Monday, June 8, 2015

Saul of Tarsus: What Fasting and Prayer did for him







 Beloved, behold the new day the Lord has made! For in it, we have the opportunity to rejoice and further praise His Holy Name. May the grace of God the Father and the peace of the Son, Jesus Christ the Lord be with you and multiplied to you more and more. Amen. With that prayer and blessing being bestowed upon you, who will believe it and receive it, I now invite you Into My HEART...



 Let me first start out by saying, out of the many times I read this passage and many others that revealed the immense blessings from the Lord God through a peoples fasting and prayer to Him, I never realized the full significance of it until I began reading Jentezen Franklin’s “Fasting.” I recommend this book. It will certainly help you grasp the sheer goodness and magnitude of its power to know God’s will and walk with Him more closely than ever before. 

Yet, now I rejoice in the Lord and how fasting not only causes a people to hear from God, through prayer accompanied with fasting, we are never more brought closer to the Lord then when we are in biblical fasting. For in it, we are truly weak, and in need of God’s power being perfected in us, through us and all around us. Amen. 

It was through fasting and prayer Moses received the blessing of the written Law on Mt. Sanai from God Himself! It was through fasting and prayer Daniel received a message from an angel of the Lord and saw this angel with his own eyes! It was through fasting and prayer Esther was chosen above all others to become the wife of a king and through winning his heart an evil plot against the Jewish nation, by a wicked man named Haman was thwarted and her people; the Jewish nation was not annihilated. It was through fasting and prayer our Lord came out victorious from His wilderness temptation. Satan lost, halleluyah, our Lord Jesus won! It was through fasting and prayer, our Lord received revelation on who would be His 12 disciples (further instituting to all His followers, that this is the model to draw near to God and receive divine revelation for the mission and supplying its appropriate missionaries). 

And again, through fasting and prayer, Saul later to be called by His Roman name, Paul from the Greek [Paulus: this isn’t coincidence by the way. God is always intentional with His people; His chosen, and how He goes about accomplishing His will], received a vision from the Lord about gaining His sight [physical and spiritual (“scales falling off” equals judicial blindness caused by God to His people Israel concerning the Messiah to be removed)], gaining a brother, and if that was not enough, received the Holy Spirit, halleluyah, the Companion of all companions! He also (God blessed this man in abundance as He does to all through fasting and prayer) received the revelation of his life’s ministry AND boldness from the beginning to preach about Jesus, not only being the Son of God but also the Messiah who has been long awaited by the Jewish nation. Praise the Lord!

Fasting and prayer is what Paul was speaking of concerning (Romans 12:1-2) to his Roman and Greek audience. He knew the depths of the riches in Christ through it as he lived it! By it, he was in that very position to receive God’s grace, Spirit, wisdom, revelation and boldness to preach and preach the Word he did! This too, shall be me to God’s glory and praise. PRAY FOR ME as I continue to fast and pray, that I too, shall be with wisdom and revelation and boldness to preach the kingdom of heaven in which is Christ the Lord! 

Beloved, through fasting and prayer we too, can “give” our bodies; that is, “present” our bodies as a living sacrifice. A sacrifice, our bodies go through, in fasting and prayer jointly. Through it, medically speaking, toxins are released through our body in many ways, our minds are “renewed,” and in such contamination being emptied out God can be poured in, and we all shall be able to test and prove what is God’s will for our lives, in which is good and also perfect and pleasing. Halleluyah! 

Therefore, beloved, I end with this. What Paul wrote I will also record here so that we would gain every bit of Christ through fasting and prayer and know without a shadow of a doubt that our prayer has been answered and our bodies are utilized to fulfill God’s will in a personal, intimate and powerful way!:


“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:1-2 NIV).


One last thing, as such glorious insight has been pieced together and readily available to me by the Spirit through my fasting and prayer in which I have only begun, going on the second day now. If God will move so quickly as it were to me who has never truly fasted in a proper way other than wanting to know Him and become free from things that had a hold on me in this world (I suppose that is the right way), He can and will do the same with you. 

Through fasting and prayer, your praise for Him intensifies, your connection to Him increases, your acuteness to His will sharpens and you are able to hear from Him. Know this, all things are possible for the one who believes in the Lord and does not doubt. You too, upon fasting and prayer, may very well see angels and hear the audible voice of God as I have had the pleasure of seeing and hearing. Halleluyah! Our Father, the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit, I pray under the grace given me during this fasting, and during yours, be with you and their presence be multipled in you and before you like never before. Amen. 

As always…YOU ARE LOVED.

— F. Lugo
4/21/15

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