Have you heard of a god called belly? Did you know that there is a king's stomach that loves to be
exalted and one of the ways to overcome this king is through fasting. Philippians 3:18-19,
Paul tells us, For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that
they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and
whose glory is in their shame—who set their mind on earthly things. So these people are enemies of
the cross. Their end is destruction. Their god is their belly. Their glory is their shame and their
mind is fixed on earthly things. I wonder how many Christians today have embraced cross-less carnal
Christianity, who are going to be defeated at the end, who have allowed their belly, their gut,
their stomach to be their king, their god, who have glory in their shame and whose minds are
set on earthly things. How do we solve that? Well, we need to renew our mind with the truth
of God and we need to embrace biblical view and biblical practice of prayer and fasting. Now may
I remind you Adam and Eve ate themselves out of the presence of God. May I remind you that Sodom
was accused in Ezekiel 16:49-50 of not giving to the poor, of not praying and being proud, being
full of food or fullness of gluttony meaning, they live this life of pride, greed and gluttony. Esau
ate himself out of his birthright. Our Savior was tempted with food in the wilderness. Food is a
gift from God but food if it becomes your friend, if it becomes your idol, you begin to exalt belly
in place of God. One of the reasons why many of us struggle with fasting is because fasting is
dethroning king stomach. Fasting is putting out of the throne, the king belly and for some of us,
we made this king too exalted. He has become an idol and we need to remove him through prayer
and through fasting. What is fasting? Fasting is abstaining from food for spiritual reasons.
Fasting is not abstaining from social media. Fasting is abstaining from food for spiritual
reasons meaning, not for physical reasons. We don't fast so that we get ready for the wedding
and lose weight. We don't fast so we can get the beach body. We don't fast so that we can
get healthier. Those are the benefits of fastings not the reason of fastings. Fasting is literally
giving up what's physical for something that's spiritual. It's giving up what's visible for
something that's not visible. It's trading. I call it trading the bowl for the blessing. It increases
your spiritual weight but not your spiritual worth. God doesn't love you more because you fast.
Fasting is a biblical way of humbling yourself. Fasting has a domino effect on your prayer,
pursuit of God and purity. Fasting restores your sensitivity and hunger for God. Fasting defeats
the flesh and the cravings of the flesh. Fasting promotes self-denial. Fasting exposes unhealthy
relationship with food. Some of us, we medicate and numb our pain, boredom, laziness, burnout
with food. We run to the fridge as a place of comfort. We accuse and blame those people who run
to the bottle as a way of coping mechanisms but we ourselves develop an adulterous relationship
with food and fasting helps to disrupt that so we go to the Comforter where we can find
true comfort instead of comfort food. Fasting has physical benefits. Fasting helps to build
a resilient mind because one of the hardest things to do during fasting is not physical, it's mental.
Mind plays tricks with you. That's why fasting in the Old Testament on the day of atonement was
called the affliction of the soul. You feel like moody and cranky. Your mind really just kind of
gets a little bit tested and tempted and it's good to fast and fasting moves you to God's perfect
will. When you begin to surrender in prayer and fasting, God begins to align you with His perfect
will. Fasting strengthens your prayer life. Andrew Murray said, 'Fasting helps to express, to deepen
and to confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, to sacrifice ourselves,
to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God.' Fasting holds back the judgment of God. We see it
happen with Nineveh. Jonah chapter 3 verse 5 and Jonah chapter 3 verse 10. They declared a fast
and God relented of the evil that He was supposed to do on them and He turned away the judgment. We
see that fasting stops and subdues our enemies. 2 Chronicles chapter 20 verses 1 through 4. Judah
declared a fast because they faced an enemy. They started to praise, pray and fast and God caused an
ambush. Acts chapter 13 verses 2 through 4. Paul and others were fasting and God led them. Fasting
will shatter strongholds. Isaiah 58 verse 6 it says, “Is this not the fast that I have chosen:
To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens," even though the literal
application of this means, when you're fasting help the poor but I also believe that when we
fast, there are things that get broken over us, things that are of materialism and these worldly
things get broken off so we can just think of God, love God more clearly without any restrictions.
Now I hope by now you are motivated you like man, let's go. Let's fast. Types of fastings. So there
is an absolute fast. We see this mentioned in the bible. It's when you eliminate both solid
foods and liquids. This is the most severe type of fasting used only for most serious cases. There's
the normal fasting. It's when you eliminate solid foods and drink liquids. It's used by most
believers when fasting. That's my way of doing the fast as well and the thirdly is there's a partial
fast. It's when you eliminate selected items from your diet and selected meals. Now when you fast,
something happens in your body. Water fasting induces ketosis, burns more fat,
reduces inflammation and decreases your appetite. It can help you to avoid cancer. It supports
anti-aging. It strengthens the immune system. It can help the brain to grow new brain cells. It can
help with chronic health conditions that involve inflammation. A Boston University study showed
that your lifetime probability of getting cancer is reduced by more than 70 percent if you do a
seven day water fast. So when you practice water fasting, something begins to happen. It's for
spiritual reasons but it has health benefits. What do you do when you fast? So a few practical things
that I want to give you. One is that you can drink a lot of water. Don't drink too much water but
add fasting salt or mineral pink salt into your water or you can also take B complex vitamins. It
helps with fasting especially if you're going for three days, five or seven water day fast,
you can add electrolytes to your water. Try to walk more instead of heavy exercises. Get plenty
of rest. Pay attention to your body. Those are physical things that you can do. Here are some
spiritual things you can do. Instead of eating, read God's word. Instead of having a dinner,
worship. Take extended time to be in God's presence. Read a book. Understand that sometimes
you can feel more fatigued and you might even fall asleep reading Don't feel guilty about it,
still persevere. Listen to sermons. Repent of your sins. Do things that please God. Don't blow your
trumpet that you're fasting. You don't need to post on Instagram that you're fasting. Nobody
needs to know that. That's nobody's business. That's between you and God. Don't try to do heavy
exercise physically or drink excessive amounts of water without taking your daily minerals that I've
mentioned. Don't use juices on prolonged fasting especially citrus juices. Don't consume movies,
TV shows or social media. Keep yourself focused on the things of God. If you are interested
in learning more about fasting, I have a book called "Fast Forward." We actually have a fasting
community where we fast once a month for three days and then once a year, we do a 21 day fast. If
God puts on your heart to join this community, let me know. Go to my website Pastorvlad.org/challenge
or Pastorvlad.org/fasting. I would love to guide you and so that together we can fast.
One of my sayings is that, 'I you fast, you will last.' In fasting, our hunger gets stronger. Our
passion becomes consistent. We can maintain the things that God has been doing in our life. Why
is this so powerful? Because fasting is not about you. It's about humbling you and one
of the ways that we get humbled is when king stomach loses his throne and King Jesus takes
the throne of our heart and also our belly. Thank you for watching this video. I hope that
you learned today something about fasting. I hope that your king stomach got a little
bit upset and I hope that you'll join us for fasting. Let me know in the comments below what
you learned about this and also if you ever fasted, are you part of our fasting
community? Don't forget to hit like, subscribe and share this with other people. Thank you.