Sunday 10th October 2021.
Bible Text: “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.” Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
Jesus said some kind of demons cannot be cast out except by PRAYER and FASTING. Undeniably, there is power in praying. The Bible says in James 5:16 “The heartfelt and persistent prayer of a righteous man (believer) can accomplish much”. Prayer is so important and powerful that Jesus had to teach the disciples how to pray in Matthew 6:5. Fasting on the other hand is highly effective and beneficial even when done for non-spiritual reasons.
Prayer on its own is powerful but when it is combined with spiritual fasting, it releases supernatural power that no demon can withstand. When Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the devil, He entered into a prolonged season of prayer and FASTING – 40 days in all (without bread or water). And Luke records (4:14) that after that time He returned “IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT”. Now Jesus was continually anointed of God – but something was clearly released in a whole new dimension through that period of prayer and fasting. Jesus knew this great value of fasting, and it seems that He developed a lifestyle of prayer and fasting. It’s clear He’d been fasting prior to this incident with the demon-possessed boy. Jesus was ready for every occasion of life and ministry BECAUSE He developed a lifestyle of prayer with fasting.
One of the greatest enemy of destiny is indiscipline in the area of food. The Bible says in Philippians 3:19 “their end is destruction, their god is their belly”.
Listen to the full sermon on https://youtu.be/3JDw78W2YrY
