Finding Spiritual Strength Through Fasting

Fasting should play an important role in our devotion and service to the Lord. It’s a promise: when ye fast, our Father will reward us openly (Matthew 6:18).

The health benefits of fasting are widely extolled today. The proven physical benefits of fasting include improved digestion, reduced inflammation, and weight loss. Fasting may help increase the sensitivity of the five senses. Mental and emotional benefits include heightened clarity and focus, reduced anxiety, improved mood, and reduced symptoms of depression. Fasting helps break addictions by increasing willpower and self discipline. These benefits, however, never replace the deeper purpose found in spiritual disciplines that shape a believer’s walk with God.

Biblically speaking, the primary purpose of fasting is not for physical benefit. Fasting is a spiritual activity. Fasting greatly increases one’s sensitivity to the Spirit, whether fasting for days, fasting “until the ninth hour” (Acts 10:30), an absolute fast, or fasting “pleasant” food (Daniel 10:3). Scripture consistently connects fasting with learning to fast and pray as a means of spiritual alignment.

There are more than seventy references to fasting in the Bible. Both Old and New Testament leaders were moved upon to fast. Moses, Elijah, and Jesus were led by the Spirit to fast forty days. In the Old Testament, large groups fasted collectively and received phenomenal results. The city of Nineveh was spared when the residents fasted (Jonah 3:5–10). The Jews in Shushan fasted (Esther 4:16) and were delivered from destruction. Ezra’s entourage, numbering perhaps more than fifty thousand, fasted and asked God’s protection on their journey from Babylon to Jerusalem (Ezra 8:21). These moments reflect essential Christian disciplines practiced by God’s people.

Fasting also was a vital part of the New Testament church. After the apostles gave themselves to prayer, fasting, and the Word, they turned their world upside down (Acts 17:6; II Corinthians 6:4–5). Their example reinforces biblical instruction on fasting and prayer as foundational to apostolic ministry.

With prayer and fasting, we can touch three worlds and their inhabitants without leaving our current location: (1) Heaven, God, His entourage of angels; (2) Earth, its circumstances, its occupants, its enterprises; (3) Hell and Satan, imposing a victory over him by people who are vested in the name of Jesus.

My beloved husband, G. A. Mangun, who prayed two or three hours a day and many nights, would say to me, “I would rather quit breathing than to quit praying.” He would not marry me until I promised to pray at least an hour a day and fast one day a week. (I hurried to say “I will” before he changed his mind.) He fasted at least four days a week for many years and engaged in seven day fasts throughout his ministry. Bishop Anthony Mangun and Pastor Gentry Mangun, with the pastoral team and many saints of the Pentecostals of Alexandria, launch each new year with a seven day fast, drinking only water. This pattern reflects Jesus teaching on fasting lived out in apostolic leadership.

God told Solomon, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall 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” (II Chronicles 7:14). Humility is not an emotion; it is a decision that must be expressed in appropriate action. There is one action which the Bible specifically endorses as the expression of humility, and that is fasting. David said in Psalm 35:13, “I humbled my soul with fasting.” For Ezra, Jehoshaphat, Esther, Mordecai, and the Jews of Shushan (Ezra 8:21–23; II Chronicles 20:3, 12; Esther 4:16–17), the humbling of their souls was expressed by fasting. They fasted and cried out to God, saying, “We have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee” (II Chronicles 20:12). This principle is foundational to restoring spiritual disciplines in the church.

Exciting things are happening around our world. Pockets of revival are breaking out. Yet I believe we have not experienced the sweeping revival the Scriptures declare will come. This revival will be distinguished by a great spiritual awakening of extraordinary prayer. The people of the name of Jesus must, above all people, be an integral part of that prayer and fasting movement. We must be the vessel through which His mighty power will flow, teaching even the next generation through structured fasting instruction.

The prerequisite for the last day outpouring of the Holy Ghost is clear. Joel’s thrice uttered call directed the ministry to lead the way. “Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord” (Joel 1:14). “Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning” (Joel 2:12). When we do our part, God said, “It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh…” (Joel 2:28–29).

The first church set an example for us to follow in that the early Christians fasted often. “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them…” (Acts 13:2–3). “And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord…” (Acts 14:23).

The early church fasted to find the will of God. When we need specific guidance and direction for our lives, fasting brings us into closer communion with God so we may more perfectly receive His direction through the disciplines of the Christian life.

Fasting humbles the body and the spirit, bringing our body and its desires into submission to the Holy Spirit. Fasting helps us win victory over the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh…” (II Corinthians 10:3–4).

Fasting not only changes circumstances, it changes us. We begin to see how weak we really are and how strong He is. Fasting allows us to hear the voice of God more clearly as He speaks to us, and it causes us to listen to what God wants us to be and do.

Strengthen your Apostolic walk with God through prayer and fasting. Equip yourself and your family with these resources from Pentecostal Publishing that will help restore discipline, humility, and spiritual power in your walk with God:

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