Through this interesting article you will be able to find out that both fast and prayer; they are the tools that allow the Christians who practice them to achieve victory. Learn here about these portentous spiritual means!
Fast and prayer
In the scriptures we find various characters who teach us the joint power that fasting and prayer have to obtain victory in different types of struggles and battles. Of these characters, the prophet Daniel or the story of Esther could be mentioned among them, however our best example of fasting and prayer is the Lord Jesus.
The adoring King David subdued sin with fasting and prayer, offerings that God received with pleasure, responding with mercy. Because the Lord responds favorably to those who genuinely seek him, David in one of his psalms writes:
Psalms 109:24-25 (NLT): My knees they are weak from so much fasting and I am reduced to skin and bones 25 I am an object of ridicule for the people; when they see me, they shake their heads in contempt.
Fasting is a means of self-denial and humiliation of the soul, prayer is a high demonstration of sincere love for those who are afflicted or in need:
Psalms 35:13 (NASB): But I, when they were sick, dressed in sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer was repeated in my chest.
Jesus tells us: With fasting and prayer, nothing is impossible
The Lord Jesus preached and taught publicly, but when he prayed he did so in private. Jesus would retire alone and pray for hours throughout a night, he longed for those intimate moments with his heavenly Father.
After those moments in intimacy with God, Jesus began his public life carrying out great prodigies and miracles, considered impossible by the world. However, if our Lord managed to carry out all that he came to do, obeying what he heard his Father say in moments of intimacy, he also fasted.
In the biblical passage of Matthew 17: 14-22, where the Lord heals a demon-possessed boy, which the disciples could not heal. When the disciples saw the liberation carried out by Jesus, they ask their teacher: - Why we couldn't expel that demon?:
Matthew 17:20-21 (KJV 1960) 20 Jesus told them: Because of your little faith; because verily I say unto you, that if you have faith as a mustard seedYou will say to this mountain: Move from here to there, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. 21 But this kind does not come out except with prayer and fasting.
Jesus says: -Nothing will be impossible for you-, faith is the connection, it is the key to activate that phrase said by the teacher. The Lord tells his disciples the importance of having faith, a faith that can even be as small as a seed.
To achieve an intimacy with God as Jesus had with his Heavenly Father, it is necessary that we nourish ourselves spiritually daily. Jesus was intimate because he had the ability to listen, see and do what his Father said and did, in this sense we invite you to read the article Intimacy with God: How to develop it?
This kind does not come out but with prayer and fasting
But Jesus tells them that in addition to faith to achieve what was impossible for the disciples, fasting and prayer are required. Let us remember that before this feat of Jesus freeing the boy, the Holy Spirit had led Jesus into the desert.
Jesus remained in the desert for forty days and forty nights, a time of absolute fasting and in intimate prayer with his Heavenly Father. Therefore, it was not impossible for the Lord to expel the demon that operated in the boy, which is why he concludes the verse with the phrase: -But this kind does not come out except with prayer and fasting-.
The Lord Jesus fasted and prayed tirelessly because it was clear to him that there were supernatural situations that could only be achieved victoriously with fasting and prayer. If this is the example that our Lord Jesus Christ gives us, why not make fasting and prayer a habitual and natural practice in our lives?
If we want to obtain blessings from God in our lives and make the impossible possible, activating the power of the Lord. Fasting and prayer must become a discipline of life, to be greatly rewarded by the Heavenly Father.
Fasting, a way to humiliate ourselves
The Bible teaches us that one means by which we humble ourselves is Fasting. Because fasting manages to break the soul and it is that in the soul we have our own will, our own understanding and our emotions.
In other words, from our soul our ego says: I want, I think and I feel. However, God tells us: what matters is what I want, think and feel for you, because my will is good, pleasant and perfect.
All this is difficult to digest from our human reason, because it directly impacts personal pride, the flesh and our soul. Jesus gives us the example when he addressed the father:
Luke 22:42 (NASB): Saying: Father, if it be your will, take this cup away from me; but not my will be done, but yours.
In this way, Jesus renounces what he felt and thought from the soul, humiliating it, in a voluntary act that also indicates humility. This is how Jesus gives priority to the spiritual part of him, which connects him intimately with his Father.
