TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 20TH SEPTEMBER 2022)
“Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.” Luke 4:1-2 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 263RD DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
Our victorious God has done it again; giving us another day to be alive and well. This is the Day the LORD has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it.
It has been a 30-day journey of faith with the cry of the Spirit on Biblical fasting. We have seen few things that are only possible when we fast; blessings and grace dimensions that only flow in our lives when we seek the LORD through Biblical fasting.
Today is the 20th day of this journey of faith and we will be looking at types of Biblical fasting. It is my prayer that it will take us further into the realm of truth in Jesus precious name, amen!
The first type of Biblical fasting I want to bring to our attention is what we call “absolute fast.” This is a fast that involves voluntarily eliminating food and water intake for a specific time and purpose.
Like all kinds of Biblical fasting, this is usually driven by a righteous burden. The weight of the burden is what pushes you not to take food or water while dedicating yourself to the LORD and seeking His face during the period.
Most times we do not start this fast saying, we will not take food or water, the weight of the burden in our heart is what shuts down our desire for food and water. Do not forget, nothing in God’s kingdom is usually born by flesh and blood, no act of worship or devotion is usually a flesh and blood thing. From our fasting to our prayers, everything is usually born of the Spirit.
Until a fast is born of the Spirit, it will yield nothing in a man’s life. So, absolute fast is usually born of a righteous burden God put in our heart. It is done in secret with our God who sees in secret, but rewards are open.
Most of what our fathers did in their days was absolute fast. They got great victories and turn things around through their absolute fast. They withstood great kings and wicked rulers through their absolute fast. The paralyzed the demonic and brought people out of grips of darkness through absolute fast.
THERE ARE DIMENSIONS OF FAITH WE WILL NEVER UNLOCK UNTIL WE APPROACH THE THRONE OF GOD THROUGH ABSOLUTE FAST.
Most of what is Biblical fasting actually involves not taking water and food.
People have said Jesus took water during His 40 day fast, and I have said that too. We all said
“when Jesus ended His fast, the Bible says He was hungry, the Bible did not say He was thirsty, meaning he took water, because it is impossible for the human body to survive without water for that long”
It sounded very logical. But it paralyzed our faith for absolute fast.
Thank God I could not drink water while fasting. It would have ruined me, because many people began to take juice while fasting, others even began to take tea and all that. We read our ideas into God’s truth and began to diet instead of fast.
It became worse when we discovered that the American preachers we revered did such dieting called fasting. But today we know that it is the gate way of carnality and empty religion. We could no longer put our bodies under subjection then. We began living a life that is opposite the faith we all professed. It was really terrible.
The termination of absolute fast in the lives of so many believers is even the reason many now get sick through fasting. Absolute fast is a fast we do when we step into the cloud of glory by faith.
You will never fall sick or catch ulcers by it if you do it under the cloud of glory.
That is why you do not engage in it for a long time until the cloud of glory sits on you. You continue in it, as long as the cloud sits, and stop when it is lifted. That is how to engage in the Biblical fast we call absolutely fast. You see all that in the life of Moses then Christ.
The LORD brought the fast of Moses and that of Christ to my attention when He was delivering me from the lie that I had believed that Jesus took water during his 40 day fast, and I discovered that just as Moses never took water, Jesus never did either. They all fasted under the cloud and never took water or food all those days.
They were not hungry for 40 days because they were in a realm of the Spirit where hunger or thirst is impossible.
CONCERNING THE FAST OF CHRIST, OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT SAID,
“Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.” Luke 4:1-2 NKJV
Jesus came under the cloud when the Spirit moved Him to fast. He was in that realm for 40 days, and was never hungry.
When the Bible says “…afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry” it was showing us what happened to Him when the cloud was lifted. He became hungry only when the cloud was lifted. Absolute fast is a fast you do when the cloud of Glory rest upon you. In that realm you will never feel like eating or taking water.
That is why if the cloud has not rested on you, do not embark on it for a long time. It will destroy your health and ruin you completely.
Fasting, like every other kingdom activity should not be something you do in the flesh. It should be something you do in the Spirit. If you look at the fast of Moses, you will see the same pattern. The Bible says;
“So Moses arose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up to the mountain of God. And he said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Indeed, Aaron and Hur are with you. If any man has a difficulty, let him go to them.”
Then Moses went up into the mountain, and a cloud covered the mountain.
Now the glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.
The sight of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel.
So Moses went into the midst of the cloud and went up into the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights. Exodus 24:13-18 NKJV
In the 1980s we called absolute fast, “being on the mountain.” Moses went up the mountain and a cloud of glory covered him. He was there for 40 days and 40 nights. That was not ordinary. God never designed fasting to be ordinary. He designed it to be supernatural.
Like Moses, through their faith, men and women of the earlier decades, and 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s went up the mountain of absolute fast and the cloud of God’s glory covered them for the days they were there. That was why they unlocked the glory they did.
MOSES AND JESUS WERE REPEATED IN THEIR LIVES.
They came down from their fast with God’s glory on their faces and the power of the LORD in their lives.
I remember one man just greeted his wife, “good morning my dear” and the glory of the LORD fell upon her. She began to prophesy and she could not eat or do anything because of the weight of glory that sat on her for days. That is what I am talking about; real power not the witchcraft power you see in our churches today being demonstrated by the use of oil, salt, water and all that.
Every preacher who was walking in the power of God in those days was a man or woman of the mountain of God’s glory. None used oil, water, salt or whatever you see being used in CHURCH today.
I remember one warrior I spent a weekend with, helping him, because he was invited to preach in our church. I could not fathom the kind of glory he carried. He was a man of absolute fasting. I spent the nights at his feet while he prayed, studying what manner of walk he maintained with the LORD. The days of real power must come back.
It is my prayer that we get back to the cloud of glory and begin to seek the LORD the way our fathers did so that we can walk in absolute power.
Absolute fast will bring absolute power from the Throne of God; a power you will not need to display using oil, water, salt, sand, prayer clothes, and all that, just as God never did when he was creating the earth.
All these idols in our hands; olive oil, holy water, salt for prayer, sand and etc. must be jettisoned for the glory of the LORD to return. We must get back to the GOD who appeared to our fathers without form, because preachers use those things because they feel driven to worship them.
A powerless set of Christians will always feel driven to submit to the use of (or worship) something that will help them experience the supernatural, calling it prophetic acts. Sadly, they will always find scriptures to stand on to do that. But God warned that we should not submit to the use of things in our quest for the supernatural because it is idolatry.
I believe enough has been shared!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY
“Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire,
lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air,
the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth.
And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the LORD your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage.” Deuteronomy 4:15-19 NKJV