The Opportunities to Pray & Fast

Tap into the Discipline of Pairing Prayer with Fasting

Getting Beyond the Baby Steps of Prayer Paired with Fasting – Part 2

Let’s take a little journey together. Our church is known for encouraging people to read the One Year Bible. When Pamela and I started visiting the church we now attend, we noticed they took certain actions like this each year, like reading the One Year Bible. Each day as a church we read from this well-known Bible plan. We thought that was fantastic. With this practical step , our church makes sure its members would at some point, read the Bible in its entirety. It’s done each year, over and over so that each person, each new member who joins our community of believers will have an opportunity to completely read the entire Bible. That’s just one simple example. However, there was another opportunity that (kind of) caught me off guard. Twice a year our church has a designated time for prayer over a 21 day period. There is one at the beginning of the year and 21 days in the middle of the year. During these times we dedicate each day to a focus on prayer which includes a special prayer service each morning. Sounds good so far, right? However, the 21 days of prayer at the beginning of the year is the one that really caught my attention. It’s when we do 21 days with prayer paired with fasting.

As you know most people at the beginning of the year go into their health regimens, their New Year’s resolutions, and such, but as a church, we go into the New Year with prayer paired with fasting. When we hear the word fasting, most people, which is normal, and most church members run from it. Here’s some of the feedback I’ve heard a time or two. “I’m not fasting. I’m not giving up a meal. I don’t understand why that’s necessary.” While that’s normal thinking, I want you to try some different thinking. Like the book says about Steve Jobs, “Think Different.” If you want to have different results you are going to have to think unlike the normal person thinks. Therefore, when you see an opportunity to do something that you’ve not done before, you probably want to consider it otherwise you will continue to have the same life you’ve always had. When we were faced with this 21 days of prayer paired with fasting, we were at a crossroads. Do we stay with our traditional mindset of not fasting, not committing to the action, not joining with our church, or do we participate in this exercise?

What’s the benefit? Why should we do this? Should we even consider it? What I’m saying to you today is, this is worth considering. At least consider why you may benefit from such an activity. That’s where we were when we walked into our church for the first time as new members of that congregation. Then it dawned on me. The Scripture talks about fasting. The Master Teacher spoke of fasting. Then this thought hit me. If my natural default response is negative when it comes to pairing prayer with fasting ,then we must overcome that common thinking in order to go to the next level. We had come face to face with an opportunity to exchange ordinary for extraordinary. So Pamela and I decided, let’s at least consider it and give it a try. Why don’t you?

Reasons Why We Should Take Advantage
With that story in mind, I want to give you some reasons why you should take advantage of the opportunities to pair fasting with prayer, especially when your church is declaring a time of prayer and fasting.

1. You want to do it for the encouragement and support that you are getting from everyone around you.
   Because I know of no other times when some encourage us to pair fasting with prayer, we should take advantage of it when our church is doing one collectively.
   Under normal circumstances, if you were to tell someone your intention to pair fasting and prayer, you’re not going to get a positive response. In fact, they’re going to try to figure out what in the world is wrong with you. They might ask why are you acting this way? What’s going on in your life that’s requiring you to do this? Alone, this will draw much attention and might even discourage your efforts. However, when the group is doing it, oh man, you can just plug right in. Not only that, you will have people walking beside you, encouraging you, and in it with you.
   During our 21 days, the messages are tailored towards the purpose, leading up to it we’re discussing how to prepare, we discuss how to go through, and how to come out of it. It gives us more excitement as we are in it, learning about it, and growing in it.
   Again, if you have to do it alone, it makes it much, much harder. In fact, you probably won’t do it and if you do, you probably won’t make it all the way through the designated period. However when you have someone running alongside you, it gives you energy to push forward.
   
   
2. At what other times would you participate in such an effort?
   If you don’t do it with your church, at what other point in your life will you do it? Would you let one year pass without a time of prayer with fasting? What about two years? If you’re like me, we let 30 years go by without even considering it. Well, maybe not 30 years, more like 20 years, or so. That’s easy to do because it’s normal.
   
