Episode #44: Grow Closer to God With Prayer and Fasting

Start the year with a hunger that changes everything. Stephanie lays out a clear, biblical path for prayer and fasting that quiets the noise, strengthens your spirit, and tunes your heart to God’s voice. Instead of chasing goals on autopilot, we ask better questions: What does God want for my life, my work, and my next step? With practical guidance and a straight look at Scripture, this conversation reframes fasting as closing the mouth to food and opening ourselves to prayer, worship, and the Word.

We walk through Matthew 4 to see how Jesus confronted temptation during a forty-day fast, answering every lie with truth. You’ll learn why context matters when the enemy twists Scripture, how to build a real prayer routine that lasts longer than five minutes, and what it means to put the flesh under so your spirit can lead. Stephanie clarifies common myths—fasting isn’t just a social media break—and explains how to discern if your fast is focused on God or on creative meals. Expect a practical, grounded approach: set aside time, steep in Scripture, and watch your responses change as God’s Word fills your mouth.

This is about more than spiritual discipline; it’s about direction, favor, and bold obedience. When you put God first, you start recognizing open doors, speaking life instead of defeat, and choosing the path that leads to hope and a future. If you’re ready to seek clarity for 2026, strengthen your discernment, and let Scripture shape your decisions, this one invites you to begin now. Subscribe, share with someone who needs encouragement. 