Jesus is then the perfect example of humiliation, humility and obedience. Discover in this article what is the humility biblical meaning, How to grow it?, and more.
The Bible tells us that humility is a virtue that must be manifested in the eyes of God. And it develops when we are aware of our weaknesses, to have a total dependence on the will of God.
By fasting we humiliate our desire to eat, even against what our soul thinks or argues. In the same way emotions are discarded, because hunger will arise, over which victory is obtained in prayer.
Thus, fasting is a way to achieve the purpose of obtaining spiritual food. As the word in Matthew 4:4 (BLPH) tells us:
Jesus replied: - The Scriptures say: Man will not live by bread alone, but of every word spoken by God.
Forgiveness, fasting and prayer
During the times of Moses, in the Old Testament of the Bible, God gives him instructions, according to which everyone should fast for the celebration of the day of forgiveness. Under the Mosaic law, the Jewish nation depended on the sacrifice that was made annually for the forgiveness of sins.
In these celebrations the people also had to humiliate the soul before the presence of God. Although the sacrifice was made by the high priest, it was up to each person to humiliate the soul through fasting:
Leviticus 16:29-31 (NIV): 29 –This will be for you a perpetual statute, both for the native and for the foreigner: The tenth day of the seventh month they will fast and do no work. 30 On that day propitiation will be made for you to purify youand before the Lord they will be cleansed of all their sins. 31 It will be for you a day of complete rest, in which they will fast. It is a perpetual statute.
Therefore fasting and prayer are equally related to forgiveness. Since the time of Moses, the nation of Israel has needed fasting and prayer for the forgiveness of sins.
In Christian doctrine the perfect sacrifice was made by Jesus Christ, the slain lamb, the Son of God. However, it is up to each Christian to carry out the humiliation before God.
Although fasting is the only way to humble ourselves before God, it is of great importance to do it if we want to receive the blessings of the Lord.
God's protection in fasting and prayer
In the Old Testament of the Bible in the book of Ezra we find a significant example of how God's protection is achieved through fasting and prayer. Ezra chose to fast and pray together with all those who accompanied them, as a means of asking for God's protection.
In the biblical passage, Ezra says that he could have asked King David for that protection, but that he had already proclaimed that God's protection is on the side of those who trust in him. Ezra then had two options, that of the world and that of God for the protection of him and his family:
Ezra 8:21-23 (NIV): 21 Then, standing near the Ahava River, I proclaimed a fast so that we would humble ourselves before our God and we asked him to accompany us along the way, us, our children and our possessions. 22 Actually, I was embarrassed to ask the king to send us a cavalry platoon to protect us from the enemies, since we had told the king that the hand of God protects all who trust in him, but that God discharges his power and his wrath against those who abandon him. 23 so we fasted and prayed to our God asking for his protection, and he heard us.
Ezra decides to choose God's way or system and not the world's. In the same way he appears to us in our lives, example is during an illness.
In this case, the solution that the world gives is medicine and God's method is fasting and prayer. Based on this, there are plenty of testimonies that God's method really works.
Fasting in the New Testament
In the New Testament of the Bible you can find cases of personal fasting, as well as collective fasting. Here are some examples of these fasts:
personal fast: The apostle Paul is an example of personal fasting, and he did it voluntarily as a gesture of manifestation of being a servant of Christ. But also and because of his ministry on many occasions he had to fast involuntarily:
2 Corinthians 6:4-5 (NIV): 4 Rather, in everything and with great patience we accredit ourselves as servants of God: in suffering, deprivation and anguish; 5 in lashes, prisons and tumults; in heavy work, sleeplessness and hunger.
2 Corinthians 11:27 (NIV): I've been through a lot of work and toil, and many times I have been without sleep; I have suffered hunger and thirst, and many times I have been fasting; I have suffered cold and nakedness.
collective fast: In the book of Acts, the church fasts in order to know the will of God:
Acts 13:2-5 (NIV): 2 While fasting and participating in the worship of the Lord, The Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me now Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.». 3 So after fasting, praying, and laying hands on them, they sent them away. 4 Barnabas and Saul, sent by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. 5 Arriving at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews.
Learn more about Fast What is it, what does it consist of and how to start? Learn everything here.
