This week marks week two in our 21 Days of Fasting and Prayer series. Monday kicked off our church-wide 21 day fast. Fasting allows us to grow in spiritual dependence. When we fast, God works in our lives in extraordinary ways—ways that can’t be explained by natural causes alone. As we fast, we testify to the Spirit of God at work in and through us. This week, we focus on the power that comes from fasting and prayer.
- Read Mark 9.17–30.
This whole encounter begins with a problem that needs to be solved: the dad has a son who’s been sick his entire life, and so the dad is desperate to find healing for his son. While the new year is often filled with hope and dreams, for many it’s also filled with problems that need to be solved: career troubles, health concerns, marital strains, addiction, fear, or money problems.
In the dad’s desperation to find healing for his son, he turns to Jesus’ disciples for help. Surely Jesus’ closest friends could bring power and healing to the boy. The disciples take the boy under their wing to heal him and…nothing. They couldn’t heal the child. We’ve probably all felt the disappointment of this father. We seek out doctors, counselors, or even friends or family members who have experienced similar things hoping for answers but being left with nothing. We consult the experts for wisdom for our problems, but nothing changes.
Question: What problems in your life need solving? What steps have you taken to try to solve them?
But the father doesn’t give up. Desperate for healing for his son, he goes to Jesus Himself. The result? The power of God is released and the boy is healed. The fascinating part of this story is not that Jesus was able to heal the son but HOW He was able to do so.
Re-read Mark 9.28–29. We see in these verses that the disciples go to Jesus privately to ask Him why they weren’t able to heal the child. They’ve already been embarrassed by their failure and are afraid to look stupid again. Jesus doesn’t respond to their question by dismissively declaring it’s because He’s God and they’re not. No, He says, “this kind can only come out by prayer”. Some Greek manuscripts also mention fasting here. What Jesus seems to be saying is this: there is a power for problems that is only present through prayer and fasting.
As Edgar shared last week, fasting is often a neglected discipline; it’s meant to be a normal part of Christian life. Instead, it’s often seen as weird or hyper-spiritual. Here and throughout the gospel, Jesus tells us that not only is fasting normal, it’s also essential to experience the fullness of God’s power. That’s not to say that fasting is a genie in a bottle that lets us get whatever we want; it’s not a way to manipulate God into doing things our way. Rather, there is a power for our problems that will only be present through prayer and fasting.
Question: What power or change have you experienced when you pray and fast? What power have you seen others experience?
Let’s compare fasting to the physical discipline of running. If someone plans to run a marathon, it’s unlikely that they wake up one morning and just go run it. Try as they might, it’d be nearly impossible to complete it this way. Instead, the runner spends months training for their event. There’s a difference between trying hard and training hard. Trying is giving something all that we have in the moment. Training is doing what you can currently do in order to do what you can’t currently do.
When it comes to spiritual growth, God doesn’t want us to try hard; He wants us to train wisely. Just as marathoners’ training doesn’t actually involve running a marathon distance but instead prepares the body for greater things, so do the spiritual disciplines or prayer and fasting prepare us to do greater spiritual things.
God doesn’t want our spiritual lives to be ones of trying hard only to fail. He wants our spiritual lives to be ones of training wisely in order to experience breakthrough. Trying hard produces tragedy. Training hard leads to triumph.
As Christians, we long to be like Jesus and wonder why we can’t do the things that Jesus did. Why can’t we do these things? We don’t do what Jesus did because we don’t do what Jesus did. Jesus trained. He prayed and fasted. And because of it, when a problem came up, He had the spiritual power that he needed for that situation.
Question: When it comes to spiritual growth, do you find yourself trying hard or training wisely? What have been the results of your efforts?
Our church-wide 21 days of prayer and fasting is about spiritual training. It’s about realizing that seeing change in our lives and encountering God in a fresh way doesn’t happen simply by trying hard. It requires intentional training.
Why are prayer and fasting so important when there are so many other important spiritual practices? Because Jesus told us to.
- Read John 4.31–34.
Fasting removes our natural fuel so prayer can replace it with supernatural fuel. These verses show us that, even though Jesus hadn’t been eating, He was full. He was full of a kind of fuel that sustains in ways food and drink never could (John 4.7–14). Nowhere did Jesus experience hunger and thirst more severely than on the cross. And yet that’s precisely where He was able to bring the greatest power to our problems—His life given for our sin. It was Jesus’ dependence on supernatural fuel that enabled Him to bring power to people’s problems.
God wants us to live in the same way. He doesn’t want us to live in the failure that comes from trying hard but in the breakthrough that comes through training wisely. He wants us to be able to face our problems in His power. He wants us to help those around us who are struggling via His power.
Question: What steps are you taking this week to begin training wisely? What problems do you believe God will empower you to overcome through your training?
To help train successfully, consider these 3 questions as you begin your fast:
#1 What are you fasting from?
Prayerfully figure out what God is calling you to fast from over these 21 days. Use our online resource for suggestions if needed. Have a plan. If you mess up, don’t worry about it; just get back on track and move on.
#2 What are you fasting toward?
Don’t just stop eating or using social media during the next 3 weeks. Direct that time and energy into something spiritually profitable: prayer, Bible reading, serving, etc. As Dallas Willard said, “Fasting unto Jesus is feasting on Him and on doing His will”.
#3 What are you fasting for?
In other words, what do you hope will come out of this fasting season (family change, overcoming addictions, greater faith)? What changes in your personal life do you hope to see? What changes in our world are you hoping for (refugee crisis, ISIS, unreached people groups)? Name 2-3 key objectives that you’re training for during this fast.
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