Every believer in Christ needs to continually give themselves to fasting. Jesus, the pattern Son, fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. After His fast, Satan came to Him with various temptations, but He overcame every one of them. The Bible details many others who fasted when challenged and received divine intervention in their situations.
Fasting is the act of abstaining from food for a period of time to focus on God and give one’s self to consecration, intensive prayer, deep Bible study, worship or a combination of them.
Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
In this Scripture, the disciples of Jesus, despite their best efforts, were unable to cast out a spirit from a boy and the boy's father reported this to Jesus. Then, Jesus himself rebuked the demon in him and cast it out. The boy was instantly healed and delivered and Jesus’s disciples were surprised. They went to privately ask Him why they had been unable to cast out the demon that was tormenting the boy and Jesus’s response to them, as seen in the above scripture, was their lack of faith. But critically, he added that beyond faith and belief, prayer and fasting - two activities of spiritual warfare - was critical to command an authority that no demon can withstand.
There is a great lesson from this event. There are demons so stubborn that they don’t respond to faith alone but require prayer and fasting to overcome. Dear friend, do you fast and pray? How often? Once a week, once a month, once a year? Or once in a couple years. The Bible encourages us to pray without ceasing, i.e. every day. It also encourages us to fast. As believers in Christ, we must give ourselves to frequent practice of fasting and prayer. This is how we win not just some but every spiritual attack and battle against us and live in dominion. Here are some benefits of fasting.
Benefits of Fasting
- It increases our spiritual power.
- It increases our spiritual authority.
- It strengthens our prayer life.
- It allows us to hear the voice of God clearly.
- It can bring favor.
- It can bring healing.
- It allows you to be focused and purposeful.
- It can bring deliverance.
- It can bring protection.
- It increases our faith in God.
- It also boosts our physical health.
Dear friend, are you going through a stubborn situation that is making your life miserable? Are you facing a lot of sexual temptation from the opposite sex? Have you discovered an evil pattern in your bloodline? Set a time to fast and pray over everything that is not making you happy. You will surely receive great answers from God.