Fasting: Pressing Into Grit, Grace and Greater Authority! A Call to Church Leaders, Intercessors and Praying Christians
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is… Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:1–3
Fasting is one of the great ancient spiritual disciplines given to the people of God, yet its purpose can easily be misunderstood. We do not fast to change God, persuade Him to love us more, or convince a reluctant God to release His power. God has already acted decisively through Christ. Grace is already available, the Holy Spirit has already been given, and the believer has already been raised with Christ. Fasting does not change God’s position towards us; it changes our disposition towards Him.
Colossians 3:1–3 provides a wonderful foundation for understanding this. Paul declares that we have been “raised with Christ” and that our lives are now “hidden with Christ in God”. Christian authority therefore begins not with fasting, prayer or spiritual warfare, but with our union with the victorious Christ. Ephesians 2:6 similarly says that God has “raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms”. We do not fast to climb into a place of authority; in Christ, that position has already been given to us.
The challenge is learning to live from our spiritual position while still inhabiting a very physical and distracting world. This is where grit and doggedness is needed. Paul immediately tells us to “set” our hearts and minds on things above. There is something deliberate about spiritual focus.
Our bodies have legitimate appetites and our souls contain thoughts, emotions, memories, ambitions, anxieties and desires. These are not inherently evil, but they can become extremely loud. Fasting voluntarily turns down some of that noise.
Scripture speaks of the whole person as spirit, soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23), and says that the believer is “one spirit” with the Lord (1 Corinthians 6:17). Fasting should therefore never be understood as hatred or punishment of the body. The body is God’s creation and must be properly cared for. Rather, fasting is a means of bringing our natural appetites into greater submission so that the influence of our regenerated spirit, in fellowship with the Holy Spirit, becomes increasingly prominent in our everyday lives.
In this sense, fasting does not give us more of the Holy Spirit as though He were dispensed according to how many meals we miss. Instead, fasting can enable the Holy Spirit to have more influence over us. The body becomes quieter, the soul becomes more attentive, and the regenerated spirit is given greater opportunity to respond to God. Jesus captured the principle when He said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Fasting reminds the whole person that bread is necessary, but God is ultimate.
We could compare fasting to raising the sail of a boat. The sailor cannot manufacture the wind; he can only position the sail to receive it. In the same way, we cannot manufacture God’s Grace, Anointing or Power. God supplies the wind; we raise the sail. Hebrews 4:16 tells us to approach the throne of grace boldly so that we may “find grace to help us in our time of need”. Fasting is one way of intentionally positioning ourselves before that throne, not to earn grace but to press more deeply into the grace that God has already made available.
We see this beautifully in Acts 13. While the leaders of the church at Antioch were “worshiping the Lord and fasting”, the Holy Spirit spoke: “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). Their fasting did not force the Holy Spirit to speak. Rather, worship, prayer and fasting created an environment of spiritual attentiveness in which they were able to discern His direction. One of the great missionary movements of the early Church emerged from believers who had learned how to wait, worship, fast and listen.
Humility, Submission and Spiritual Authority
James 4:7–10 gives us another powerful perspective on fasting, particularly if we consider the passage backwards, from verse 10 towards verse 7. Verse 10 says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” This is an excellent starting point because fasting is repeatedly associated with humility in Scripture. David said, “I humbled my soul with fasting” (Psalm 35:13), while Ezra proclaimed a fast “that we might humble ourselves before our God” (Ezra 8:21).
Fasting therefore begins by dealing not with the devil, but with ourselves. It reminds the body that its appetites are not lord and reminds the soul that it is not in control. James then speaks in verse 9 about mourning and taking our spiritual condition seriously, before saying in verse 8, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” This is the heart of genuine fasting: not demonstrating how spiritual we are, but intentionally drawing nearer to God.
Only then do we arrive at James 4:7: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” We often emphasise the second half of this verse without giving sufficient attention to the first. The authority to resist flows from a life submitted to God. Reading the passage backwards gives us a powerful spiritual progression: we humble ourselves before God, draw near to Him, submit ourselves to Him, and from that position of surrender we resist the devil.
This helps us understand the relationship between fasting and spiritual warfare. Fasting itself does not frighten the devil. Christ has defeated the devil. Nor does missing meals somehow manufacture spiritual authority. But fasting can humble the soul and body, strengthen our posture of submission, reduce distractions and help us become increasingly responsive to the Holy Spirit. The intercessor who learns to bow deeply before God is better prepared to stand firmly against darkness.
For church leaders, intercessors and praying Christians, this is an important invitation. Our generation is surrounded by extraordinary levels of noise, information, entertainment, food, technology, anxiety and distraction. Perhaps one of the disciplines God wants His Church to rediscover is the voluntary laying aside of legitimate things in order to seek the One who is greater than all things.
We should therefore fast wisely and prayerfully, especially as we grow older, recognising that physical capacity and medical circumstances differ from person to person. The spiritual value of a fast is not measured simply by its length. God is not impressed because someone went seven days without food while another managed only a meal. The question is whether our fasting is producing humility, surrender, greater attentiveness to God and greater obedience to His Spirit.
There are families to intercede for, churches needing renewal, communities needing transformation and nations desperately needing God. There are decisions requiring divine wisdom and missionary assignments still waiting to be heard. The grace of God has not diminished, and neither has the power of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the issue is not that heaven has become silent, but that we have become distracted.
Let us therefore rediscover fasting—not as an attempt to change God, but as an invitation for God to change us. Let us humble the soul and discipline the body, set our hearts on things above and press more deeply into His available grace. Let us draw near, submit ourselves afresh to God and then stand confidently in the authority already given to us in Christ.
God supplies the wind of Grace. Our responsibility is to raise the sail!!
Dr Jonathan Oloyede
National Day of Prayer & Worship
September 2026