- Fasting is a biblical way of humility.
In this video we will look at some of the benefits of fasting.
How it increases our humility, how it increases our hunger,
and as well as it helps us to grow in holiness towards God.
The first thing I want to mention is fasting is a biblical
way of humbling yourself.
We see that David humbled his soul with fasting.
So, I want you to notice that in two instances David refers to
humility and how that he humbled himself with fasting.
So fasting was one of the ways that David humbled himself.
Now let's look at Ezra.
Have you noticed that Ezra's way of humbling himself
was with fasting?
And this way of humility was for a way for them,
for the little ones and for their possessions.
So it's for the family, for themselves and as well as
for their businesses or their work or their careers.
And one of the ways that they were looking for God
to make a way and to prosper their way is through humility.
And how did they humble themselves? With fasting.
We see Ahab humbled himself with fasting, 1 Kings 21:27.
"So it was, when Ahab heard those words,"
and these were the words that Elijah pronounced:
he's like, "You are a dead man, what you did was bad
you listened to Jezebel, your wife."
"Ahab heard those words, that he tore his clothes
and put sackcloth on his body, and fasted and lay in sackcloth,
and went about mourning."
So first you're like, "OK, he's pretty broken,
he's pretty devastated, he's definitely feeling the conviction
he's feeling the burn." And I want you to notice what God sees.
So we see, you know this guy is tearing his clothes apart
he's like throwing ashes on his body, and he's crying.
But in 1 Kings 21:28-29:
That's incredible! Think about it.
Ahab, who the Bible has one reference that he was
one of the worst kings that Israel has ever had
yet when he humbled himself, God noticed it.
He didn't just notice it, He pretty much postponed
His judgment. God didn't stop His judgment,
He just postponed it. But He postponed to the next generation.
That's huge. Over an act of humility, an act of brokenness.
What did this humility consist of?
Of course, it's a heart problem.
The root of humility is in the heart. It's not in your actions.
It's not in pushing the plate away. The root of humility is
you feel broken inside towards God.
You want to get humble before God.
Fasting is a biblical way to humble yourself before God.
Can I encourage you? If you don't humble yourself
you will be humbled. The Bible tells us to humble ourselves.
You don't need to ask God to humble you because that's
going to be too late.
The way God humbles us is through humiliation
and nobody likes to be humiliated.
I'm going to tell you, there is a better way than humiliation
it's called humility. It's when you choose to humble yourself.
And you may say, "Vlad, how do I do that?"
The Bible has an answer. Start with fasting.
Go without food for the purpose of getting closer to God.
Drink water. Read the Word instead of eating.
Spend time with God instead of browsing through social media
and just be with God and say, "God, I need You."
Break your pride. Break your heart. Break your ego.
Repent of your sin. Ask God to set you apart
cleanse you and purify you; because that is the biblical way
of humility. Humility is not only not eating.
Humility is repentance. Humility is humbling yourself
under the mighty hand of God, acknowledging Him as
your supreme Lord and sovereign King.
The whole idea of fasting is not, "I'm going to come, not eat
and do a hunger strike and corner God, and get something
out of His hand." That's not fasting, OK? That's manipulation.
Fasting is, I'm going to humble myself so that God can
refine my desires. I'm going to come and say,
"Lord, not my will but Your will be done."
And I'm going to come out thinner physically
and I'm going to come out purer emotionally, spiritually,
and mentally. Why? Because fasting doesn't move God
it moves me. It's kind of like if you have a faucet in
your kitchen sink and you are coming with a glass
and you want to put water from your faucet.
But you're holding your glass not right under the flow of water.
The water will not get into your cup. And though the water
came out of the faucet, nothing was left in your cup.
Nothing is changed in your cup.
And so many things happen in our spiritual life
exactly the same way. We seem to miss God's blessings.
We seem to miss God divine's appointments.
We seem to miss God's favor. And people wonder why.
It's because we are not in line, we are not aligned
and God wants to bring alignment in your life.
Alignment, not that you move God to your side
it's that you move yourself to His side.
