literally abandon food for a period of time as we seek the Face of God until His power and presence fills and floods our lives. In times like these, we need to fast and pray.
Do you want God’s will for your life? Are you praying about it? Then, if you are not hearing what He is saying to your Spirit, maybe you should add the next part of the power-twins and begin to fast.
Just a word of caution: If you are on medication, please seek your doctor concerning what kind of fast you may be able to practice.