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello, my name is Stephanie. Welcome to the All Is Well podcast. My mission is to teach people the Word of God and emphasize its importance in their daily lives. I'm glad you decided to join me today. Let's get started. Welcome to episode 44. In this episode, I'm going to continue the discussion on prayer and fasting. There is so much with prayer and fasting to break down and to understand the meaning of and how do we fast and what is the importance of it. So let's get started and let's dive in. Consecrating your year by fasting at the beginning of the year shows God that you want to put him first. It's so important to put God first in our lives. And when we fast, we're showing him that we want what he wants for our lives. And yes, vision boards and having our goals and dreams are important, but we should also ask God, God, what do you want for our lives? What do you want me to do? Where do you want me to live? Where do you want me to go? And so when we begin to pray and fast, we can hear him clear because our spiritual senses allow us to hear him in a much greater way. And why is that? With fasting, we refrain from food. And when you're refraining from food, what happens is that you're putting the flesh under. You're not letting your flesh rule your body and say, I want food. I'm hungry. I need a snack. I need a coffee. I need something from Sonic. We say that constantly throughout the day. We are thinking of it. We're talking about it with our friends, with our coworkers, with our family members. We always want something to eat. We always want something to drink. Why? Because it tastes good, right? It really does. There's so many drinks and so much food that tastes good. But with fasting, it shows God. And what we're doing is we're pushing the plate away and we're not letting our flesh have a say in our decisions because our flesh just wants to eat and drink all it wants. But what we're going to do during this time of prayer and fasting is put God first. We're going to strengthen our spirit, man, by praying, by reading the word. And during this time, in the midst of prayer and fasting, don't just pray for five minutes. When you're eating a meal, do you eat for five minutes and then you're full? No. When you really want to sit and eat a meal and you want to soak it in, it's just so good, or you haven't ate all day, you're going to spend a good while. It could be 45 minutes, an hour, or even more if you're out with friends. So the same thing with prayer and fasting. You want to be able to pray and read the Bible for a good amount of time. 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, and start to lengthen it, start to make it longer. Why? Because you want your spirit to be strong. You want to seek the Lord. You want to become spiritually wise. You want to be able to discern. This is how you start off the year right. You put one foot in front of the other when you have God in front of you, when you have God leading you, when you have God guiding you and protecting you. This is the best way to start your year because you're letting God know. Yes, there are things I would like to do, but I want you to tell me what to do. I want you to guide me, to lead me, to protect me. And God will open up doors for us. God will give us favor and He will show us the right way. That's what prayer and fasting does. And we have to remember with fasting, fasting does not mean to refrain from social media or electronics or stop doing that. It doesn't mean, well, I'm going to give that time up that I normally give or playing video games or watching TV to pray. You can do that in addition to not eating, but that's not what fasting means. What fasting means, the Hebrew word for fasting means to close the mouth. When you're closing the mouth, you're not eating. You're praying. You're worshiping God. You're reading the word. That's what you're doing. Make sure that you're feeding your spirit. When you're doing this, a fast, and you notice that your flesh is being fulfilled and your body is full during a fast, then something is off. Then you need to check what you're doing. Do you need to eat less? Do you need to push everything away? Do you need to just have a water fast? So if you feel full, then you should think I'm not fasting because you should still feel hungry. But you're telling your body, no, I'm going to fill myself, my spiritual self with the word of God. I want to know God more. I want to know the plan that he has for my life. I want clear direction. And you may think, but my life is going great. Yeah, and it probably is, but how much better can it be with God? He wants to show you things. He wants to take you places, he wants to give you spiritual discernment. But there's some things that you can only get and acquire with prayer and fasting. So let's turn on over in our Bibles to Matthew chapter 4. So in Matthew chapter 4, verse 1, this is when Jesus was fasting. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry. Now when the tempter came to him, he said, If you are the son of God, command that these stones become bread. Who is the tempter? That is the devil, that is the enemy, and he is the one that tempts us too, it's not God. He says, If you are the son of God, command that these stones become bread. The devil comes to tempt God. He came to tempt God at the moment when his flesh was the weakest. But his spirit man was the strongest. That's what the devil doesn't see. That's what the devil doesn't understand. And so Jesus answered in verse 4. He said, But he answered and said, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So Jesus had an answer to what the devil was trying to get him to do. Why'd he have an answer? You may think, because he's Jesus, of course, but think about this. Even though he's Jesus, he still needed to pray. So how much more do we need to pray and fast? If Jesus, when he was on this earth, participated in praying and fasting, how much more do we need to do that as well? We need to do it even more. And he knew how to respond. The word was in him so strong. And it says, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And that is how we should live, especially with this prayer and fasting. We are letting God know that we want this word to have the final say in our life. We will not live by bread alone, but we are living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. It's saying that everything that God says, I want, I'm going to get, I'm going to listen to, I'm going to obey, because everything that God has, everything who God is, is wonderful, it's great, it is the best. Then verse 5. Then the devil took him up into the holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him, It is written again, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. Wait a minute. So this time it was different. The enemy used a scripture against Jesus to get him to do what he wanted him to do. But did it work? No, it didn't, because the enemy, the devil, used that scripture in the wrong way. So this is also telling you that you need to know the word and what it means. Because when the enemy comes to tempt you, when the enemy comes to tell you something, or when someone else does, you need to know what this word actually means. What does it actually mean? Does it mean this or does it mean that? But of course, Jesus didn't fall for what the enemy said. Because what was the plan of the enemy? Not for the angels just to come. He says, why don't you throw yourself down? He wanted to get rid of Jesus. But we have to know that the enemy is a deceiver. He is the father of lies. So anything that he says here, he is lying. Yes, he quoted the scripture, but he's lying about it. He doesn't believe anything that it says. So we have to know that when the enemy is speaking to us, he's lying to us. He is the father of lies. And Jesus responded to him and said, It is written again, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. Verse 8 Again the devil took him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, All these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me. So now the devil keeps coming back. And he showed him the mountains and the kingdoms of the world. He showed him great things that he thought that he wanted. He said, I will give you all of these things. But if you know who the devil is, he is the father of lies. He's lying to Jesus. And he said, If you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Away with you, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve. So God tells us that he is the only one that we shall serve. And so when we're praying and fasting, especially the beginning of the year, we're telling God, You're the only one that I'm going to serve. I want to serve you and put you first at the beginning of the year, because I want you to guide and direct my life in 2026. Verse 11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him. So the devil had no place here. The devil could not defeat Jesus. He tried, but he didn't win. Even after he fasted, his body was physically hungry. The devil thought that he could get him at that point. Oh, he's weak. But he's thinking in a natural mindset. But you have to remember you're spiritually stronger when you're doing the fast. We need to make sure that we're feeding our spirit to make it spiritually strong. So that way, when you hear bad news, when you're coming against this, when you're coming against that, you don't fall weak and in a panic and anxiety and don't know what to do. You'll know what to do, how to respond, because the word is in you. What words are you speaking out of your mouth? It's easy to tell who has been in the word and who has not, who's truly spending time in the word and who is not by the words that come out of their mouth. What are they always speaking? Are they speaking defeat? Because God doesn't speak defeat. He doesn't. He wants you to have a hope and a future. Are you speaking life? God speaks life. God says in his word, I give you blessings and cursings. Choose life. He even gave us the answer on what to choose. So if you're reading your Bible and you spend time in it, then you're going to know this is what God wants. It is the best. Therefore, I want it. So meditate on these things. Get closer to God. Remember, when you're fasting, you're putting the flesh under. It's not about food and trying to be creative with it. It's about putting the flesh down. You're raising your spirit up. It needs to be spiritually strong. We need to become in this day and age or anytime, we need to become spiritually wise. And we can only become spiritually wise when we make time for God, for his word, for prayer. That is how we get further into the kingdom of God. When we do things our own in the natural way, it can take years, weeks, months for whatever needs to happen. But with God, it's quick, it's quicker. Things happen, things take place, and you think that was fast. Where did that come from? But when you're praying, you open doors. God opens doors. You're doing things, you're obedient to the call that God has on your life. It's a beautiful thing to be in the presence of the Lord and knowing his word. And the more that you ingest the word, the more that you study the word, the more that you want it. It is that good. It's not the same way when you're eating a good meal. You want to eat more, but you really can't because your stomach is full. It's not like that with the word of God. It is something that you can keep doing over and over and over again. It seems like that you can never be full because it is just so, so good. And so what I would recommend for you to do is to read Matthew chapter four and see how Jesus fasted. And if you're interested in fasting this month, it's not too late. So if this message helped you in any way, share it with a friend or family member. And before I close here, I want to pray for you. God, I pray for every single person that is listening to my voice right now. I pray that you are speaking to them, that they are hearing you. Thank you, God, that they will draw near to you and you will draw near to them, especially during this fast. And thank you, God, that they are putting you first in their life. And thank you, God, that they will see you work in their life like never before. And thank you, God, that you will open doors for them, break chains for them, heal them in their lives. And thank you, God, for the good things that are coming into their lives in the name of Jesus. Amen. So if this episode helped you in any way, share it with a friend or a family member. Thank you for tuning in. Stay tuned for the next episode. If you have not accepted Jesus into your life, say the salvation prayer with me. Heavenly Father, I admit that I have sinned. I repent. I believe in my heart you raised Jesus from the dead. I confess with my mouth, Jesus is Lord and my Savior. Right now, I receive forgiveness by the blood of Jesus. Come into my life. I am saved. In Jesus' name. Amen. I'm glad you prayed that salvation prayer. Make sure that you plug yourself into a spirit filled church and read the Word of God. Well, I hope you enjoyed the message and thank you for tuning in.