Deliverance and Victory
Word for the Week - January 6, 2025
Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from Him the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions. So, we fasted and entreated our God for this, and He answered our prayer. Ezra 8:21, 23
Generation on fire, I greet you in the name of Christ our great Deliverer. It is that time when resolutions have been written and the ink is dry with great hope. It is also the time when the faithful around the world seek the face of God. It never occurred to me, and I do not claim to have any empirical evidence on the correlation between the two, but my innermost man tells me that they are closely related. Philippians 4:13 says “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Faced with daunting goals and battling the uphill climb that is life we have only Jesus to turn to. We fast and pray to usher in the deliverance and victory that we cannot achieve on our own.
In this word, the prophet Ezra and the Israelites faced a treacherous return journey from Babylon where they had been exiled to Jerusalem, their homeland. The road was infested with bandits and the journey seemed a tall order, but they decided to rely on the protection of God. In the end, the result of collective fasting and prayer was a decisive victory for the people who put their trust in God. The bible is littered with many similar stories. In 2 Chronicles 20:1-30, Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, received word of a large invading army and immediately proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah and led His people in prayer, reminding God of His covenant with them. The outcome was a full and complete victory without the use of any kind of military weapons by the Judeans. Similarly, when we come together to fast and pray, the Lord God delivers us mightily and saves our families, communities, cities and nations from what would have been certain disasters.
As we start the year, I want to encourage everyone to undertake a fast individually and collectively. Engage with other believers around you and you will be surprised at what the Lord can do when His people collectively sing a familiar tune that warms His heart. In the New Testament, Christians not only practiced fasting and praying individually as part of their personal discipline but as part of their corporate ministry to God. Through prayer and fasting, the disciples ministered to the Lord and in return, the Holy Spirit ministered to them direction and power needed for their ministry and to run their heavenly race. It was during fasting and prayer at Antioch that the Holy Spirit said, “Separate to Me Barabas and Saul (later Paul) for the work that I have called them.” It follows that fasting with prayer is the way to receive divine direction.
Each time we fast and unite in prayer, we discipline our body and remove the carnal barriers that prevent the Holy Spirit’s power from working in us. This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:27 “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” Derek Prince summarizes this topic well when he says fasting deals with the stubborn self-will of the soul and the insistent self-gratifying appetites of the body. Rightly practiced, fasting combined with prayer brings both soul and body into subjection to the Holy Spirit. Let us gladly enter this glorious subjection!
Prayer
Father instill in me the discipline to bring my body into subjection by the Holy Spirit. Teach me to do away with the self gratifying appetites of the body and to instead focus on you. Amen