Mensa Otabil - Serving the Lord With Prayer and Fasting
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Well, this is a final day—the last day. Forty days of power begins tomorrow, and I trust that your heart is ready, your body is ready, and you are ready to have an adventure with God in the next forty days as we serve the Lord with prayer and fasting.
Luke chapter 2, verses 36 and 37: Now there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of great age and had lived with a husband for seventy years from her virginity. This woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple but served God with fastings and prayers, night and day. This woman, called Anna, is the first person mentioned in the New Testament as a prophet or prophetess because she is a woman. It’s a very interesting idea that the first person noted as a prophet is a woman, and it’s one of those ways that the Holy Spirit brings our attention to the role of women in the New Testament, which is going to be different from the Old Testament. It is a very intentional placement of this woman in the life of Jesus Christ when He was born.
The Bible says that she was a widow; she had been married for seven years when her husband died, and now she is eighty-four years old. She spent all her years as a widow in prayer and fasting, just waiting on the Lord. She comes in, sees Jesus, and announces Jesus to everybody, making her the first preacher who announces Jesus Christ to the people, proclaiming that this is the Son of God.
What I want to focus on today is that this woman served God with fastings and prayers. It was her habit to fast and pray. This doesn’t mean that she was fasting and praying every single day, but she did it very often, and it was a service to God. This means that when we fast and pray, it is a service to God. We are serving God; it is a way of worship. As we start our 40 days of power, remember that we are doing service to God.
Let me give you a couple of guidelines as we start our fast. The first is to start slowly. If this is your first time fasting, I encourage you to begin very slowly by missing one meal a day for the first week. In the second week, you can miss two meals, and by the third week you should go for the full fast. However, as much as possible, do it in a way that doesn’t jeopardize your health. If you’re on medication, please be mindful of your doctor’s advice before you start this fast.
While you’re not eating food, you can take in plenty of liquids—preferably water. If you want to take some fruit juice or green tea, that’s fine as well. You need to rehydrate your body. So, Christian fasting, as we know it from Jesus, is not abstinence from water; it is abstinence from food. And don’t be legalistic. Sometimes, you might forget and accidentally put some food in your mouth. It doesn’t break your fast; just go ahead and eat that one morsel—don’t add another one—and finish your fast as you have planned.
People wonder, «If I’m brushing my teeth and the toothpaste is sweet, does that break my fast?» No, it doesn’t break your fast unless you actually eat the toothpaste! Just touching your tongue with it doesn’t break your fast. So, please don’t be legalistic; don’t be too concerned about not touching this and not breaking the fast. Just be focused on serving God, praying, waiting on the Lord, and being conscious of Him.
When you break your fast, please don’t break it with heavy food. Choose very light food so that your body can get used to it. During the forty days, you will find it much easier if you don’t eat heavy foods after breaking your fast.
I trust that tomorrow, when we meet, I will start teaching for these forty days on each day on a topic that will also serve as our prayer point. There will be prayer topics, and pastors will be praying throughout almost every day on our various platforms: websites, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Prayer will be ongoing, and you will also have the prayer guide to help you pray each day.
I trust that we will have an exciting forty days. I’m looking forward to it, and this evening I will launch it officially. Tomorrow, we will kick it off. See you tomorrow, Pastor Mensa Otabil. Shalom—peace and life to you!