PRAY AND FAST
I always talk about the importance of doing prayer and fasting.
I was happy to meet someone who has taken the message on prayer and fasting seriously and has been implementing it.
And he testified about how incorporating regular fasting has helped him have strength to resist temptations that were so hard to resist before.
I had met someone who was stuck in repetitive sin of addiction and the person just wanted me to just pray for them for it to end.
But I knew that unless this person learns to pray they will always keep going back to their sin.
Because the flesh is only crucified on your knees,not by being laid hands on.
If you do not have persistent personal prayer,no matter who lays hands on you, you will always go back to sin.
Because the Christian Life is a battlefield where victory must be won through overcoming.
I told the person to go and fast and thank God they took it seriously and later shared the testimony of how Jesus had set them free and not only that but they were continuing to seek the Lord still.
Prayer and fasting is really powerful,no wonder Jesus Himself embarked on a 40 day fast before beginning His Ministry,and He said some demons can only be cast out by prayer and fasting.
Jesus had expected that His disciples would start fasting after He was taken away from them.
Luke 5:35
“But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days.”
Personally,when I started my walk with God,Jesus taught me that I need to be fasting regularly in order to have the strength for the battle and overcome.
Jesus taught me that I need to keep fasting regularly until I leave this earth and it’s something I have had to do from 2012 to date.
Jesus told me that it was necessary for me to do fasting and also to persistently pray.
I know that many people struggle to do prayer and fasting and even when they try to fast they end up breaking the fast and eating.
But you need to learn to persevere in prayer and stay on in the prayer closet even when you feel like abandoning the fast.
When breaking your fast prematurely becomes a habit,it will become hard for you to fast and you will always break your fast prematurely.
But you must resist the devil,and persevere till the end of your fast
Jesus persevered till the time of fasting ended.
Always remember that it does come to an end and then you will eat,so don’t see fasting as punishment but see it as a spiritual discipline that is necessary.
Know that there’s a time for everything and in just a few hours your time to eat will come, don’t let satan steal your blessing by taking you out of the Prayer closet.
Jesus showed me a vision of how Satan steals people’s answers by taking them out of the closet.
I saw someone who had been praying to have a baby.
This is a person I know.
In the vision, God had placed their answer just a short distance ahead from where they were.
But when satan saw that the answer had already been granted,he stood in the way of this person to obstruct them from seeing the answer ahead, and discourage them that prayer was a waste of time because Jesus would not answer.
He did this to make the person abandon prayer so that they would not get to the place where the answer was.
But thank God this person kept on praying till they got their answer in real life.
The reason satan blocks people from fasting is because he wants to block you from receiving the spiritual blessing.
Satan will do everything to get you out of the prayer closet.
When you are not on prayer and fasting you might not even feel like eating but once you decide fast,you find yourself extremely hungry.
But don’t give in to how you feel,focus on what you want to achieve spiritually and maximize the benefits of your fast by spending as much time as possible praying.
I have found that when you spend the whole time in God’s presence, often you don’t even feel hungry till the fast is over!
We need to have the mindset of Jesus who endured the suffering on the cross because He didn’t focus on the present but was looking at what would come out of that.
We too must endure during times of prayer and fasting, subduing the flesh and looking for the spiritual gain that will come out of it.
Prayer and fasting is a spiritual discipline, therefore it must be done in the spirit, willingly, not forced.
It must be done with joy not compulsion.
Prayer and fasting will really help you to subdue the flesh and to grow faster spiritually.
Fast the correct way by actually spending the time in God’s presence praying and worshipping, not just starving but busy with everything else.
You can fast from when you wake up to 6 pm,you can fast one meal,or you can do an extended fast for two days,three days etc it’s all up to what you can manage.
It all counts as long as you do it with all your heart.
At first I used to fast from when I woke up to 4 pm because that’s what I could manage and Jesus still answered me because I was doing that with all my heart.
Jesus doesn’t accept fasting done begrudgingly or forced.
He doesn’t accept fasting that we view as punishment and we complain about it and put on a sad face.
It’s not acceptable to the Lord.
Whatever we want to do in serving the Lord must be done willingly and joyfully because we love Him,then it will be acceptable.
Write a Reply or Comment
You should or Sign Up account to post comment.