Life Beyond Sundays - Episode 5: Nourishing the Spirit: The Power of Fasting

The speaker discusses the importance of fasting in a spiritual context and emphasizes that fasting should be done for the purpose of deepening one's communication with God and seeking His guidance. Different types of fasting are mentioned, including the Daniel fast and various durations of fasting. The speaker also highlights the need for prayer and reading the Bible during fasting, as well as the importance of planning and setting intentions for fasting. It is explained that fasting is not limited to abstaining from food, but can also involve giving up any activities or habits that distract from connecting with God. The speaker offers to provide a list of biblical fasts and corresponding scriptures. The overall message is that in these end times, it is crucial to seek God, repent, and establish a closer relationship with Him. Thank you and welcome to Life Beyond Sundays. Today I want to talk to you about food and fasting. Fasting is something that is talked about over and over again within the Bible and I'm talking about spiritual fast because in today's society for some reason fasting has been made to be like a fad. I see intermittent fasting, fasting for your health, fasting to you know like dieting to lose weight. It's actually replacing dieting by saying fasting, intermediate fasting. So understand that the world will always try to take that which is spiritual and of God and try to make it be something worldly and mainstream but the fasting is different. Just fasting to say you're losing weight or you call yourself fasting, you're using the word in the wrong connotation. When we fast as Christians it is showing an honor and to the Lord and it is so that we may have a higher level of communication with the Lord. When we want to hear from the Lord, when we want to have the Lord help break strongholds in our life, we go ahead and we fast. Now there are different types of fasting. There is, I'm sorry, different types of fast. There's the Daniel fast. There's a one-day 24-hour fast. There's different ones and the Daniel fast is out of the book of Daniel but the one that I know to be, I've done 24-hour fast. I've done a three-day water fast and I've not yet done but I have some friends who have done a five-day and a seven-day fast. Now understand you don't start out like that. You start out maybe with a light fasting of maybe four hours or half a day so maybe six to noon or six to two. You can do that for a day or two days or three days. Maybe if you, as you build yourself, if you do that a couple of times then you go and do six to six. That's a 12-hour fast 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and you can do that for three days in a row and that would be like a three-day fast. Now with the fasting, you know, most people think of food or with, you know, withholding because the thing with fasting is to bring this flesh, this fleshly body under subjugation. Bringing it under subjugation because we know the word talks about we have to die into ourselves, die into what we have. The flesh is evil. The flesh wants to sin. It is its natural thing that it wants to sin. So in order to bring and control the flesh, we have to do the fasting to bring our flesh under subjugation. So for the fasting, one of the most important things is that you plan out somewhat and you think about, okay, I am, and you have a conversation with God. I am planning on fasting Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Father and then make your petitions known unto the Father. This is an important step. We don't fast haphazardly. We fast on purpose. If you are wanting to hear from the Lord, then you would say, Father, I'm fasting so that when I pray, I can hear from you better. I want an open line of communication. I want to know truth. Maybe you're fasting for a stronghold. For many years, I was a smoker. I did not have to fast for the breaking of smoking. God took it, took it supernaturally. But there are people that may be smokers or drinkers. If you say to the Lord, Lord, I am going to put my flesh under subjugation. I am going to fast. I'm believing in you to take away the desire to smoke or the desire to drink. And then once you are, you've made your supplication and petitions known to the Lord, and then once you begin the fast, the other very important step is, is that you must be in prayer. You must be in his word. How can God move? How can you have a move of God in fasting? Because it will be all for nothing, all for nine, if you do not read his word. So you want to find scriptures or either read a book of the Bible. If you've never opened the Bible and your Bible has dust, then start with Genesis. Start in the beginning. If you have some learned Bible experience, then start with a book that you think you would have understanding, maybe Proverbs, maybe Hebrews. But what I'm telling you is even with working or taking care of kids and cooking dinner or whatever you have to do, you have to give God his time in order for the fast to be effective. You must read the word. You must have prayer time with the Lord, seeking him so that he knows it's not just about the withholding of food or drink, but is also about seeking his face and seeking him in this time of fasting. So that's why I said, sometimes you