Dear beloved: We are talking about the practical aspects of day to day walking in the Spirit, what it means to walk it out in your daily walk with the Lord. The first part of walking in the Spirit is daily prayer, and then on those occasions when more clarity or deliverance is needed, fasting is added to the prayer regimen. Fasting deals with our pride, our boasting, our inclination as humans to exalt ourself rather than to continually honor God in all things. Fasting is truly afflicting our soul, not for the attention of men to gain their favor, but for asking God for mercy and His protection. Isaiah says in Isaiah 58:6 "Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; You will cry, and He will say, 'Here I am.'. If you remove the yoke from your midst; The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness. v10 And if you give yourself to the hungry, And satisfy the desire of the afflicted, Then your light will rise in darkness, And your gloom will become like midday."
As you humble yourself, you also take on a heart of gratitude, you will become thankful for every little thing that the Lord has given you, from the air and the sunshine on your face, to the food and water that sustain you on a daily basis. As you quit pointing your accusing finger at others in an attempt to exalt yourself, you will then release them from any burdens of expectation and control over them that you may have been practicing. God loves a humble and a contrite heart and when you fast and pray your heart will become tender and contrite, the hardness of all the yokes and bonds of wickedness will begin to fall off. David speaks it in Psalms 51:16 "For Thou desires not sacrifice; else I would give it: Thou delights not in burnt offering. v17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou will not despise."
Years ago during a period of fasting the Lord dealt with my pride, as I had let pride and boasting creep into my spirit. The Lord spoke to me in the night in an audible voice that woke me up from a deep sleep, "Deuteronomy 8!" I immediately got up and went to my Bible, and realized that the Lord was speaking to me about the boasting about the organic farm and business that I had successfully built up. Deuteronomy 8 is a warning given to the children of Israel, before He took them into the promised land, about staying humble and thanking the Lord for all things given to them. Deut 8:11 Beware lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; v12 lest, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, v13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and all that you have multiplies, v14 then your heart becomes proud, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. As you pray and fast today, give the Lord thanks for delivering you from the house of slavery into His bountiful land! God bless you, in Christ, Jim www.gathertheoutcasts.com
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