Receiving God's best blessing from a fast requires solid commitment. Arranging special time each day with God is absolutely
crucial in attaining intimate communion with the Father. You must devote yourself to seeking God's face, even (and especially)
during those times in which you feel weak, vulnerable, or irritable. Read His Word and pray during what were mealtimes. Meditate
on Him when you awake in the night. Sing praises to Him whenever you please. Focus on your Heavenly Father and make every
act one of praise and worship. God will enable you to experience His command to "pray without ceasing" as you seek His presence.
As you enter this time of heightened spiritual devotion, be aware that Satan will do everything he can to pull you away
from your prayer and Bible reading time. When you feel the enemy trying to discourage you, immediately go to God in prayer
and ask Him to strengthen your resolve in the face of difficulties and temptations.
The enemy makes you a target because he knows that fasting is the most powerful of all Christian disciplines and that God
may have something very special to show you as you wait upon Him and seek His face. Satan does not want you to grow in your
faith, and will do anything from making you hungry and grumpy to bringing up trouble in your family or at work to stop you.
Make prayer your shield against such attacks.
My major reason for fasting is for personal revival, revival for our nation, for the world and for the fulfillment of the
Great Commission by the end of the year 2000. But praying for our own needs and interceding for others are also important
reasons to fast and pray. Bring your personal needs before the Lord, intercede for your loved ones, your friends, your church,
your pastor, your community, your nation, and the world. By your prayers of humility, as you fast, you will help the Great
Commission be fulfilled.
However, do not become so caught up in praying for yourself and others that you forget about simply reverencing and praising
God. True spiritual fasting focuses on God. Center your total being on Him, your attitudes, your actions, your motives, desires,
and words. This can only take place if God and His Holy Spirit are at the center of our attention. Confess your sins as the
Holy Spirit brings them to your attention and continue to focus on God and God alone so that your prayers may be powerful
and effective.
A renewed closeness with God and a greater sensitivity to spiritual things are usually the results of a fast. Do not be
disappointed if you do not have a "mountaintop experience," as some do. Many people who have successfully completed extended
fasts tell of feeling a nearness to God that they have never before known, but others who have honestly sought His face report
no particular outward results at all. For others, their fast was physically, emotionally, and spiritually grueling, but they
knew they had been called by God to fast, and they completed the fast unto Him as an act of worship; God honored that commitment.
Your motive in fasting must be to glorify God, not to have an emotional experience, and not to attain personal happiness.
When your motives are right, God will honor your seeking heart and bless your time with Him in a very special way.
