Fasting and Praying
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12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
14 I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.
12 “Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”
13 So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise.
In the next couple of days, we will will be turning towards God with all our hearts.
We are going to seek him.
Hearing his voice, touching him reaching to his presence will be the focus of and attitude of our prayers
The role fasting when seeking God.
Fasting is an something that one does to humble and break your heart before the Lord.
There is something about abstaining from food that humbles you before God.
Through biblical fasting comes from the heart of man.
What does fasting do
13 But as for me, when they were sick, My clothing was sackcloth; I humbled myself with fasting; And my prayer would return to my own heart.
10 When I wept and chastened my soul with fasting, That became my reproach.
Mercy released through fasting and prayer.
Repentance that brough about great change and great mercy if accompanied with fasting
Repentance is foundational to the things of the kingdom of God.
20 So Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” And he answered, “I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the Lord:
21 ‘Behold, I will bring calamity on you. I will take away your posterity, and will cut off from Ahab every male in Israel, both bond and free.
22 I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, because of the provocation with which you have provoked Me to anger, and made Israel sin.’
23 And concerning Jezebel the Lord also spoke, saying, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.’
24 The dogs shall eat whoever belongs to Ahab and dies in the city, and the birds of the air shall eat whoever dies in the field.”
25 But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up.
26 And he behaved very abominably in following idols, according to all that the Amorites had done, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.
27 So it was, when Ahab heard those words, that he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his body, and fasted and lay in sackcloth, and went about mourning.
28 And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,
29 “See how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity in his days. In the days of his son I will bring the calamity on his house.”
God was not really amazed by the tearing of his garments or by the putting on his sacloth,
What really got him was Ahab contrition through fasting.
This is the guy that just murdered a guy for food. He killed him so he could get his vineyard and make it a vegetable garden.
Proverbs 28:21 “21 To show partiality is not good, Because for a piece of bread a man will transgress.”
through fasting and prayer, an unbelivable mercy is released to the undeserving.
If God was willing to give such great mercy to Ahab because he fasted and prayed, how much more me and you.
13 But as for me, when they were sick, My clothing was sackcloth; I humbled myself with fasting; And my prayer would return to my own heart.
10 When I wept and chastened my soul with fasting, That became my reproach.
Fasting humbles your soul, it brings you to a place of brokeness and contrition of the heart
Sometimes you heart can be so callous that no matter the words you hear is difficult to respond with brokeness towards God.
God’s wrath turned way through fasting and prayer.
12 “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molded image.’
13 “Furthermore the Lord spoke to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked people.
14 Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’
15 “So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.
16 And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God—had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you.
17 Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.
18 And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.
19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was angry with you, to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me at that time also.
20 And the Lord was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.
God’s wrath againts a nation was turned away because one man humbled himslelf through fasting and inteceded of the people.
The next couple of days we are not just fasting for ourselves, we are fasting for our nation, we are seeking God for this land, for the souls of this nation.
God’s wrath against this nation will be turned away, and mercy will be shown from the presence of God.
Instead of God destroying he will be saving.
when you fast and pray, the wrath of God that is upon your unbeliving family or whomsoever you are interceding to, will be turned away.
Spiritual favour is released through fasting and prayer
15 Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai:
16 “Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!”
17 So Mordecai went his way and did according to all that Esther commanded him.
1 Now it happened on the third day that Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace, across from the king’s house, while the king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, facing the entrance of the house.
2 So it was, when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, that she found favor in his sight, and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. Then Esther went near and touched the top of the scepter.
3 And the king said to her, “What do you wish, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given to you—up to half the kingdom!”
Esther, because she aproched before the King after having humbled hearself through fasting and prayer she obtain great favor to the point the King was willing to give her upto half of his Kingdom
The favour that God shows towards us when we aproach him with fasting and prayer is different than when we aproach him in any other way.
Do we need God’s favour for a certain request that we have, lets aproach the King Through fasting and prayer
Spiritual direction is given through fasting and prayer.
20 also of the Nethinim, whom David and the leaders had appointed for the service of the Levites, two hundred and twenty Nethinim. All of them were designated by name.
21 Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from Him the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions.
Ezra was ready to return to the land of Israel, but he did not know what direction to take, the way in which he should follow.
Some of us might be in situation where we are ready to do what God wants us to do. We are ready to do what needs to be done. We just lack direction from the spirit of God.
Some of us might to be in circumsance where we are at loss on what to do,
I am here to tell you that through fasting and prayer, you will receive direction from the spirit of God.
Direction for you life, Direction for your ministry, direction for your family.
1 Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
2 As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
3 Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away.
4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.
Spiritual victory is given through fasting and prayer
18 And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not.”
19 He answered him and said, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to Me.”
20 Then they brought him to Him. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.
21 So He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.
22 And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
25 When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!”
26 Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him. And he became as one dead, so that many said, “He is dead.”
27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
28 And when He had come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?”
29 So He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”
There are battles that can only be won through fasting and prayer.
The descibles did everything they could , they prayed, tried to believe. This normally worked with other demons but not this one.
Do you have a problem that just wont be overcomed, do you battle that whatever you seem to do, it not being won. You need to fast and prayer. God will give you victory through fasting and praying.
Conclusion
12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the Lord, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.