21 DAYS OF PRAYER & FASTING

JAN 5 - JAN 25, 2025

Prayer should be our first response.

You are entering a pivotal 21 days in your life and as a Church. As we commit to setting aside distractions to focus on seeking the heart of God. 

Biblical fasting always has to do with eliminating distractions for a spiritual purpose. It hits the reset button of our soul and renews us from the inside out! It also enables us to celebrate the goodness and mercy of God and prepares our hearts for all of the good things God desires to bring into our lives.

As you prepare for your time in prayer and fasting, consider purposefully making space in your schedule and your home for time with God. Take time. Be still. Meditate on the Word and let it take root. Don’t rush. Be with God. Focus fully on Him. You will not regret the effort and sacrifice of fasting and prayer. Expect great things from God in the seasons following your intentional time in prayer and fasting.

7 Basic Steps to Successful Fasting & Prayer 

By Bill Bright

STEP 1: Set Your Objective Why are you fasting? 

STEP 2: Make Your Commitment Pray about the kind of fast you should undertake. 

STEP 3: Prepare Yourself Spiritually The very foundation of fasting and prayer is repentance, forgiveness, and meditation on God’s word. 

STEP 4: Prepare Yourself Physically Fasting requires reasonable precautions. Consult your physician first, especially if you take prescription medication or have any medical issues or concerns. 

STEP 5: Put Yourself on a Schedule For maximum spiritual benefit, set aside ample time to be alone with the Lord. Listen for His leading. The more time you spend with Him, the more meaningful your fast will be. Remember fasting without prayer is just a diet. 

STEP 6: End Your Fast Gradually Particularly, if doing a complete fast, begin eating gradually. Do not eat solid foods immediately after your fast. Try several smaller meals or snacks each day. 

STEP 7: Expect Results If you sincerely humble yourself before the Lord, repent, pray, and seek God’s face; if you consistently meditate on His Word, you will experience fresh, new spiritual insights and answers to your prayers. 

Lifestyle Prayer

How do we make prayer a part of our everyday life? 

We can learn from three things that Jesus did… Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed (Mark 1:35).

A CERTAIN TIME 

Jesus got up very early in the morning to spend time with His Heavenly Father. In order for prayer to work, we should do the same. Make a daily appointment with God and keep it.

A CERTAIN PLACE 

Jesus had a prayer place. Your prayer place needs to be an undistracted environment where you can pray out loud and perhaps have some worship music playing in the background. 

A CERTAIN PLAN 

Go into your prayer time with a plan. If it changes that’s fine. When Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, He gave His disciples a prayer outline. We call it the Lord’s Prayer. This outline along with several other tools are available in this booklet. 

Types of Fasts

Selective Fast

This type of fast involves removing certain elements from your diet. One example of a selective fast is the Daniel Fast, during which you remove meat, sweets, and bread from your diet and consume water and juice for fluids and fruits and vegetables for food.

Partial Fast

This fast is sometimes called the “Jewish Fast” and involves abstaining from eating any type of food in the morning and afternoon. This can either correlate to specific times of the day, such as 6:00 am to 3:00 pm, or from sunup to sundown.

Complete Fast

In this type of fast, you drink only liquids, typically water with light juices as an option.

Soul Fast

This fast is a great option if you do not have much experience fasting food, have health issues that prevent you from fasting food, or if you wish to refocus certain areas of your life that are out of balance. For example, you might choose to stop using social media or watching television for the duration of the fast and then carefully bring that element back into your life in healthy doses at the conclusion of the fast.

The timing of your fast is not as important as the strength of your focus on God as you fast.

Scripture References 

Matthew 6:16-18 

Matthew 9:14-15 

Luke 18:9-14 

Acts 27:33-37 

Nehemiah 9:1-3