How to fast. To fast, I mean to abstain from food for spiritual reasons. How do you practically
fast. Let me share with you seven practical steps for those of you who are planning to go on a fast.
First and foremost, start with a clear goal. Why are you fasting? What is the purpose of your
fasting? Is it to come closer to the Lord? To seek for His help, for His direction? Maybe you are
in a time right now where you really feel like you need to, you know, recalibrate spiritually.
But what is the reason? What is the purpose? What do you feel is the Lord leading you? Why is He
leading you into this fast? Number two. Prepare spiritually for the fast. During the fast confess
your sin. Ask God to open anything in your life that needs to be removed, you need to be delivered
from, to open your spiritual eyes. Forgive anybody who has offended you and surrender to God. Please
understand fasting is not to corner God. It's not a hunger strike. This is not you trying to move,
squeeze something out of God. It's on the opposite. God trying to move us. So when we come
with a humble attitude, not, God I'm gonna go come down and get you, God I demand this, God I strike.
You know, yeah this might work with politics this might work with other people. This is not
gonna work with almighty God. God looks for the humble and part of fasting is humbling yourself,
repenting of your sin, seeking His face and turning from your evil ways and that is how you
spiritually prepare for the fast. So don't just kind of do whatever you want and then, you know,
in a month from now I'm gonna fast so then I'm gonna really repent of my sin, then I'm gonna
really pursue God, then I'm gonna really turn away from my wicked ways. But until then, yeah,
I'm just gonna do whatever I want. That's not how that works. Number three. Deciding what to fast.
So there's, you can fast food, you can fast food and water. I know some people fast just sweets,
dairy and meats. Daniel's fast. Some people who have a medical problem or they're pregnant or they
need to take medication where they can't fast food so they have to fast something else, maybe I don't
know, tv, movies or some kind of a relationships. I mean there are different things you can give up
for the sake of getting closer to God and taking temporary time of drawing nearer to the Lord.
So decide what you're gonna fast. The common way that people fast is they choose to fast from food.
In fact fasting is simply absence of food for spiritual reasons. And so you can still, you know
fast social media or other things, but what really fasting is, is to turn away from the food for
spiritual reasons. It's highly discouraged to go on complete fast where you stay away from water
and food. More than three days can kill you. I know some people who did it. We see people did
it in the Bible supernaturally like Moses, like Elijah. People like Paul, city of Nineveh, they
fasted for three days without food and without water. But anything above three days is really
bad for your health. actually you're gonna die and so if the Lord didn't lead you in to do that,
use discretion and be extremely careful with your body, so that in doing some of these
radical things you don't damage your stomach and you don't damage your body. Decide, number four,
how long you're gonna fast? Now there's no magic really to one day, three days, seven days,
twenty one days or fourty days. But these are the usually the fast that people take. The Lord
will put on your heart. Now if you're doing that personally, you know whatever the Lord
leads you. If you're doing that corporately, then honestly whatever the Lord leads the corporate
body. Whatever the Lord leads your local church, your pastor. Just join that and do that. I want
to really encourage you to take it slow you know. If you've never done long fast start with one day,
three days and then build yourself up but at the same time I want to encourage you to obey God.
I've never finished a 21 day fast, before I went on a 40-day fast. We were planning to do a 21-day
fast. It was actually this year that this video is being recorded. And six day into it I felt the
Lord just prompting to go for 40 days. And so the formula of, you know, kind of work yourself slowly
fasting is not like a physical exercise. It's really sustained by the Holy Spirit. The best fast
you will ever do are the ones that are led by the Lord as Jesus was led by the Spirit into a fast.
I can tell you one thing is that when it's you leading yourself into a prolonged fast versus the
Lord leading you into a prolonged fast. When the Lord leads you into prolonged fast it's easier.
It's still hard but it's easier. Now when your pastor is leading the church into a prolonged fast
there's a grace on that, always jump on that. You don't have to feel the Lord leading you if you're
part of a local church where God put authority, where God with pastors. He's given these pastors,
apostles, teachers and evangelists to us to spiritually guide us and so if they declare that,
like Esther. Esther declared a three-day fast. God didn't have to speak to every Jewish person in
Babylon to fast okay, the king of Nineveh declared a three-day fast. Not every person in Nineveh had
to hear God, the king just led them. And so when there's that corporate fast there's a corporate
grace for that. But I want to encourage you to be obedient to the Holy Spirit when it comes to
how long you should fast and what you should fast from. Number five. What to expect during your
fasting. So a few things to keep in mind. You can get attacked during fasting. Jesus got attacked
during fasting okay, so don't be surprised if your first few nights you don't get angels visiting you
but you get nightmares okay. You can come under attack. It's actually a sign that the fast is
working, it's provoking the enemy. Being attacked doesn't mean you have a demon, being attacked
means you have a destiny and so it's okay. It's spiritual warfare. Sometimes you have
common things that people experience is persistent hunger. Hunger is one of the common sides of any
fast and that's why avoiding water can make you feel even more hungry since water helps
to decrease your hunger. You can feel tired. If you don't eat food and drink water your body will
not have fuel and you will feel fatigued, dizzy and weak. In fact in Psalm 103:24 David says:
You know I experience this, where it's one thing to you know be fatigued and tired,
it's another thing when your knees physically hurt. The last time that I was on a prolonged fast
had excruciating pain on my knees. For a moment I thought like that I got arthritis or something and
and this verse clarified that. It wasn't throughout the whole fast but especially
during the night. And so and David says, my knees are weak through fasting. So you can experience
that. It's not a sign you need to quit. It's just a sign that you're fasting .Another thing is
when you get a little bit moody and cranky, yeah, I call it hangry. You know when your hunger,
gets a little bit of anger in it, a little spice and it's actually kind of scriptural. The Bible
talks about fasting in Leviticus 16:29 as a day to afflict your souls. So the day of atonement was
a day of fasting but God describes it as a day to afflict your soul. Like at first I read it,
I was like I don't get it. I know fasting is a way to afflict your body, your flesh.
