Prayer, Fasting, and Dependence in the Church

THE PUBLISHED CHAPTER

A church may possess sound doctrine, gifted teachers, capable servants, financial resources, and a full calendar of activity while quietly trusting in itself.

That danger is not always obvious. A congregation can speak often about God’s power while arranging its life as though the real strength lies in planning, personality, skill, or numbers. It can be busy in the work of Christ without truly depending upon Christ. It can gather, sing, preach, give, organize, and serve while giving little evidence that it has sought the Lord in prayer.

Scripture will not permit the church to think this way.

The church was born into a life of dependence. Before Pentecost, the disciples waited in Jerusalem according to Christ’s command. Luke records that they “all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication” (Acts 1:14). They had received the promise of the Father. They had heard the commission of the risen Christ. Yet they did not rush forward in their own strength. They waited before God.

When the Spirit came, the church did not outgrow prayer. The believers continued in it. After Peter and John were released from the rulers, they returned to their own company and lifted their voices to God together. When persecution increased, the church prayed for boldness. When servants were needed, prayer accompanied the work. When missionaries were sent, the church fasted and prayed. When elders were appointed, prayer and fasting marked the act.

The church does not pray because it lacks work to do.

It prays because the work belongs to God.

Private prayer belongs to the life of every believer. Christ taught His disciples to pray in secret, warning against the empty display of those who desire to be seen of men. A Christian must learn to seek God alone, confess sin alone, bring private burdens before Him, and cultivate a life that does not depend upon public appearance.

Yet Scripture also gives repeated evidence of the gathered people of God praying together.

The first believers “continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). Prayer was woven into the ordinary life of the church. It was not treated as a brief ceremonial portion of the gathering before the important work began. The church prayed because it knew that it belonged to God, depended upon God, and needed God.

The plural language in Acts is significant. The believers did not merely pray beside one another while each remained spiritually separate. They entered together into prayer. They shared burdens. They sought the Lord as one people. They acknowledged that the needs before them exceeded human strength.

When Peter and John reported the threats they had received, the believers did not first devise a strategy for avoiding opposition. They did not begin by calculating public opinion. They went to God.

Acts 4 says, “And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord” (Acts 4:24). Their prayer began with the sovereignty of God: “Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is” (Acts 4:24). They remembered the words of Psalm 2. They recognized that the opposition they faced was not outside the knowledge or rule of God. Then they asked Him to behold the threats and grant boldness to His servants.

Their central request was not for ease.

It was for faithfulness.

They prayed, “And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word” (Acts 4:29). The church did not ask first to be removed from danger. It asked for courage to continue speaking the Word.

That prayer reveals the kind of dependence the church must cultivate. Prayer is not a way of persuading God to bless plans formed without Him. It is the church confessing that Christ’s work cannot be carried out through human ability alone. It is the people of God bringing their fears, needs, decisions, griefs, hopes, and labors before the One who rules heaven and earth.

A church that prays together learns to look away from itself.

Prayer can become routine without becoming real.

A church may open a meeting with prayer, pray before a sermon, pray over an offering, and close with prayer while never truly entering into dependence upon God. The words may be familiar. The form may be proper. Yet the heart may remain distant, hurried, distracted, or self-reliant.

The issue is not whether prayer follows a formal order or arises more freely in a gathering. Scripture does not require one identical arrangement for every congregation. The issue is whether prayer is treated as genuine approach to God.

Prayer is not filler between songs and announcements. It is not a religious pause inserted into an otherwise humanly directed meeting. It is the church drawing near to the throne of grace through Christ.

The writer of Hebrews says, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). The boldness is not self-confidence. It rests in the priesthood of Christ. Believers come because they have a great High Priest who has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.

The gathered church should pray with that confidence. Not casual confidence. Not careless familiarity. But confidence born from the finished work of Christ and the welcome of God.

A church that does not pray deeply will eventually begin to rely on what it can see. It will measure success by attendance, money, energy, public approval, or visible growth. It will assume that a full schedule proves spiritual health. It will seek methods before seeking God.

Prayer pulls the church back to reality.

God gives the increase. God opens hearts. God raises up workers. God protects His people. God gives wisdom. God strengthens the weak. God restores the fallen. God sustains suffering saints. God sends laborers into His harvest.

The church acts. It plans. It teaches. It serves. It gives. It goes.

But it does all of this as a people dependent upon God.

The church does not pray into an empty sky. It prays to the God who has revealed Himself.