may, if you're new to fasting, want to start out with just doing maybe a few hours of fasting, like, you know, six to noon or six to two, and then build yourself to do six to six. That may be best for you. But fasting in this end time is important because we want to be able to hear from God so that he can direct and order our paths, because there's going to be a lot going on. There are going to be a lot of different events. I'm not prophetic. Well, I can't say I'm not prophetic. I will just say that that right now is not the capacity in which I'm speaking as a prophet. I'm not. I'm speaking more as a teacher. God has asked me to just speak on some things, I think, because the things that I grew up with, the knowledge of the Word, the Bible, and the Lord, I just take for granted sometimes in the sense that I think, oh, people know this. They already know this. You know, I have five children that are adult children that I have raised and raised them in the way that they should go. So but the Lord is letting me know, no, no, Michelle, people don't know. They don't know this. It's so much misinformation out there and false prophets and false teachings. So even in the simple things that I would think that someone would know, they don't. If you have not been brought up in the sound doctrine of the Lord, then you will not know or you will know wrong. And so the Lord has unctioned me to speak on things that I would believe that would be common knowledge is what I'll say, but it is not always. Now also with the fasting, let me say, when we fast, the whole thing is most people think food and food is good. I give up food. I may just do a straight water fast, or maybe I do a fast where I give up meat. But you also can fast and give up anything that draws you your flesh, anything that causes to separate you from hearing from the Lord that you kind of, you know, whatever you do more than you would do with talking to the Lord. So for example, what I'm saying is if you are a person that watches Monday night wrestling faithfully every Monday, then maybe you want to fast on a Monday and say, Lord, I'm not going to watch my WWE. You can also do the food and fast from food, but fasting from TV, fasting from certain music, fasting from going out to the club, because if you are in the world, we must come out of the world. We are to be in it, but not of the world. So you have to begin, even if it is baby steps to change your ways, you have to begin this walk with the Lord, the way you begin it is with that first step, however you can do it. And immediately the first, and I've said this in another recording, the main thing that you would need to do is if you are not saved, if you don't know the Lord, or if you are in a backslidden state, you would need to seek the Lord, say the prayer of salvation, repent of your sins, and begin to walk with the Lord to not sin anymore, in whatever manner it may be. And I don't know the sins you may have, it may be a lot of great sins, it may be a few minor sins, but whatever it is, lay it at the Lord's feet, ask him for forgiveness, repent of it, and then sin no more. This is Life Beyond Sundays, and this channel is for the conversations. We are in the end times of the end times, and there is no more time. Grace is running out. We will have nothing but mercy. You must get right with the Lord. I will be speaking in other sessions about some of the prophets that I know to be the true prophets of God. When you are ready to go and hear the prophecies, because they are heavy, heavy on your heart, and you must already have a relationship with the Lord so that you can receive the truth. The truth is going to be heavy. If you are new in Christ, you must begin to read the Word. Open your Bible and begin to read the Word. And I just wanted to correct myself in this definition. It is subjugation. I was mispronouncing the word. It's s-u-b-j-u-g-a-t-i-o-n, and it is to bring under control and rule as a subject, conquer, to make willing to submit to others, to subdue. So that is what I'm saying when you are bringing your flesh under control into subjugation. And then also, I will probably put this or offer where you can email me at lifebeyondsundays, with an s, podcast at gmail.com. If you would like, I have the 10 different types of biblical fasts with the corresponding scriptures. So the disciples fast is Matthew 17 and 21. That is one that you would do for deliverance from sin, addiction, and bondage. If we fast, we can break the power of sins and addictions. I'm sorry, addictions. I cannot say the word like addicted, addictions that limit our freedom in Christ. There is also the Ezra fast. This is asking God's help in solving problems and for protection from Satan. And that is Ezra 8, 21 through 23. There is the Samuel fast for revival. The, the, when you're bound by maybe idol worship, or you need deliverance, you know, Samuel called them to see God and to bring the ark back to Jerusalem. And if we fast and pray for revival, God will pour himself out on his people. And that's 1 Samuel 7 and 6. So I do have a list of those. And I can give that to you. Like I said, if you send me an email at life beyond Sundays with an S podcast life beyond Sundays podcast at gmail.com. But other than that, I hope that you are blessed in the Lord. I will be praying for you until next time.