Through Prayer And Fasting

I know what it is to be in prayer and fasting for many days without food and at times without water. The immediate evidence we experience is weakness of body and lack of focus in mind. This is a given. However, the scriptures reveal another weakness altogether. The weakness of the flesh. Not that of physical might, but that which are the desires and passions of our own flesh. Fasting and prayer to God is the remedy for this. It quite literally works as a crucifying of our flesh. To put to death the activities in our members. Those very things that are concerned with the things of man and not the things of God. With that said, I now invite you Into My HEART.




Through prayer and fasting we know God’s power and wisdom in which is Jesus Christ the Lord. As it is written: Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:24) 

We must continually go up to God’s holy mountain to be in prayer and fasting to Him in order to come down with His power and wisdom. And this is power—you are healed in the name of Jesus Christ. And this is wisdom—All things are possible with God.

JESUS HEALS A DEMON-POSSESSED BOY

And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, “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.” (Matthew 17:14‭-‬21) 

The reason why the disciples couldn’t cast out the demon of a certain father’s son, was that the power and wisdom of God ran its course. Prior to the disciples going about preaching the kingdom of God, casting out demons and healing the sick, Jesus went up the mountain and spent the night in prayer to God. He did not eat (continued all night in prayer to God). Therefore, He prayed and fasted. What was the result for which He went up to pray throughout the night? He had power and wisdom from God. The power to call His disciples to Himself; and from them He chose twelve whom He also named apostles. Also, to send them out giving them power and authority over all demons, to cure diseases, and to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. 

Therefore, the disciples not being able to cast out this demon when they initially had success, victory and triumph over such matters, in that ‘the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.”’ (Luke 10:17). Was that they had not followed the principle of faith that Jesus their Lord and Teacher exhibited before them—the principle of fasting and prayer. 

Therefore, news reached Jesus of his disciples failure to cast out a demon and when he came he heard the report from the demon-possessed boy’s father and then immediately casted out the demon and he came out of the boy. However, He addressed the disciples failure twofold concerning why they couldn’t cast out the demon:

• He said because of your unbelief. That revealed the lack of wisdom, in that, in their hearts at the present, all things weren’t possible with God.

• He furthered said to them However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. In which would have kept them with God’s power to cast out demons.

Now a question arises. What kind of demon was it? As Jesus said, this kind. And why did this kind come out except by prayer and fasting. Although people categorize demons through various depictions of people suffering from a demon in the Gospel narratives and also in the Book of Acts (16:16-18). I think it wasn’t so much a type of demon that required fasting and prayer because how could the disciples know beforehand what kind of demon possession they would encounter on any given day?! I believe demon-possession in all its facets by necessity demands prayer and fasting and it has nothing to do with the bodies reaction to the possession, ‘For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.’ (Ephesians 6:12).

Therefore, the disciples previous successes ‘against spiritual hosts of wickedness’ was piggybacked off of the wisdom and power Jesus possessed through His time on the mountain where He was met with God’s powerful presence and provision through fasting and prayer just as it was with Moses and with Elijah (see Exodus 24:12-18; 1 Kings 18:41-46). And since the scripture says that Jesus called them and gave them. We can see that it was of His will and not theirs. It was of His own resources within Him that He called and gave. Therefore, this to me is what God is showing me; showing us. It is He who calls us to a particular thing and it is He who gives us power and authority in which is His alone to give, to accomplish the thing for which He has called us to!

Side note: From the reading of Exodus chapter 24 through chapter 32, all that we read is what was revealed and given to Moses by God as wisdom for him, Aaron, the elders and the whole of Israel. Those 40 days and 40 nights (click here) served as the catalyst for the institution of what Israel would know as their proper worship of the Living God.

Since the disciples themselves by revelation of being unsuccessful by what Jesus told them afterwards, we can deduce and know that the disciples did not pray and fast. Therefore, by result wisdom and power had left them (or better yet, was not theirs to exercise in their own strength and understanding. Thereby revealing to us, that Jesus was teaching them something far greater in importance and priority than the mere physical effort of ministry, but that ministry is not reserved to physical means but that of the Spirit!)

And indeed it is by the Spirit of God that demons are casted out and the kingdom of God is preached.


Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David?” Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.” But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. 
(Matthew 12:22‭-‬28)

And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:1‭-‬5‭, ‬10‭-‬16)

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant: You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. 

(1 Corinthians 12:1‭-‬11)

One last thing the Holy Spirit reveals to me. The scriptures declare that Jesus is the wisdom of God and the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:24-25) and that He lives forever to make intercession for the saints (Hebrews 7:25). The scriptures do not declare Jesus had God’s wisdom and power but that He is God’s wisdom and power. Therefore, if God’s wisdom and power come through prayer and fasting as the scriptures reveal while being in His presence, we can rejoice, those of us who are called and given, that Jesus is now not only in perpetual prayer but He is also in perpetual fasting as He has said, ‘I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My father’s kingdom’ and the scriptures further declare, that He ascended back to heaven to be at the right hand of the Power—God’s holy presence. Halleluyah!

Therefore, let us who the Holy Spirit gives the ministry of healing to and that the Lord has said to go and preach the Word, do so through continual praying and fasting so we can experience God’s perpetual wisdom, power and authority in which are His to give to those who He has called. Amen.

YOU ARE LOVED.

—F.A. Lugo
Started and initially drafted on 6/25/17 at 11:15 am
Finalized and posted on 10/5/18