This document provides guidelines and recommendations for an annual prayer and fasting event at His Life Ministries. It encourages participants to commit to a day of fasting and prayer on January 4th and to attend the evening prayer meeting. It also announces regular united prayer meetings on Saturdays throughout the year. The document provides biblical support for fasting and discusses different types of fasts and their purposes. It emphasizes that fasting should be done privately and humbly before God rather than to earn blessings or display power. Participants are encouraged to pray and listen to God about areas in their lives to surrender and ways they can be of service.

1. Annual His Life Guide to PRAYER & Fasting
GLORIFY GOD MAKE DISCIPLES
FIRED UP!
2016 JANUARY 4th2016 JANUARY 4th2016 JANUARY 4th2016 JANUARY 4th
DAY of FIRE
and PRAYER MEETINGS
JANUARY 3 —- SUNDAY PREACHING and PREPARATION
JANUARY 4 —- DAY of FIRE and a 6pm FIRED UP NIGHT of PRAYER
NAME your TWO Prayer Partners __________ /__________
VENUE of FIRED UP Night _______________________________
JANUARY 9 —- 40 Days of UNITED PRAYER [All Saturdays 5am DAWN till October 8 2016]

2. A Call to Pray & FAST before starting
anything!
This is a Call for anyone and everyone to make things right and to start right. We have to be found at the
foot of Jesus, listening and ready to obey. We have to start to be corporately consecrated before the
Lord before anything else. Beginning with ourselves, families, Life Groups, Ministries and tasks.
Let's believe God for power, purity, unity and praise to be the result of this. Great men and women
throughout history has been called by God to humble themselves through fasting and prayer.
Fasting is a spiritual weapon God uses to advance His kingdom, change the destiny of nations, spark
revival, and bring victory in people's lives. There is something powerful that happens when we voluntarily
humble ourselves, seek God's will, and agree with Him for His purposes to be fulfilled.
INTRODUCTION to FASTING
Fasting Recommendations and Guidelines
TYPES OF FASTING:
• Typical Fast – abstaining from all food, but not from water.
– Most common form of Christian fast. – e.g. Matthew 4:2 (Luke 4:2)
• Partial Fast – a limitation of the diet, but not abstention from all food.
– Daniel and companions (Daniel 1:12) – John the Baptist (Matthew 3:4)
• Absolute Fast – avoidance of all food and liquid, even water.
– Ezra (Ezra 10:6) – Esther (Esther 4:16) – Paul (Acts 9:9)
• Supernatural Fast – A fast of great duration, made possible only by God.
– Two examples in Scripture: Moses on Mt. Sinai (Deuteronomy 9:9)
Elijah’ s trip to Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 19:8)
“SCOPES” OF FASTING:
• Private fast–most normal. – Matthew 6:16-18
• Congregational fasts – Joel 2:15-16 – Acts 13:2
• National fasts– 2 Chronicles 20:3; Neh 9:1; Esther 4:16; Jonah 3:5-84
FREQUENCY OF FASTING:
Regular Fasts
– God commanded only one regular fast in the Old Covenant
– on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29-31).
– The Jewish leaders instituted four other annual fasts while in Babylon (Zechariah 8:19).
– The tradition of the Pharisees was to fast twice each week (Luke 18:12).

3. Occasional Fasts
– Occur as the need arises
– The kind of fast implied by Jesus in Matthew 9:15
The most common form of Christian fasting is the
normal, private, occasional fast.
JESUS’ INSTRUCTIONS ON FASTING:
• Fasting is expected – Matthew 6:16-18 – Matthew 9:14-15
• Keep your fasting private
• God will reward your fasting
HOW LONG SHOULD WE FAST?
• One day or part of a day (Judges 20:26; 1 Samuel 7:6; 2 Samuel 1:13, 3:35; Nehemiah 9:1; Jeremiah 36:6).
• One night (Daniel 6:18-24).
• Three days (Esther 4:16; Acts 9:9).
• Seven days (1 Samuel 31:13; 2 Samuel 12:16-23).
• Fourteen days (Acts 27:33-34).
• Twenty-one days (Daniel 10:3-13).
• Forty days (Deuteronomy 9:9; 1 Kings 19:8 Matthew 4:2)
• Unspecified lengths (Matthew 9:14; Luke 2:37; Acts 13:2, 14:2-3)
MORE THOUGHTS ON FASTING
• Fasting is feasting! (John 4:32-34)
• When fasting, devote the time you would normally spend eating to meditation and prayer.
• Don’t ignore medical realities.
WHY FAST and PRAY?
• JESUS Fasted and PRAYED See Matthew 4 and Luke 4
• Christian Leaders Fasted and PRAYED See Acts 13:1-3
• JESUS ASSUMES that as His Followers we will be FASTING and Praying
See Matt 6:16-18; Luke 11:1-4

