Guidelines & Effects for Spiritual Growth - LOWC

The church calendar says twenty-one days of fasting, and your first thought is your stomach. Skip the morning chai? Skip lunch at the office? What about the BP tablet? Those are honest questions, and we will answer them. This message is about what fasting is, why we do it, and what God does in a person who fasts with purpose.

What Is Impossible With Man Is Possible With God

Fasting is an inner practice that leads to outward change, and God watches every fast.

Jesus said it plainly: “What is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:27). Fasting is how you bring your impossible to Him. Whenever anybody fasts, God sees it. You must know that He is watching over you, and He always honours the action of your faith.

Fasting is not a diet, and it is not a religious show. It is faith with skin on. We fast to know God’s will. We fast for breakthrough. We fast because we are hungrier for Him than we are for food.

One word before you begin. Fasting is a spiritual practice, not a medical treatment. If you have any medical condition, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, if you are on medication, or if you are very young or elderly, talk to your doctor before you fast and follow what they tell you. Never stop your medication in order to fast. God honours a fast from anger or from WhatsApp as fully as a fast from food; He does not need you in a hospital bed.

Reasons to Fast

Fasting brings you close to God, and when you get close, everything else starts to look small.

• It brings you closer to God. You become thirsty and hungry for Him.
• The hunger for the outside world fades. The shopping, the scrolling, the need to be seen all lose their pull.
• Somewhere in the twenty-one days you will cry. You will say, “Holy Spirit, I was missing You.” That is humility being born.
• You will have spiritual breakthrough, in the areas where you have been stuck for years.

Some Changes Will Come

Fasting changes the one who fasts before it changes anything else. Expect these:

• Freedom from sins that have held you.
• Revival in your own heart. Your prayer becomes fiery instead of sleepy.
• A praying church. In a fasting season repentance comes, and we pray for the sick with new boldness, leaving the outcome with God.
• Godly wisdom and godly guidance for the decisions you have been putting off.
• Special needs brought before God in faith. He hears, and He answers in His way and His time.
• Strength in sickness and in challenges. Not a promise that every trouble disappears, but the promise that you do not face it alone.
• God working in the church and in its leaders.

Two warnings. If you do not pray while you fast, it is a hunger strike, not a fast. And fast from more than food: fast from anger and irritation, from WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, from talking too much, and from shopping.

Kinds of Fast

Choose the kind of fast you can keep with prayer, not the kind that impresses people.

• Total fast: no food, no water. This is extreme. In this church we say no more than three days, and only if your doctor agrees your body can take it. Moses fasted forty days on the mountain (Exodus 34:28), but he was in the direct presence of God. Do not try to copy Moses.
• Liquid or partial fast: the Daniel fast. Daniel ate simple food, with no rich food, no meat and no wine (Daniel 10:2-3). Normal food, no non-veg. This is the safest way for most people, and it still counts.
• The Esther fast: Esther and her people fasted three days before she went in to the king, and God gave the victory (Esther 4:16).

Whatever you choose: fast for victory, fast for revelation, fast to know God’s will. Fasting gets God’s attention. Fasting invites His intervention. And expect resistance. The enemy does not like a fasting church. Irritation, tiredness, sudden quarrels at home: recognise them for what they are and keep going.

Fast With Purpose, Not Casually

Acts 13:1-3 is the pattern. Look at verse 2. It does not say “while they were fasting.” It says “while they were worshipping the Lord and fasting.” Fasting is joined to worship.

• Fasting places you in a position to hear God. If God has been silent on a matter, fasting clears the noise. You are not fasting from food only; you are fasting from every distraction that shouts over His voice. Your ears become active.
• Fasting consecrates you to the Lord. If you have sinned, this is the right time to set yourself apart again. The Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul.” God still says, “Set yourself apart for Me.” He will make you different from the crowd.
• Fasting prepares you for what God has in store. He sets you apart for the work you are called to, and He lets the leaders and the church see the change in you.

This week

• Decide your fast before it starts, which meals and which days, write it down, and tell one prayer partner.
• If you are on medication or unwell, see your doctor this week before you begin, and keep taking what they prescribe.
• Mute WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram for the fasting days, and use that time to pray, not to nap.

May the Lord who sees in secret meet you in your fast and answer you openly. God bless you abundantly.