Father, teach us to fast. We come to your mercy seat to understand more about the principle of fasting. Show us how to go to you first in everything. Lead us away from depending on sustenance from worldly things, be they food, acceptance, pride or money. Help us be generous in our prayer and alive in our acts of mercy and grace. You hear our prayers and break the bondage of sin. Fulfill our desire to honor you and bless those around us. May we be a beacon for your gospel. Holy Spirit, bring the reward of our entreating for those who don’t know Jesus. Gather them into your household through faith and your working power of our testimony. Let our light rise in the darkness and our healing come quickly. I pray in the name and authority of Jesus, according to your good and perfect will. Amen.
“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?…If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.” (Isaiah 58: 6,9b-11 ESV)