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What an amazing 21 days of fasting it has been! As we set time aside to fast and pray for our nation and our upcoming elections, I hope you also kept a list of personal things you are praying and believing God for. One of my all-time favorite verses in the Bible guarantees that God goes to work in your personal life as you put His Kingdom first (Matthew 6:33). And as you took time and energy to pray for His will in our nation, be encouraged that He has been at work in your life!
One of the areas that fasting has an impact in is in our purpose and call. In great men and women such as Esther, Daniel, Paul and even Jesus, we see how their destiny took off after time spent in prayer and fasting. Whether you are still discovering God’s call for your life or already living it but in need of breakthrough, fasting is a powerful catalyst to get you there. So, let me share with you three ways fasting can launch you into new realms of your destiny.
1. As you fast, you overcome temptations and distractions
The flesh is the vehicle that Satan uses to distract and disqualify you from living God’s best, but fasting is one of the most powerful weapons to shake off his temptations and enter into His plan for your life. After God created Adam and Eve and gave them a global mission to bless the whole Earth (Genesis 1:28), Satan was successful in appealing to their flesh, short-circuiting their destiny. Interestingly, as you look closely at their temptation, you discover that Satan tempts us the exact same way to get us off our destiny.
In talking about Eve, Genesis 3:6 says, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” (Emphasis mine). Notice the three ways that Adam and Eve were tempted. John describes it as the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:16), or you could say pride, pleasure and possessions. These make up the three areas Satan tempts everyone in to rob you of your purpose and destiny.
As Jesus comes on the scene thousands of years after Adam and Eve, Satan was still using the same tactics to disrupt the plan of God in the life of Jesus, but he may not have been counting on the fact that Jesus had just completed a fast. And at every point of temptation, Jesus was able to overcome the tempter until Satan withdrew in defeat; “And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him…” (Luke 4:13).
I love this quote from Andrew Murray: “Prayer is reaching out after the unseen; fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal. Fasting helps express, deepen, confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God.” As you seek God’s path for your life, employ the unbeatable force of prayer and fasting, and just as the devil withdrew from Jesus in defeat, so will he you!
2. As you fast, you will receive wisdom for the next step
In speaking about fasting, Isaiah 58:8 says, “Then shall your light break forth like the dawn…” In the Bible, light many times connotes wisdom, while darkness connotes ignorance or deception. And you will find that as you enter a time of prayer and fasting, where there once was confusion and perplexity in what to do next, light will break forth, lighting the next step for your life.
One of the benefits of having your flesh subdued as we talked about in the first benefit of fasting, is that your spirit automatically rises up and becomes more sensitive to the voice of God when the flesh is restrained. You see, your spirit on the inside of you is Heaven’s touch point. When God wants to reveal something to you, He does not contact your physical body or your mind, He contacts your spirit. This is why Proverbs 3:6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart (spirit), and do not lean on your own understanding (mind).” But as you fast, and as your spirit becomes stronger and stronger and your flesh weaker and weaker, you will begin to receive wisdom and light previously hidden.
But I do want to make something clear. It’s not that God was not speaking or is speaking louder than He was before. God is speaking all the time through His Word and His Spirit inside of you. But as you fast, you become more spiritually sensitive to tune into His voice. He was not withholding information from you; He was simply waiting until you got in position to finally hear from Him. In your fasting, your spiritual antenna has shifted to finally tune into Heaven’s frequency. It’s a powerful thing!
3. As you fast, you will experience breakthrough
What areas in your life have you had trouble receiving breakthrough in? Did you know that there are certain obstacles in our lives we can only break through by prayer and fasting? In Mark 9:14-29, we see an example of this. The disciples had been given authority over evil spirits and went about healing many that were sick. But as they came across the case of a boy that was bound with an evil spirit, they were completely powerless.
When Jesus finally arrives on the scene, the whole situation is out of control. A large crowd had formed and the scribes, religious leaders and experts on the Mosaic law, were arguing with the disciples. Yet all it took was a word from Jesus, and what was impossible moments ago, had been made possible. The boy was set free. The presumably frustrated disciples came to Jesus and asked why they could not cast the evil spirit out, to which Jesus replied in Mark 9:29, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” There are breakthroughs that you will only receive by prayer and fasting.
Whether you have yet to understand your call and destiny, or you are right in the midst of it but running into obstacles, as you went to God in prayer and fasting over the last three weeks, look for supernatural strength to breakthrough and walk in God’s perfect plan for your life!
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© 2024 Coastal Church. All rights reserved | Privacy & Security
1160 West Georgia Street Vancouver, BC, V6E 3H7