The Power Of Fasting And Prayer

The power of fasting and prayer

- Tomorrow we begin 1½ week of fasting and prayer.

- I am trusting God that it is going to be an awesome time of blessings [e]

- I am believing God that many of you are going to receive your breakthrough and your blessings [e]

- But I also feel strongly that before we can go into a time of fasting and prayer, we need to properly understand what happens when we fast and pray. [e]

- We need to know the power of fasting and prayer, and how this spiritual discipline can radically change our lives [e]

- By definition “fasting and prayer” is when we intentionally stay away from our regular physical sustenance for the express purpose of seeking the Face of God [e]

- Lets look at the power of fasting and prayer

1. God gives us clear direction when we fast and pray

- Deut 9: 9 – 10 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.

- We were created to have a relationship with God in prayer [e]

- But as time has passed, mankind has replaced his relationship with God with other priorities and associations [e]

- We have become estranged (defn) from God [e]

- This means that we have become strangers with God [e]

- And because this relationship has been broken, we need to fast and pray and seek God’s Face to restore this broken relationship [e]

- Our broken relationship with God has resulted in us not knowing God’s plan for our lives [e]

- We always wonder why things don’t work out for us [e]

- We wonder why we live life unfulfilled [e]

- We always wonder why we are in a state of constant problems [e]

- We wonder why we don’t achieve in this life [e]

- The answer is simple…

- We don’t have direction from God [e]

- Moses went before God in fasting and prayer (explain)

- And God Himself gave Moses a word for the people [e]

- A word that was to direct their lives [e]

- We need God to speak to us [e]

- We need God to direct our lives [e]

- We need a word from God [e]

- How many of you feel you need a word from the Lord?

- Let’s come together and fast and pray [e]

2. Fasting and prayer to break the chain of constant sin

- Ezra 10: 6 – 7 : The Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib, where he spent the night, neither eating bread nor drinking water, for he was mourning the faithlessness of the exiles. And a proclamation was made throughout Judah and Jerusalem to all the returned exiles that they should return to Jerusalem,…

- One of the biggest problem in the church today is constant sin [e]

- It is people who do the same thing over and over again [e]

- And while it is easy to condemn these people and say that they are unfaithful, we need to go deeper than that [e]

- In most cases, constant sin, unbreakable habits, addiction, alcohol, pornography are symptoms of a deeper spiritual problem [e]

- This is a chain that satan has people bound with [e]

- It is what the Bible terms “a yoke of bondage” [e]

- The reason we cannot seem to break free from these constant sin…

- The reason we always go back and do the same thing over and over again…

- Is that there is a spiritual chain that satan has used to yoke us to these habits and addictions [e]

- The Scripture above teaches us that the children of God were in a state of constant sin [e]

- They were bound by these sins and couldn’t break free [e]

- And the prophet Ezra had to come before in fasting and prayer to ask God to free the people from these sins [e]

- What about us?

- Are any of us bound by unbreakable habits?

- Tobacco?

- Alcohol?

- Pornography?

- Unfaithfulness…yes this is a bondage

- Every now and then, we get convicted…we promise God and ourselves “No more…I will never do it again…I will never go back” [e]