With Christ in the School of Prayer (13) ... Prayer and Fasting, the power erupts

by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net

Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace

An all-time Christian Classic on prayer which is a foundational study on prayer that anyone interested in Prayer should read. So, I decided to summarize it chapter by chapter. With Christ in the School of Prayer is a classroom on the Power of Prayer in your Life.

With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray,
Chapter 13, Prayer and Fasting … the power erupts.

“He had given them ‘power and authority over all devils, and to cure all diseases.’

The power they had received to cast out devils, they did not hold in themselves as a permanent gift or possession; the power was in Christ, to be received, and held, and used by faith alone, living faith in Himself.  Had they been full of faith in Him as Lord and Conqueror in the spirit-world, had they been full of faith in Him as having given them authority to cast out in His name, this faith would have given them the victory.  ‘Because of your unbelief’ was, for all time, the Master’s explanation and reproof of impotence and failure in His Church.

Our faith has cast out devils before this:  why not this time?  ‘The Master proceeds to tell them:  ‘This kind goes out only by fasting and prayer.’

He teaches us two lessons in regard to prayer of deep importance.  The one, that faith needs a life of prayer in which to grow and keep strong.  The other, that prayer needs fasting for its full and perfect development.

And the first thought suggested by Jesus’ words in regard to fasting and prayer, is, that it is only in a life of moderation and temperance and self-denial that there will be the heart or the strength to pray much.

Prayer is the reaching out after God and the unseen;  
fasting, the letting go of all that is of the seen and temporal. 
While ordinary Christians imagine that all that is not positively forbidden and sinful is lawful to them, and seek to retain as much as possible of this world, with its property, its literature, its enjoyments, the truly consecrated soul is as the soldier who carries only what he needs for the warfare.  

Laying aside every weight, as well as the easily besetting sin, afraid of entangling himself with the affairs of this life. Without such voluntary separation, even from what is lawful, no one will attain power in prayer:  this kind goes out only by fasting and prayer.

Is the prize not worth the price? 
Shall we not give up all to follow Jesus in the path He opens to us here; shall we not, if need be, fast?  Shall we not do anything that neither the body nor the world around hinder us in our great life-work,—having intercourse with our God in prayer, that we may become men of faith, whom He can use in His work of saving the world.”

More on Prayer and Fasting and seeing power erupt in your life:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.XIII.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled life.