That's why when Joshua met the commander of the Lord's army
and he said,"Are you for us or are you against us?"
And he said, "Nope, I'm not for you and I'm not against you."
He said, the question is Joshua are you on my side or not?
I'm the commander of the Lord's armies."
So fasting realigns us.
God doesn't need to be realigned, I need to be realigned.
God doesn't need to renewed, restored and transformed.
I need to be transformed, renewed, and conformed to His image.
And fasting helps me with that because it brings about
repentance, confession of sin, spending time in His Word
dealing with negative emotions, dealing with all of these things
that sometimes we bottle up, dealing with numbing mechanisms
we develop to deal with our pain, deal with our stress
and deal with anxieties. All of those will surface
and you are going to have to deal with them.
And the Lord will purify you. The Lord will make your faith
as pure as gold through the trial, through the hardship
of fasting. Fasting is a biblical way of humbling yourself.
The Bible says in the New Testament that
"God give grace to the humble," in James 4:6,
in 1 Peter 5:5-6 and in Proverbs 3:34
God gives grace to the humble.
Now grace is favor - unmerited favor.
And a lot of people want favor. Can I tell you something?
The key to God's favor is fasting.
Now again, please don't hear what I'm not saying.
I'm not saying that if you go on a hunger strike
or if you don't eat, God is going to dismiss or release
or dispense His favor. No, God looks at the heart.
If your heart posture-- and maybe you started to fast with
a wrong heart and you seek God, God will realign your heart
to His purposes and you will notce God's favor in your life.
That doesn't mean everything will go smooth.
It doesn't mean you won't have battles, trials, tribulations
that's just part of life. It doesn't mean you have
to go through suffering because how will God develop
the fruit of long-suffering if you don't go through suffering?
Sometimes the suffering happens during fasting.
But what will happen is when you humble yourself
God will extend His grace to your life.
God will extend His favor in your life. You will feel it
you will know it and a lot of times people will notice it
as well.
The second component of fasting is that
So not only is fasting a biblical way of humbling ourselves,
but fasting is also a way to restore your hunger for God.
See, God led Israel through the wilderness
and He was teaching them through hunger, physical hunger
how they should hunger for His Word.
And it's that word that Jesus quoted in Matthew 4:4 where
Jesus takes that word from Deuteronomy
where God was telling Israel why He led them through
a season of hunger. To teach them that men should not live
by bread alone meaning God was saying, "I want you to depend
on My word. I want you to hunger for Me more than
you hunger for physical food."
And I don't know how and why it works like that
but I've noticed in my own life when I lose my hunger,
fasting helps to get it back. Fasting helps to reset it.
Like when I go through physical hunger, not for the sake of
I don't have something to eat or I'm starving
but when I'm choosing to go through physical hunger
for the sake of getting closer to God, God seems to go back
and reset and restore my spiritual hunger.
And it's the way-- Not only I've experienced that
I know a lot of men of God who do exactly the same.
If you want to last in your hunger for God,
you have got to fast in your hunger for God.
It's a very simple principle.
So many people want to be on fire for God and they don't realize
the key is very simple.
Go fasting every week for one day.
You know, every month for few days or every six months
or every twelve months, for an extended period.
And you will see your hunger will be reset, I promise you.
The third reason, I will encourage you the benefit
that's going to happen with fasting is there will be
help and increase in your holiness.
We know that holiness is to be set apart; set apart for God.
The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2:20-22,
it talks about vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor.
It talks about golden vessels, vessels of wood
and vessels of clay. And it says that he who separates himself
he who sanctifies himself-- Now, it's interesting because
we know Jesus is the one who sanctifies us yet in that verse
it talks about we sanctify ourselves meaning we have to choose
the process of sanctification. We have to embrace
we have to respond to the beckoning,
to the drawing of the Holy Spirit to set ourselves apart
for God. God used Joshua to say:
See, you must understand that today's sanctification
brings tomorrow's results.
Today's separation brings tomorrows success.
