Prayer, Fasting and the Power of God

The final module in an online course I’m taking featured video of Shodankeh Johnson, founding pastor of New Harvest Global Ministries, a discipleship and church planting movement in Sierra Leone. He spoke powerfully of how his movement has been built on prayer and fasting, expanding despite civil war, poverty, and massive violent opposition to the message.

The video on the course is not available outside of the course (it’s free, so someone could sign up for it to watch the video). I found a similar speech to share here. It’s the same idea and the same stories, but it lacks some of the content about how prayer and fasting contributes directly to advancing discipleship:

For Johnson, prayer and fasting is the answer whenever you encounter anything that is “above your level”. While he’s clear that God doesn’t need our prayer or fasting to move, our prayer and fasting prepares and aligns us to what God is going to do. While I think the heavenly realities are perhaps more complex and mysterious, I would completely agree that our work is getting in the “right position” for God to work — that of agreeing with Jesus, “not my will, but yours be done.”

This is the heart of submission and the core of intercession. As Johnson puts it:

The disciple making process has three levels of submission to God. Number one, the disciple maker submits… The second thing is the lost submits…first to the Lord Jesus, then to the authorities that are discipling them. Third is, the spirits [, the powers and principalities] submit… Those are the three levels of submitting to God. Prayer and fasting is the [key] ingredient of all three.

Shodankeh Johnson, 2018 Discipleship.org National Forum

After listening to Johnson, I was really convicted and humbled about how much we think ideas and methods will win the day. I’m really guilt of this sometimes. If we really desire to allow God to work and show his power, we need to spend less time trying to be the star of the show and more time getting out of the way: emptying ourselves so we can be conduits of his activity and power. Or just praying because he’s going to do it without a human agent in order to show his glory, and we need to be on our knees to recognize it when he does.

From Johnson’s words, I definitely heard a call to pray and fast. But there was also a sorrow rising up in me. Working at a retreat center, I see pastors, church leaders, and ministry teams come to camp to pray and fast all the time. You would have to ask those who have done it, but it seems to me that few of them have reported power or breakthrough after their stay. I’ve seen this in my own ministry. Focused times of prayer and fasting will sometimes lead to little fruit.

I asked the Lord why. Why do we pray so much in the West with often so little to show for it. He answered immediately, “James 4:3”. Not knowing the reference I had to look it up.

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

James 4:3 ESV

James is speaking about more than greed, though greed certainly fits. He’s also referring to our “good” passions — what we as Christians want most.¹ He’s saying that we shouldn’t expect to receive anything unless we truly ask in Jesus name — solely for his cause and glory. If we pray for revival so our work and life can be validated, we should not expect to receive. If we hope for the growth of the Gospel for the sake of Christian cultural dominance, we should not expect to receive. If we pray for deliverance so that we can live in comfort and security, we should not expect to receive.

We are all already facing challenges that are “beyond our level”.

• Mental strongholds and the demonic strongmen which empower them stand in our way.
• There is profound lostness among us showing up as sexual sin and drug addiction.
• The systems of oppression and consumption are all around us, entangling us and our neighbors: deception, division, seduction, materialism, distraction, over-work, exploitation, consumerism, degradation, prejudice, and more.
• The work requires resources far beyond what any of us currently have or know where to find.
• The destiny we want to see unfold for our region and people is far beyond our level of power and operation.

…so we should fast and pray.

We need to quickly establish a culture of sorting out the condition of our submission in the context of confession and ministry to each other. We need to learn how to make this submission real in a prayerful and fasted life. This is required for us to see the power of God. Only the power of God will move us forward. Without it, we will only have the story of what we could do in our own efforts.

1. Clearly the ambition to produce a great work has lead Christians to quarreling, envy, and division as described in the other verses of James 4. We are not immune to this danger, especially if we hide the struggle for pure motivations from each other.