My soul, afflicting my soul through fasting? What does that mean? And until you fast you
don't know what that means you know. What happens when fasting, your soul who sometimes
takes orders from your body instead of your spirit, gets kind of confused and cranky
during fasting because now the body is dying, the spirit is fully alert and the soul is not used to
getting all the direction from the spirit. And so there's that little affliction of the soul
that happens. So fasting is not just good for your body, it's not just subduing your flesh,
fasting is also helping your soul to figure out that the soul is not in charge, the spirit man
is. The Holy Spirit is. And another thing that sometimes fasting does that some people don't
realize why they get so cranky and moody is because they develop unhealthy relationship
to food. Food for some people is a crutch. It's something that they depend on to solve their toxic
negative emotions. Some people go to the bottle but a lot of Christians go to the fridge. They
don't drink, they eat. They over eat and they emotionally eat, meaning they eat when they're
emotionally bored, they're emotionally not doing good, they gain weight. But most importantly
they gain dependence, unhealthy dependence on food. The consequences of that becomes obesity,
being overweight, feeling not good about yourself and etc But the root cause is food has become a
spiritual cure for emotional problems and fasting expose that right on. During fasting you will have
to face that and you will have to rewire your brain to teach yourself the fridge is not your
solution, the Holy Spirit is. Your comfort is not in your food. It's in the Holy Spirit. He is
the great comforter. Another thing that happens during fasting. What to expect during fasting
is headaches. It's one of the things that you know, nobody likes. Especially if you're drinking
a lot of coffee or caffeine you're gonna have headaches. It's normal okay. Headaches are not
a sign the demon is attacking you. It's just simply a sign that you have probably had a
lot of soda and a lot of caffeine in your body. It's a body cleaning itself from toxins. So it's
normal. Drink a lot of water. The best way that I recommend is that before you even start fasting
start decreasing your caffeine intake before the fasting, so that when you are fasting you're not
hit with all of the headaches all at once. Another thing that could help that most likely will happen
is lack of focus during fasting. When you're tired and hungry it becomes difficult to concentrate at
school and at work. And so I really want to encourage you to try long fast because that's
when you see the benefits. You know the three day fast and I did them for many, many years but,
it's good but it's the one that you go longer like after about three days, four days where the
cravings shut down, where your mental alertness goes like sharp, your spiritual sensitivity is
through the roof. It's just beautiful. It's like you feel light as a feather. Even the hunger is
just kind of gone. The only hunger is like mental, like your mind is just plain tricks, telling you
you need to eat but your body is actually doing just fine. Your body eats off of its own fat and
and it's a really really beautiful, beautiful and wonderful experience. Number six. We're talking
about how to fast. Is replace eating with reading and prayer. So fasting is not everyone is able to
stop everything they're doing okay and go to the mountains and spend 40 days. Actually I wouldn't
even recommend you to do that. Why? Because the Bible says as you fast anoint your face with oil.
Meaning God's like do normal stuff, go about your normal day because it's not possible for many of
us to completely withdraw from everything that we're supposed to do for fasting. What I would
encourage you is the time that you would normally eat, set that time for the Lord. And the time that
you would normally relax, set the time to be with Him. The time that you would normally you know,
browse through the phone or maybe watch something in television or just kind of aimlessly chill out
or unwind, that you get into the secret room. Pretty much replace the food and the other
free time that you have had, with time with reading God's Word, reading maybe other books,
watching sermons and fasting and just being in prayer. And number seven. How to end. Remember
to enter into a fast slowly and to exit the fast even slower. If you exit the fast quickly. Now
it depends of course on what kind of fast. If you fasted only one meal and you exit, you know
eating the full meal after that, that's fine. If you fasted for three days and you have a full meal
afterwards probably not gonna die but you're gonna get hurt. So it's best to exit the fast
slowly with like a chicken broth or you know the water that you cook rice with or cooked rice or
something that is very slow so that you don't upset your stomach and hurt yourself. If you
fasted for seven days or ten days on water only you have to be extremely careful to exit slowly.
In fact God is watching at how you exiting the fast way more than he's looking at you
during the fast because that gluttony, that obsession with food, that impatience, really,
really surfaces on exiting the fast than during the fast. Be very careful. There are people who
died after the fast. Not because God took him but because they ate a chicken. Yeah one pastor fasted
40 days and died. Like physically died because he ate a chicken. I know people, some of my friends
who just ate a little bit of meat you know, almost a day after that and they ended up in a hospital.
Some who developed ulcers in their stomach because of that and because of also they did
prolonged fast not properly and so be very careful you know. Do with wisdom if you are on the medical
condition or something don't attempt fasting without consulting a doctor. If you're a pregnant
mom don't do fasting without consulting a doctor. You're discouraged from doing that. There will be
other times to fast but at this season you might need to do some other things to abstain from
so you can focus more on the Lord. Drop it in the comment below. I want to hear from you,
your experience with fasting. I know it's a private matter but to encourage other believers,
what's the longest that you did and how was it? What are the benefits that you experienced from
fasting? As always don't forget to hit like to this video, share it with your friends or
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