HOW TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL AND POWERFUL FAST, PART I

The Power of The Fast

• Fasting is a powerful discipline. For example, Moses fasted at least two recorded forty-day periods. Jesus fasted 40 days and reminded His followers to fast, "when you fast," not if you fast.


• Matt. 5:6, "Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled."


• Isaiah 58:6, "It this not the fast that I have chosen; to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?"


• Fasting and prayer can restore the loss of the "first love" for your Lord and result in a more intimate relationship with Christ...whether you desire to be closer to God, or are in need of great breakthroughs in your life.


• Fasting is a biblical way to truly humble yourself in the sight of God (Psalm 35:13; Ezra 8:21). King David said, "I humble myself through fasting."


• Fasting enables the Holy Spirit to reveal your true spiritual condition, resulting in brokenness, repentance, and a transformed life.


• The Holy Spirit will quicken the Word of God in your heart and His truth will become more meaningful to you!


• Fasting can transform your prayer life into a richer and more personal experience.


• Fasting can result in a dynamic personal revival in your own life-and make you a channel of revival to others.


• Fasting and prayer are the only disciplines that fulfill the requirements of II Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."


• Ps. 42:1-3, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God.
  2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
  3 My tears have been my food day and night, While they continually say to me, "Where is your God?"
  David knew fasting brings one into a deeper, more intimate and powerful relationship with the Lord. When you eliminate food from your diet for a number of days, your spirit becomes uncluttered by the things of this world and amazingly sensitive to the things of God. As David stated later in Ps. 42, “Deep calls unto deep.” David was fasting. His hunger and thirst for God were greater than his natural desire for food. As a result he reached a place where he could cry out from the depths of his spirit to the depths of God, even in the midst of his trial.

Satan gets disturbed and defeated when you decide to do more than be a Sunday morning Christian. He has probably tried to distract you or put fear in you that you cannot do a fast.
God never did the extraordinary with people that did the usual...