f you want to intensify, deepen or accelerate your prayers--and get filled up more spiritually at the same time--try fasting. Many throughout the Bible, throughout history, and throughout the world today have found fasting to be a significant help in hearing from God and seeing God honor their prayers.

Faith Fasts - Full Version

by Eric Elder

I’d like to share with you what God says about fasting. I don’t remember hearing much about fasting when I was growing up. I’m not sure if it’s because I was just a child, or because those around me didn’t fast, or because those who did fast fasted in a way that they didn’t draw attention to themselves.

But whatever the reason, I do know that when I began to read the Bible as an adult, I was surprised by the number of references to prayer and fasting throughout both the Old and New Testament. Moses, David, Elijah, Paul and Jesus Himself are just a few of the many people who fasted.

As I read other Christian books, I was surprised to find that many people throughout history, including leaders of major Christian movements also fasted: Martin Luther, John Wesley, Charles Finney, Jonathan Edwards, William Booth, to name just a few. I also found that many of the Christian leaders that I know and respect living today have also fasted with profound results.

After reading so many inspiring stories, I decided to try it myself.

I wasn’t going through anything particularly traumatic, I just wanted to try it as a way to deepen my prayer life, so I decided to fast for a few days and see how it went.

At the time, I was talking to a friend who was praying about a job situation. She wasn’t sure if she should stay at her job or do something else. I told her I was going to try praying and fasting that week, so I’d pray for her decision, too.

The first day of the fast I was really hungry more than anything. I remember all I could think about was food. But by the second day, I felt my mind was starting to clear and my body realized I wasn’t going to be feeding it anytime soon, so the hunger pangs subsided. I took the day off work so I could focus better on my prayers went outside to sit at the pool at my apartment building.

When I got around to praying for this friend and her job decision, I began to think that it really didn’t seem like she should be in a job in corporate America, wearing a business suit every day. I could picture her more at home, raising a family, with a husband working to help take care of her. That’s it, I thought. She doesn’t need a new job, what she needs is a husband and to start a family. So I began to pray that God would bring her a husband.

As soon as I did, I heard these words in my head, as clear as the water in the pool in front of me: “Why don’t you marry her?” That’s not what I was thinking at all! I was just praying about her job decision.

I thought maybe I was delirious from fasting! But the question kept coming back to me over and over even after the fast was over. I decided to take a few months to just pray about that question and see what God might be trying to say. By the end of those few months, God had put a love in my heart for her like no one else ever in my life. I called her to tell her what God had been speaking to me, but she spoke first. She said she had finally decided to quit her job, even though she had no idea what she was going to do next. I told her I had an idea!

Lana and I have been married now for 19 years, and that picture I got of her that day while I was fasting, at home and raising a family, turned out to come true.

I was hooked on fasting and have fasted many times since then.

I’d like to encourage you to consider fasting as well. If you’ve been praying and praying about something in your life and seem to have hit a roadblock, fasting might be the next step for you. If you’ve been asking God for direction, but still aren’t clear which way to go, fasting can help clear your mind to hear from God. The bottom line is if you want a way to intensify, deepen or accelerate your prayers, try fasting.

Let’s take a look at a few stories in the Bible where fasting made a huge difference in people’s lives.

I’d like to start with Moses. If you’ll open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 9, starting in verse 9, you’ll find where Moses talks about how he fasted twice for 40 days each. Deuteronomy is the 5th book in the Bible...Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers then Deuteronomy. Moses’ fasts are described in several places in the Bible, but in this spot, Moses gives a summary of both of his fasts.

Starting in Deuteronomy 9, verse 9:

“When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water. The LORD gave me two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God. On them were all the commandments the LORD proclaimed to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly” (Deuteronomy 9:9-10).

Moses fasted and prayed and God gave him the 10 commandments, along with another 600 or so that would help him as he led over 600,000 men through the desert, not to mention all the women and children. It was an important revelation from God, laws that not only affected Moses’ generation, but laws that have formed the basis for many governments throughout the world still today, including ours here in the U.S. Laws that lasted not just 3 years, or 30 years, or 300 years, but 3,000 years! This incredible revelation from God came while Moses was fasting and praying for an extended period of time.

Moses then went on to fast another 40 days when he found out that the people were sinning. If you skip on down to verse 18, you’ll read this:

“Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the LORD's sight and so provoking him to anger. I feared the anger and wrath of the LORD, for he was angry enough with you to destroy you. But again the LORD listened to me” (Deuteronomy 9:18-19).</5h>

This time, Moses was fasting and praying to plead for the lives of his people. He was afraid God might destroy them so he pleaded with the Lord, and the Lord listened to him. The prayers of Moses, accompanied by fasting, literally saved the lives of the people. And it happened several other times in the Bible.

