20 Jul “Fasting and Prayer”

“FASTING and PRAYER” The Bible mentions fasting more times than baptism, repentance, confession and even communion. Fasting is a Christian’s voluntary abstinence from food and/or drinks or other fleshly appetites for a specified period of time and for a spiritual purpose.

The goal of prayer and fasting is to bring our natural, physical desires under the control of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of seeking God. When we refrain from regular activities that distract us, we’re better able to discern what the Lord is saying. It sharpens our minds and increases our spiritual perception. Fasting has been described as sacrificial prayer and is one of the most powerful weapons of spiritual warfare that God has given to His children.

This is NOT a diet plan! It isn’t a hunger strike to get God to obey us or give us what we want! Nor is it for the purpose of earning forgiveness.

The Blessings of Fasting are becoming Intimate with God as we spend time seeking Him thru prayer and reading His Word. As we listen, He gives us Instructions. As we trust and obey His Divine Guidance we experience His Divine Power! That is the Blessing from Fasting.

God promised that if we draw near to Him He will draw near to us. If we think God is far away from us today, it is not because God has moved, we have moved away from

Him. How do we draw near to God? By purifying our hearts and lives.

Hidden sins have a way of slowly filling the cracks and crevices of our spiritual life; much like the way dust accumulates in a house that’s not cleaned. It’s so gradual that we may not notice – until we have visitors. In the same way, fasting opens our eyes to see ourselves from God’s perspective. The sins we hadn’t noticed before suddenly become obvious when Jesus “walks in.” Let’s do some heart cleaning today.

This is a time when we temporarily eliminate distractions so that we can give our undivided attention to our heavenly Father. You see fasting is focusing on the Lord. It is worshiping the Lord. The Christian life is all about the grace of God.

Do we want God’s Best for our life? Many of us are willing to settle for God’s second best because we don’t have a heart for God. God wants us to have His best but to have His best we have got to love God with all our heart, soul and mind. When we have God, we have everything else. If we don’t have God, everything we have is secondary and we will not even know what we have missed out on in life.

Do we need divine instruction or guidance? I don’t know about you but I definitely need divine guidance all the time.

God speaks to us all the time. The problem is not that God is silent; the problem is we are too busy to listen to God.

God has great amazing and wonderful plans for us but sometimes we have no time to listen to those fantastic plans because we are too busy with our own agenda. When we pray we should not come before God with our list of agenda. We should say, “Lord, You know what’s best for my life, You tell me what You want.”