4. PREPARATION READINGS before
ENTERING THE DAY of FIRE FAST
READING for JANUARY 3 Sunday
Jesus Said We Would Fast
OPEN YOUR BIBLE to: Matt 9:15; Acts 13:1-3
Jesus, speaking of you and me, said, "Then they will fast"
(see Matthew. 9:15). He was referring to His followers during the period between His
ascension and His return. Jesus expects all His children to fast.
Since Jesus expects us to fast. He set the example for us, just as He set the example in
prayer. His 40 days of prayer after His baptism were days of fasting prayer.
The early church, following Christ's example, put great emphasis upon fasting. We know
that at least for 400 hundred years after Christ, the faithful Christians
everywhere fasted twice each week.
PRAY and LISTEN
1. Ask God to give you a brand-new revelation about fasting so you can appreciate it,
discover its true benefits and enjoy it.
2. Commit a day of fasting to God. Ask Him to speak to you and fill you with His
presence.
• Believe this is the RIGHT thing to do.
• Believe you CAN do it even during regular work or school days.
• Believe GOD is leading you.
• Be found reading your BIBLE and PRAYING.
• Be there during our UNITED Prayer Meeting at the end of the
DAY of FIRE / FIRE UP 2016.
• Be PRACTICAL as you start your fast.
• FOR LONGER FASTING DAYS: Eat raw fruit and vegetables for two days before starting your fast.
Likewise, do not eat solid food immediately after your fast. Begin eating gradually.
Break your fast with fruit, vegetables, and soup.

5. READING for JANUARY 4 MORNING
Fasting is Essential to
Spiritual Discipline
Read & Study: Acts 13:2; Rom 8:34; Luke 2:37;
Luke 4:1-13
Andrew Bonar defined fasting as abstaining from anything that hindered prayer. Though
himself an avid reader, he had to fast at times from his excessive love for reading to find
time to commune with God.
Phillips Brooks described fasting as abstaining from anything innocent in itself in order
to grow more spiritually or serve God more effectively. Perhaps for our generation
fasting should often be from radio, TV, internet, excessive sms’, in order to give
ourselves more totally and intensely to prayer.
THE PURPOSE of FASTING is …
• To subject the physical to the spiritual and to give priority to spiritual goals;
• To disentangle oneself for a time from one's environment, material things, daily
responsibilities, and cares.
• To devote one's whole spiritual attention to God and prayer.
We do not imply that daily duties and life's necessities are unholy or unspiritual; rather,
we subject permissible things, even profitable things, to greater spiritual priorities.
Andrew Murray taught, "Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the Invisible;
fasting the other, with which we let loose and cast away the visible."
PRAY and LISTEN
Are there specific things in your life now that you are desiring for more than God?
(example: career, ministry work, possessions, relationships, etc.) Surrender them to
God and acknowledge how much you want Him in your life more than anything or
anyone else.

6. READING for JANUARY 4 NOONTIME
Watch Your Motive
Read & Study: Matthew 6:6-18
Remember, the motive in your fasting is all-important.
Remember what fasting is not:
It is not a way to earn God's blessing and God's answer to your prayer. You are never
worthy of His help and blessing because of your performance. You implore His love and
mercy. You do not earn any aspect of His grace. It is not a way to bypass obedience
and accountability. Prayer and fasting do not change your need to be obedient to God
and His clearly revealed will. God will not hear your prayer, even if you add fasting, if
you are out of His will in some regard. Are there habits and patterns in your life which
need to be broken?
Do you have struggles or un-confessed sins?
Repentance and seeking counsel from your Life Group Leader / Pastor will bring
complete deliverance and freedom. Denial never healed anyone.
Accountability with obedience brings liberation.
It does not accumulate power to your credit, so that you can display it at will. You do not
use the Holy Spirit—He uses you. The moment you parade your power, it is gone. Keep
your fasting as hidden as possible.
Fasting is the hungry handmaid of prayer.
Like prayer she both reveals and remedies. She reveals the measure of food’s mastery over us
— or television or computers or whatever we submit to again and again to conceal the
weakness of our hunger for God.
And she remedies by intensifying the earnestness of our prayer and saying with our whole body
what prayer says with the heart: I long to be satisfied in God alone!
PRAY and LISTEN
Are you careful to obey the Basics?
Forgive, Love, Bless, Honor … etc?

7. WRITTEN Prayer Requests
REVIEW this regularly in 2016
KEEP near YOUR BIBLES for Quiet Times
A. For Your Personal Life
B. For Your Family Relationships
C. For Your Friends
D. For Your Finances
E. For Your Life Group
F. For Your Ministry
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Join the “Call Seminar” — as it is offered.
You will have a chance to RENEW or make your
INTENTIONS known on where to be of service here at His Life Ministries.
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Borrowed from Vine Community Church; VCF; CRU; and His Life NOTES
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Prepared by Pastor JR for HLM2016