Let’s take a look at another story in the Old Testament, the story of Queen Esther. It’s in the book of Esther, chapter 4. Esther’s a little harder to find, so you may want to look it up in your index in the front of your Bible. In this story, one of the king’s officials convinced the king to destroy all of the Jews living in his land, saying that they were following their own customs and not the customs of the land. So the king issued an edict that on a certain day, all the people in the land who weren’t Jewish were free to destroy anyone who was Jewish. The king didn’t know at that time that his own wife, Queen Esther, was Jew as well, for she had hidden it from him.

When Esther found out what was going to happen from her Jewish cousin Mordecai, she was in a dilemma. She could be killed if she went to the king, but all of her people would be killed if she didn’t. Take a look at what she did in Esther 4, starting in verse 15:

“Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: ‘Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:15-16).

Esther fasted, and called all of her people to fast with her. When she went to the king, she pleaded with him to save her people. Even though the king was bound to never revoke a law he had signed, he wrote another law, saying that the Jewish people could assemble and defend themselves on those particular days from anyone who tried to kill them. As a result, Esther and the Jews survived.

Let’s take a look at a couple of stories from the New Testament.

If you’ll turn with me to Acts chapter 13, we’ll look at what happened when Paul, Barnabas and several other prophets and teachers were gathered together in Antioch. Starting in Acts 13, verse 2, it says:

“While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off” (Acts 13:2-3).

Here we see that fasting wasn’t just something people did in the Old Testament, and it wasn’t just something people did when they were in distress. Fasting was part of the prayer life of the early Christians, too, and here we see some of the results of it. God used this time of prayer and fasting to chart a new course for Paul and Barnabas’s lives that would take them through to the end of their lives. This was the first of Paul’s famous missionary journeys, several of which are mapped out in full color in the backs of your Bibles. This was the starting point of a new direction for them, but one that affected them for years to come.

There’s another a story in the Bible where Jesus’ disciples were trying to heal a boy who was having seizures and suffering greatly, but they couldn’t heal him. So the boy’s father brought him to Jesus.

Jesus drove a demon out of the boy the demon and the boy was healed from that moment. When the disciples later came to Jesus in private and asked why they couldn’t drive it out, Jesus said this, as recorded in Matthew 17:20-21:

“Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

Jesus talked about the importance of their faith, but He also talked about the importance of something else that I think is often overlooked: he talked about the power of prayer and fasting. I’ve talked to you for many weeks about the power of faith, and you’ve heard many messages about the power of prayer. It seems from this passage, and from many others in the Bible, that fasting adds a dimension to our faith and to our prayers that is not available without it.

These are just a few of dozens of stories that are recorded in the Bible about people who fasted, and how God responded to their fasts. Take a look in the concordance of your Bible on the topic of fasting, and follow the references near each one, and you'll find over two dozen places where fasting is talked about throughout the Bible. You’ll see that Moses fasted, the Israelites fasted, David fasted, Jehosphat fasted, Ezra fasted, Nehemiah fasted...the list goes on and on. People fasted for many reasons, but each time it was a way to intensify, deepen, or accelerate their prayers.

I want to be careful to let you know, though that fasting isn’t a surefire way to get God to answer your prayers, or to do something that He has no intention of ever doing. But I have found that it does bring me closer to God’s heart, and when I’m closer to His heart, it’s easier for me to trust the results into His hands.

Lana and I decided to fast for several days together one time for a couple going through some severe marriage problems. I wish I could say those problems are over and that that’s all it took to fix the problems they were having, but I can’t. But I did get the sense that God is doing everything in His power to work on the situation, and that we’ve done everything in our power to see God’s will be done, too.

There’s a story in the Bible about when King David fasted and prayed for seven days because the son that was born to Bathsheba and him became sick and was dying. God had told David, through Nathan the prophet that because of David’s sin, the son would die. So David began to fast and pray. On the seventh day, the child died. With nothing else he could do, he finally got up and ate. David’s servants asked him why he fasted when the child was alive, but stopped fasting after he died, since usually people fasted after someone died as a sign of mourning and honor. David responded:

I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live. But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Samuel 12:22-23).

Fasting is not a way of demanding that God do something, but a way of humbling yourself before Him, entrusting the situation to Him. I can’t guarantee you’ll get everything you ask for in prayer when you fast, but I can say that fasting is a way to humble yourself before God, to put yourself in His hands, regardless of the outcome.

