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Real life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim

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truth, equip the saints and impact our culture.

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We're going to talk about real quick, fast and in prayer, what's to it, what of it, should

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we do it?

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Stay tuned, we'll find out.

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You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast.

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Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ,

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then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings.

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To us, that's like saying, amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen.

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Now open your hearts to what God's Word has to say to you.

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Here is Jack Hibbs.

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So one of the things that we, as believers, talk about and most often get wrong is this

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practice or this thing called fasting.

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Fasting of course connected to prayer, fasting is irrelevant without prayer and you do understand

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that I'm not talking about health fast or fasting for health reasons.

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That is fantastic and there are great reasons why you should fast for health reasons and

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that's not what I'm talking about.

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The sad thing about the Christian church today is that when God gives us something to do

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or gives us an opportunity or ability to pursue Him for answers or to have ourselves receive

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clarity, we often make it so difficult and we jumble it all up that we make it so for

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boating and terrifying that we won't even touch it.

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Fasting is one of those things.

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Fasting is a word that it's almost like don't mention it because it's so heavy.

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When we fast, we've got to talk like a monk, we've got to conduct ourselves in a spirit

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of sombreness.

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Jesus said, don't do that.

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Jesus said, when you fast, annoy your head, your, your, your, annoy your face, wash your

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face, put on a smile, look like unto others as though you're not fasting.

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Don't go around and tell people, hey, you know I'm fasting.

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Okay, just stop.

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Go get a burger because what you're doing is that's not it.

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Fasting is not something that should actually be routine.

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Now, I know I'm going to get mail and some of them from some good friends that they fast

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every Friday or Monday, they fast once a week to seek the Lord.

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That's awesome.

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That's great.

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God bless them.

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I don't know their heart.

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God does.

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And if it's that routine that works for them, that's between them and God and that's amazing.

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Then there's the fast where we know from Scripture when Jesus said it, for example, the disciples

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of, of John the Baptist and even the Pharisees asked, hey, Jesus, why don't your disciples

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fast?

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Jesus says, why should they fast?

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I'm with them right now.

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The time's going to come when I'm gone, but why would the children of the bridegroom

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fast when the bridegrooms with them?

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When I'm gone, then they'll fast.

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What a great answer.

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When we fast, the fast is to not change the mind of God.

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I'm going to repeat that because I just, a lot of people in the Pentecostal circles just

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turned this off.

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No, I thought when we fast and pray, we can change God's mind.

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Wrong.

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When we fast and pray, coupling those two disciplines together, it changes us and morphs

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us to receive the will of God.

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Fast and in prayer conforms us into the image of Jesus Christ regarding that thing, whatever

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that thing might be.

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So if you're fast and in praying because your child is sick, you're doing that not because

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somebody said, you know, to get your son healthy, you should fast and pray.

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They didn't tell you that.

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At least I hope they didn't tell you that.

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You're fasting and praying because you don't want to eat.

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You're so committed to prayer for your child in a sense, you're grieving over your child

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situation and you have given up on food to pray.

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Daniel gave up food to pray.

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I should say technically, Daniel gave up certain types of food to pray.

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Now Moses, for example, Jesus, for example, both of them fasted and prayed for 40 days,

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which is anatomically, physiologically, biologically, impossible.

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If somebody says, I'm going to fast for, I'm going to do it, Jesus, I'm going to fast

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for 40 days.

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I mean, Moses did it, I can do it.

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You're going to die.

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Don't do that.

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Moses and Jesus were supernaturally sustained by God.

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No water for 40 days.

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You can't live without water for, I think it's eight days.

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God sustained them supernaturally, okay, in their fast.

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So our zeal and our legalism can get so pumped up that we can say, I'm going to do this.

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But listen, wait a minute, just before you do this, why are you telling people you're

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going to do it?

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And why are you doing it?

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Well, because I need God to do something for me.

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Don't do it.

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But if you're grieved, moved, burdened, if you are prompted to intercede, to fast and

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pray, to hear God's heart and mind on something, like Daniel did in Daniel chapter 8, 9, 10,

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to prepare yourself to hear from God, that's the purpose of fasting and praying.

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But please know this, that you can pray, we are to pray always without ceasing.

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This is beautiful.

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It just means that you and I, as believers, are in a constant mindset of prayer every moment

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of the day.

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Are there times for people to, are there times for us to break away and spend alone time

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with God in prayer?

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Absolutely.

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But just know this.

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We should always be in an open dialogue with God, which is prayer 24, 7, 365.

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Isn't that what prayer is when you're talking to God?

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Isn't that prayer?

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Isn't that what it is?

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You see what I didn't even thought about that way, but when I pray, you know, I'm praying

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for my finances or for my wife or for our marriage or for my children or for my aunt

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or my uncle or world peace, of course you are.

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But that doesn't have to be where you pull over on the freeway and get on the side of

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the freeway and get on your knees and pray.

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When you're talking with God, you are expressing to Him, Lord, oh my goodness, I just heard

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about this, oh Lord, be with, be with that family, I just heard about on the news and

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the radio, oh Lord, and you, that's a genuine authentic prayer.

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You know, Jesus also said that to the man who stood with his head down, would not even

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look up to heaven and prayed this prayer and said, and smoked upon his chest, the Bible

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says, dear God, be merciful to me a sinner.

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And across the street, Jesus said, there was a Pharisee that said, God, I think you, I'm

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not like other people, he probably gestures over to this guy.

