FOCUSED PRAYER: FASTING

Some people fast to burn calories. Others fast to break chains.

Prayer is reaching out after the unseen; fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal. Andrew Murray put it like this: “Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the invisible; fasting the other, with which we let loose and cast away the visible.”  Kingdom-seekers are looking for the irreducible minimum. Lesser things are dropped for the sake of the essential and eternal. Fasting helps express, strengthen, and bolster the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, including ourselves, to see His kingdom expanded.

Some people fast to burn calories. Others fast to break chains. “Fasting is not confined to abstinence from eating and drinking. The purpose of such abstinence for a longer or shorter period of time is to loosen to some degree the ties which bind us to the world of material things and our surroundings as a whole, in order that we may concentrate all our spiritual powers upon the unseen and eternal things,” said Ole Hallesby. Those early Spirit-filled Christians experienced such an acute hunger for God that they felt compelled to fast. By and large, today’s spiritually poverty-stricken churches have laid fasting aside entirely.

Christian fasting is a non-required but expected discipline that alters your diet for a biblical purpose and is combined with prayer. Jesus expected His followers would engage in fasting: “Then shall they fast” (Matthew 9:15). The early church emphasized this prayer-filled discipline.

Historically, we know faithful Christians fasted routinely in the fourth century. Epiphanius wrote, “Who does not know that the fast of the fourth and sixth days of the week (Wednesday and Friday) are observed by Christians throughout the world?”  In those days, fasting was considered a regular part of Christian devotion and discipline. But their fasting was not merely some external regulation. It served as a means and an expression of intensified praying. During the Reformation, fasting was at the forefront of the struggle against the enemy.

We ought to be alarmed at how our culture has shaped Christian practice here in the West. We should look back to the inception of Christianity—back to the acts of the Apostles—and align our practice of spiritual disciplines to the early church. “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, ‘Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them’” (Acts 13:2). Their intensified praying with fasting arrested heaven’s attention. The early church heard the Spirit telling them to send Barnabas and Saul on a mission endeavor. And it happened in the context of prayer and fasting. …

Harold Vaughan

Excerpt from chapter 8 of our latest book –  NEXT LEVEL PRAYING

 

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Harold Vaughan

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Evangelist Harold Vaughan is the founder of Christ Life Ministries, Inc. To date, his ministry has led him to preach in forty-eight states and many foreign countries. Click on "ABOUT" in the menu bar to learn more about Harold.
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