Sometimes we don’t even know how profound the results of our fasts are when they’re happening. I had a friend who decided to try fasting for a week. He came to me when the week was over and said, “I’m not really sure it did much for me. The only thing I heard from God was to quit smoking marijuana. What’s the big deal about that?”

It turns out it was a huge deal to his wife, who had struggled with him over it for some time. Sometimes people fast and think what they hear is just a minor adjustment to their life, when in reality it’s a significant shift that will affect them for the rest of their life.

If you think you’re too old to fast, think again! Bill Bright is the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ. When he was in his 70’s he decided to try fasting for 40 days. It was so significant that he began to call for other Christians to join him in fasting for 40 days. He continued to fast for 40 days every year until his death at age 81. If you think you’re too old to fast, think again!

I was really inspired by his story, and I knew of several other people who had fasted for 40 days. I wanted to try it, but I also really like eating, so there was never really a good time to give up food for 40 days straight! I kept asking myself, “Is this a good time to give up food?” The truth is there’s never a good time to give up food! I realized I was asking myself the wrong question. The right question was this: “Is this a good time to get closer to God?” If that’s the question, anytime is a good time to get closer to God! So I did it. I was praying about my ministry and the future direction of it. Money was tight and I didn’t know if I should continue it or not.

Within 3 days I felt total confirmation from the Lord that I was to continue the ministry, and for the next 37 days I spent reading the book of Exodus and asking God how Moses was able to set hundreds of thousands of people free from bondage. I wanted to learn how I could do the same through my ministry. Every day as I read through Exodus, I felt God speak to me a lesson for how I could apply what I was reading to my own life. I took notes every day, and when I was done with the fast, I began to apply them to my life and ministry. When I found they were working, I began to teach them to others. I’ve spent the last five years leading devotionals for the other pastors in the Streator Ministerial Association based on what God spoke to me in those 40 days. I let a year long study of those principles here at Central in a weekly men’s group. And I’ve shared them on the Internet through my website and eventually put them in a small devotional book called “Exodus: Lessons in Freedom.” Even this last week at the Cornerstone music festival, I was leading devotionals for about 75 of us from Streator, and I took them straight from what God showed me seven years ago. I had no idea back then that what God was speaking to me would still be affecting me and other people seven years later, and it will probably continue to do so for the rest of my life.

I don’t usually talk much about my own experiences with fasting because I don’t want to draw attention to myself. When Jesus taught His disciples about fasting, He instructed them to not draw attention to themselves:

“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6:16-18).

So when I fast, I don’t usually tell anyone I’m fasting, unless they need to know because they’re serving me meals or if they’re involved in the prayers as well. But from Jesus’s example, I think it’s important that we teach about fasting, too. Like Bill Bright and the many others who have learned the value of fasting, if we never talk about the things that are impacting us in our lives, how can other people be encouraged to try them out themselves? So I decided to share with you some of my experiences, just as some of the people in the Bible shared theirs, to encourage you to consider fasting in your own life.

It was significant for me to read that Jesus said, “When you fast...,” not “If you fast...” It seems to have been such a normal part of the lives of the Jews in those days and the early Christian disciples that it encourages me to do it as well. I don’t think it’s a command, but it’s something that God offers to us as a way to go deeper in our prayer life if we want to go deeper.

So from that point of view, I’d like to spend the our last few minutes together talking about some practical tips to help you if you decide to fast. Many of these I’ve gotten from books I’ve read about fasting, in particular a little booklet by Bill Bright about fasting. I’ve listed a couple of web pages at the bottom of this message where you can read more of these tips online, but let me mention a few of them here.

I’d encourage you to check with your doctor before you begin an extended fast of any kind. We want to be biblical Christians, but we want to be wise Christians as well. So it’s just a matter of medical safety and wisdom to check with someone who knows your personal health well. Some doctors are even recommending fasting to their patients for purely physical reasons, as occasional fasting can be cleansing for your body.

Having said that, here are a few practical tips that many people have found helpful when fasting, including myself.

1) The first tip is to drink water, lots and lots of water.

It reminds me of a story about the three little piggies.

The Three Little Pigs went out to dinner one night. The waiter comes to take their drink order.

"I would like a Sprite," said the first little piggy.
"I would like a Coke," said the second little piggy.
"I want water, lots and lots of water," said the third little piggy.

The drinks are brought out and the waiter takes their orders for dinner.

"I want a nice big steak," said the first piggy.
"I would like the salad plate," said the second piggy.
"I want water, lots and lots of water," said the third little piggy.

The meals were brought out and a while later the waiter approached the table and asked if the piggies would like any dessert.