Today's breaking brings tomorrow's breakthrough.
Today's crushing brings tomorrows calling
brings tomorrow's anointing.
And when you begin to fast you are aiding the Holy Spirit
He will produce within you separation.
He will produce within you holiness which will produce
wholeness and happiness.
See, as Christians we don't go after happiness
we go after holiness. Because the holiness
meaning being separate to God, God is the one that is my Lord
and I belong to God.
The Holy Spirit, as you see on my crew neck
it says, "Holy Spirit". See, God is Holy
The Holy Spirit is holy and He wants to make you holy.
And when you begin to fast, He first of all expose
areas of your life that are not holy. And He will draw you
closer as you separate yourself to Him.
And then He Will send you. Because whoever separates himself
to Him, He begins to send out into His mission
and into His call.
Part of that holiness that brings wholeness and happiness
is really that place we get into during fasting
where it's not my will but Your will be done.
If you ever get this notion that you can fast to get
whatever you want from God, make sure you realize
it's not coming from me. It's maybe from your own flesh
because the closer you get to God during fasting,
the less of you remains and more of God shines through you.
It's like, if you remember the prodigal son's story
you know what caused him to go away from his father
is this notion that so many people have today
in charismatic Pentecostal circles.
"Father, give me what is mine." It's demanding. I'm entitled.
It's my inheritance. And so many people go to God
and they corner God. They squeeze it out of God's hand.
You know, "You owe me healing, You owe me this, You owe me.
Give me what is mine." And so many peoples' prayer life
look like that. And they call it declaration, they call it
decreeing, they call that taking what's yours.
Please understand, God is a good God. He is a generous God.
He is not withholding anything from you.
I believe in rebuking the devil. I believe in spiritual warfare
don't get me wrong. And I believe in reminding God
of His promises, the Bible says that.
But the heart posture of give me what is mine,
for the prodigal son, it was wrong. And I know sometimes
my own posture of heart is also wrong
in coming in and claiming it, naming it, blabbing and
grabbing it. But something happens when you go through
fasting. You remember what happened to the prodigal son
after he got what was his? See, he got the father's money
he never caught the father's mindset.
He had his possessions but he didn't have his passions.
And see, so many Christians get through identity in Christ,
knowing who they are.
They get the blessings but they don't get broken.
They don't get the breakthrough.
They get the stuff but they don't get the sanctification.
And very soon you must understand in order to come back
to the Father and be close to the Father,
you're going to have to be broken.
And guess what happened to the prodigal son? He got broken.
What was one of the things that happened to the prodigal son?
Was hunger. If you remember carefully, he didn't have food.
Now, of course it was forced hunger. There was famine.
But still that hunger broke him. And something happened
when he came back to his father. He didn't demand for his rights.
He didn't demand for a ring, for a party and for meat.
He didn't demand for a new garment.
The Bible says that he was broken and he said,
"Make me a servant." In the beginning he was saying, "Give me"
but through a season of hunger and brokenness his prayer was
"Make me." And I believe that's what fasting does.
It's a way of humility which releases God's grace.
It's a way of hunger for God so you can hunger after God.
And it's a way of holiness which makes you whole
which makes you happy. But this holiness is breaking down
of your will. It's brokenness. It's no longer about me, give me
it's about make me.
And through that you draw nearer to the Lord.
If your whole life is,"Give me, give me,"
you most likely are not going to experience the mind of Christ.
You might have the blessings but you are not going to have
the brokenness. You are not going to have the breakthrough
that He wants to do through your life.
You may be talented but you are not going to be anointed
because talents come with birth, anointing comes from crushing.
It comes through brokenness.
Unless a grain seed falls to the ground, it remains
just a grain seed. But if you want to walk in anointing
you don't need a degree. A degree is good
but anointing comes from crushing. It comes from brokenness.
And I want to invite you, let's humble ourselves.
Start fasting to get our hunger back.
And let's remember that it's not about us
it's about us hungering, us being broken so that God
can release His breakthrough and glorify His name.
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