Prayer and Fasting

Scripture: Mar 9:28-29 And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.

Observation: Jesus told his disciples that they needed to pray and fast in order to see his power and purpose come to pass in their lives. We know that God told us that he came so that we would be free; and most certainly it was his will that the young man who was demon possessed would be free of that oppression. However, his disciples were not able to cast out the demon. The purpose of prayer and fasting is not to break the demonic oppression, that somehow a session of prolonged spiritual warfare would have set the young man free. We know this because when Jesus set the young man free, he simply commanded the Demon to come out. He did not have a 24 hour prayer and fasting session. Rather, what Jesus demonstrated was prolonged times of prayer and fasting daily. His discipline was to go to a quiet place and have fellowship with the Father in prayer and fasting. Evidently his disciples were not so disciplined. At the garden of Gethsemane on the night of Jesus crucification, recall that his disciples could not pray for even an hour. Jesus however, was very comfortable spending hours in prayer and fasting.

Application: We need to be people of prayer and fasting. How many of us could pray for even an hour? How many of us spend a significant amount of time every day in prayer, worship, fasting, bible reading? How can we expect to see God's power and purpose come to pass in our lives if we don't?

Prayer: Dear Father, Help us to live our lives fully devoted to you. Help us turn our lives up side down and begin to make you first in our lives. Let us be your people, and let us declare that you are our God in word and deed. May our lives be a testimony to your love and grace. May we act like your children, and may we not act like children of this world. In Jesus name, Amen!