"I want a banana split," said the first piggy.
"I want a root beer float," said the second piggy.
"I want water, lots and lots of water," exclaimed the third little piggy.

"Pardon me for asking," said the waiter to the third little piggy, "but why have you only ordered water all evening?"

The third piggy says, "Well, somebody has to go wee, wee, wee, all the way home!"

Even though some of the stories in the Bible talk about fasting from both food and water, those were desperate times and the people were given supernatural strength. If you’re planning to fast as a disciple, and especially for an extended fast, there aren’t many people who would recommend it going without water or liquids for most any length of time.

Many people who fast will usually drink water and/or juice. If you drink juice, choose 100% juices. Don’t chew gum, or drink milk, as that will start your digestive system up and make you even hungrier. Juice and water don’t have the same effect, so once your body realizes you’re not going to satisfy it’s hunger pangs, it stops sending those signals to you. You get the spiritual benefits of fasting, without upsetting your digestive system.

2) Consider starting your fast just after lunch, so that the first meal you miss is dinner. Some people wake up in the morning and decide to fast then, not realizing that they’ve already fasted from food for many hours from the night before (that’s why the first meal of the day is called breakfast, because you’re breaking your fast from all those hours since the last evening meal). If you miss breakfast, the hunger pangs really start kicking in all through the first day and can be very distracting from your time of prayer. If you start your fast by missing the evening meal, you’ll sleep through the most uncomfortable hours, then you’ll be more alert and ready to pray the following day.

3) Some people like a routine fast of one day a week, or one day a month. But I’ve found a 3-5 day fast to be more effective and helpful than a 1 day fast. As a discipline, I’ve done a one day fast, once a month for four years, but I found it very difficult because your body is still adjusting during that first day. So I personally prefer a 3-5 day fast from time to time as I get more benefit out of the subsequent days. But others find the routine fasting to be very effective, so it may take some experimenting to see what works best for you. Mainly, don’t be discouraged if your first fast or two is hard, as some find it easier as time goes by, because they focus less on the effects of fasting and more on the praying.

4) You may want to plan your fast on days when you can really devote yourself to prayer. Take some time off work or plan your fast when you don’t have such a busy schedule. But that’s not to say you can’t fast and work as usual. Every time you notice yourself being hungry, just pray, and you’ll find you’re praying most of the day anyway!

I was teaching a 5 day seminar one time when I felt God wanted me to fast. I wasn’t sure it was a good time to start the fast since I had so much to do, but it turned out to be one of the best. And by the 5th day, I actually had more energy than had I eaten, to the point where someone came up to me afterwards and asked how I kept my energy up so well, that he taught seminars, too, and by that point, he would have been dropping. I didn’t tell him my secret was fasting, because I was surprised myself at how energetic I felt!

5) Don’t ask yourself “Is this a good time to give up food?” Or you’ll never fast. Ask yourself, “Is this a good time to get closer to God?” You’ll find the answer to that question is always, “Yes!”

I’d like to tell you one more story from the Bible about people who fasted. This is from the book of Jonah, chapter 3. The story is about the people in the city of Ninevah who were sinning against God. God tried to send Jonah to warn them of their impending destruction, but Jonah went the other way. Jonah ended up getting thrown overboard from the ship in which he was fleeing, and God sent a whale to carry Jonah back to shore, and to carry the message back to the Ninevites.

Here’s what the Bible says happened when Jonah brought the message to the Ninevites:

“The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:

‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.’

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.” (Jonah 3:5-10).

The people of Ninevah asked the same question when they fasted as David asked when he fasted: “Who knows?” Who knows what God may do if you humble yourself before Him through fasting?

If you’re at a place where you need God to do a breakthrough in your life or the life of someone you know, consider fasting. If you’re needing wisdom or direction, consider adding fasting to your prayers. If you’re just curious to see if what the Bible says is true, and you want to see if this is true, too, give fasting a try. In any case, if you want to intensify, deepen or accelerate your prayers, I’d like to encourage you to try fasting.

As we come to our time of decision, some of you may be wondering what all this about Jesus is about anyway. Why are we talking about fasting and these things from the Bible? It’s because Jesus has so changed our lives that we’re convinced that whatever He has to say is worth following. Maybe you’ve never put your faith in Christ before, and I’d like to encourage you to do that as well.

It’s as simple as admitting that you’ve sinned, that you need a Savior, and then putting your faith in Jesus, who died for your sins. As it says in the Bible: “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

Let’s pray.

Father, thank You for the example of so many people who fasted in the Bible, in history, and living today. I pray You would help us to see and experience the fruit of fasting ourselves. I pray for those who are thinking of trying it for the first time, or