   What happens when you go a long time without it? Can you imagine what that does for your children? We let 2 years, 5 years, 10 years pass with pairing fasting and prayer? How can we train our children effectively? If we don’t take advantage of the opportunities, I don’t know if there’ll be another time, especially if you never do one on your own. That was a category we fell in, when else will we do this?
   On another note, the average person has no idea when pairing prayer and fasting is even necessary. Left alone, a person has no idea when to declare one. Take advantage of the few opportunities that you have.
   I remember when our Godson came over after having completed the Beach Body’s Insanity Workout. He pulls up his shirt and shows us his (what seemed like) a twelve pack. We were amazed. We looked at him and said what happened to you? Then came the sales pitch, the opportunity. He replies you guys have got to try this. It was because of his excitement and his results that led us to do something we had never done before. It changed our life.
   
   It helped us to be more physically balanced and physically fit, as well helped us to know how to train. It taught us when to exercise and when to take a break. It taught us how to be conscious of how we build our body, get the exercise needed, and helped us become more physically fit. But if we never gave it a try, if we never participated in the effort, if we had never been approached by him, we never would have done an exercise that had the potential to transform our lives forever. That’s what we offer you today when we’re talking about pairing prayer with fasting.
   
   
3. So that one can progress in the exercise.
   Once you become a person of faith, you may not be knowledgeable enough to know what to do, when to do, and how to approach such exercises like pairing prayer with fasting.
   For example, some individuals start their fasting exercise with something not as difficult as not eating any meals for 21 days. They might start with something like fasting Cokes, no carbonated drinks for 21 days. When a person first starts, he or she starts with something that he or she can handle, but at the same time it’s something that does present a challenge. The goal of fasting isn’t to make it so difficult and unenjoyable as we possibly can, but rather the opposite. Prayer paired with fasting should be positioned in a way that one will look forward to participating while making a sacrifice.
   
   Before I conclude with this thought, as a person of faith as it goes with any activity one should desire to get progressively better in the exercise. In the exercise of prayer with fasting, you should want to get better each year. [To the left.] I cannot understand for the life of me how a person can remain fasting “social media” and never attempt to fast a meal or fast something they really enjoy doing to make a sacrifice that causes them to be more focused on the spiritual aspects. Some of us need to try fasting television for 21 days. My point is we should be looking for ways to go to the next level even when it comes to the exercise of prayer paired with fasting. Sometimes we make this more difficult than it has to be, but at the same time some of us are still taking baby steps when we need to go to the Next Level. There’s a progression that needs to happen.

You need to know this; some things we face require prayer paired with fasting. If you’re not ready for when those things arise, that require us to fast and pray, then you will not be ready to overcome such things. What are those things? Jesus used these words, “This type of thing can only be handled with fasting and prayer.” ^[1] Now He was talking about something demonic, spiritual challenges, something that’s intangible. The disciples were asking why couldn’t we do these things? He replied “Because you need to pair prayer with fasting in this situation.” ^[2] Some things in life require the pairing of fasting and prayer. If you want your life to have a transformation, then it might require what I call a Metamorphosis and one way to do that is with pairing fasting and prayer. If you’re desperate enough, you will exchange ordinary behavior for extraordinary behavior. That means you will exchange not fasting and praying with fasting and praying. If you decide you want to make a change that’s so great, that’s so heavy, and you’ve tried it over and over again, it’s time to consider pairing prayer with fasting. This is next level prayer!

Question: how can you begin taking advantage of the “prayer paired with fasting” opportunity that is before you now?

[1] ‭‭Mark 9:29 NKJV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, Bible.com, accessed June 9, 2023, https://www.bible.com/bible/114/MRK.9.29.NKJV
[2] ‭‭Mark 9:28-29 NKJV, accessed June 9, 2023, https://www.bible.com/bible/114/MRK.9.28-29.NKJV

All Scripture references used by permission, see our Scripture copyrights.