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I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of all of my earnings.

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Jesus said, I tell you what, that guy, he has his reward, that's it, he's got it.

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This guy who beat upon his chest in self-loathing of his sinful nature, his prayer was heard.

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God looks at the heart.

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So when we fast, there's various fast in the Bible for you to read and study about, but

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notice none of the people in the Bible fasted to fast.

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They fasted because they had a purpose, they fasted because they had a reason.

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This doesn't happen in the United States anymore, frankly, because my opinion, which is probably

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true, I think it is, is we don't, our presidents don't call for a time for fasting and

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prayer anymore.

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Did you know that the United States and its founding and its presidents, all the way

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up to, I do believe it might have been George Bush, if you can believe that, called for

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a day of national prayer and repentance.

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We don't do that anymore, we don't need God anymore.

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We've got AI and we've got Teslas and we don't need God, right?

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So when we call out to God, there should be desperation behind that, even if it's the,

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even if it's the thinking for your meal, we can say, dear God in heaven, thank you for

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this meal, amen.

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Or we can actually be saying, Lord, thank you for this meal.

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And in that second, in that prayer, I'm really meaning this, Lord, I want to thank you

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that we had the money to buy this food, we had the gas or the electricity to cook it,

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and the remarkable ability to be together with friends and our family to eat it.

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You're safe right now, there's a roof over our head.

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And with this food, God that I'm going to take in, I pray that it gives me us energy

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and strength to do whatever you want us to do with these bodies in Jesus' name, amen.

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I can pray a prayer that's three seconds long and have all that meaning packed into

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it.

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It's not the length of your prayer that makes it acceptable.

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In fact, the Bible says in the Old Testament, when you come before God in prayer, let your

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words be fuel, isn't that powerful?

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Legalism says, take up the whole prayer meeting, man.

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Just pray it hour.

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Nope.

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And the other thing is to go without food without the right heart, you're just dieting.

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But if your heart is right, meaning God, and this is what I would look for in your life,

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in my life.

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What I want to see is God prompting you to pray.

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And the thought enters your mind, Lord, I am so grieved over this situation, or I so

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need to hear your voice on this, that I'm giving up on food to convert that time I would

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spend in preparing food, eating food, cleaning up afterwards, I don't want to do that.

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I'm going to go spend that hour with you, seeking you.

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And I kind of believe, that's not kind of.

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I do believe what I'm about to tell you, and yet this works for me, and I'm not imposing

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it upon you.

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The more my conversation with God is unstructured, the more personal it becomes.

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Does it make sense?

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I am not knocking prayer journals.

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Those are awesome because you can write down what you're concerned about, and then the

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other column is the answer that God gives you, and then you write down the answer when

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that time comes.

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I'm knocking that.

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That's really great.

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But I'm talking about, instead of prayers that are wrote, prayers, look, I don't mean to

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offend anybody, but instead of picking up, rather than picking up the common book of prayer

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and reciting this prayer for Tuesday, it's better for you to just talk to God about what's

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on your heart.

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And if that involves you fasting, because you want to get God's heart in mind on what's

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going on, fasting clears the webs.

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It clears the atmosphere, fasting, I don't know, I don't understand how this works.

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But physical fasting causes you to spiritually focus and to hear better, spiritually speaking.

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I can't explain how that works, but it does work.

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So be careful about that.

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In the moment you make it legalistic, it's not working.

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It's not going to work.

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The moment you make it a routine that this is what we do every Wednesday.

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Think about an intimate personal relationship with someone, and this is what we do every

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Wednesday.

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We have to have spaghetti and meatballs on Wednesday.

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It's like, really, all right, well, I think God is much more personal than that.

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Let Him prompt you, let Him call you to fasting.

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But just know this.

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In fact, I'm going to recommend you a book and please, you're going to have to search

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out the author.

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I forget his name, but the book is, in my opinion, the best book to read on fasting

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in prayer.

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And it is the book, God's chosen fast, God's chosen fast.

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That's the title of the book.

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I'm sorry, I just popped into my head.

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You'll have to Google who the author is.

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God's chosen fast, a fantastic book.

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Read it.

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You'll understand it much more better, and it's not something that you should make public,

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unless there's a public call for a fast and in prayer, like our Presidents used to do.

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That's different.

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That's national or state calls to repentance and prayer.

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They called them a proclamation of humiliation.

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But personally, privately, we should keep that personal and private before the Lord.

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And then finally, I'll say this.

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God says in His Word in the book of Isaiah, I would rather, with all of your new moons

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and your Sabbaths and your holy days that you guys do, and nothing ever changes, and all

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of your fasting, nothing changes, God says, this is the fast I would want from you.

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Fast from sin.

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Fast from wickedness.

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Fast from being rebellious, fast from doing what you think you should do, and do what

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I would have you to do.

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God, what a beautiful thing for Him to say.

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Fast from the wrong that you're doing.

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That's a fast.

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So grab your Bibles, do a word search on fast, fasting, fasted.

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Look at the answers that you're going to get.

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But look at the context in which that verse appears, and you're going to find a reason

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why they were fasting in the first place, and remember fasting without prayer is a diet.

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And that's not what we're talking about.

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We're talking about hearing from God, clearing the webs, focusing in so that His will will

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be conformed in us.

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That's the reason, that's the purpose for fasting and prayer.

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