The prayers recorded in Scripture are not vague expressions of spiritual desire. They are shaped by who God is, what He has promised, what He has done, and what He commands. The believers in Acts 4 began with God as Creator. They remembered His Word through David. They recognized His sovereign hand in the death of Christ. Their request for boldness rested upon the character and purpose of God.

Prayer becomes shallow when it is detached from Scripture.

A church may ask God to bless what He has not commanded. It may seek comfort while resisting repentance. It may ask for spiritual power while refusing holiness. It may desire revival while neglecting the Word. It may seek protection from consequences while excusing the sin that brought those consequences.

The Word of God teaches the church what to pray for.

Paul’s prayers provide a strong pattern. He prayed that believers would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that they might walk worthy of the Lord, be fruitful in every good work, increase in the knowledge of God, and be strengthened with all might according to His glorious power (Colossians 1:9–11). He prayed that the eyes of believers’ understanding would be enlightened and that they would know the hope of God’s calling, the riches of His inheritance in the saints, and the exceeding greatness of His power toward those who believe (Ephesians 1:17–19).

These prayers are not centered on comfort alone. They seek spiritual maturity.

The church should pray for conversions, healing, provision, protection, open doors, and relief from suffering. Scripture encourages such petitions. But it should also pray for wisdom, holiness, boldness, unity, discernment, endurance, forgiveness, humility, obedience, and love.

The church must learn to desire what God desires.

Prayer should not become a means of baptizing human ambition. It should bring the people of God into submission to the will of God.

The gathered church is not meant to carry burdens alone.

James writes, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed” (James 5:16). This does not create a culture of careless exposure, public spectacle, or intrusive curiosity. Scripture does not command believers to disclose every detail of their lives to everyone in the assembly. But it does destroy the false idea that Christians are meant to suffer privately while pretending that everything is well.

Believers need prayer.

They need others to stand with them when sin has been exposed, when sorrow has come, when a child is wandering, when a marriage is under strain, when work has become uncertain, when illness has weakened the body, when fear has entered the heart, or when suffering has lasted longer than expected.

Paul repeatedly asked churches to pray for him. He did not present himself as beyond the need for the prayers of ordinary saints. To the Ephesians he wrote, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit... and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly” (Ephesians 6:18–19).

The apostle needed prayer for boldness.

Church leaders need prayer. Missionaries need prayer. Teachers need prayer. Parents need prayer. New believers need prayer. Those who are grieving need prayer. Those who appear strong need prayer. The church does not need a few people designated as intercessors while everyone else remains passive. It needs a culture in which believers genuinely carry one another before God.

This requires trust.

A congregation cannot pray well for one another if it knows nothing of one another’s actual needs. Yet people will not share burdens where gossip is common, where weakness is treated as scandal, or where every struggle becomes a subject for speculation. The church must learn discretion, compassion, and faithfulness.

Prayer requests should never become another form of gossip.

To say that one is asking for prayer does not give permission to spread details that do not belong to others. To pray for a struggling saint is not to take possession of that saint’s story. The church should be a place where burdens are handled with reverence because people are handled with reverence.

Fasting is often either neglected entirely or treated as a spiritual achievement.

Scripture will allow neither error.

Fasting does not earn God’s favor. It does not make prayer more holy because the body has been deprived of food. It does not manipulate God into answering a request. A person may fast and still remain proud, unjust, selfish, or unbelieving.

The Lord rebuked Israel through Isaiah for fasting while continuing in sin. They sought God outwardly, but their conduct revealed oppression, strife, and self-will. God asked, “Is not this the fast that I have chosen; to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens” (Isaiah 58:6). Their fasting had become religious display without righteousness.

True fasting does not separate devotion from obedience.

In the New Testament, fasting appears as a serious expression of dependence, grief, seeking, and consecration. It is not commanded as a rigid schedule for every church, nor is it presented as proof of superior spirituality. But it appears in moments where the people of God seek the Lord with particular seriousness.

The church at Antioch provides a clear example. Acts 13 says, “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them” (Acts 13:2). Then, after fasting and praying, they laid hands on them and sent them away.

The church was not merely conducting an administrative meeting. It was ministering to the Lord. It was fasting. It was praying. It was seeking the direction of God concerning gospel work.

Later, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in churches, and Acts records that they had “prayed with fasting” before commending them to the Lord (Acts 14:23). Fasting accompanied serious dependence in moments of responsibility.

The church should not use fasting to create emotional pressure or spiritual competition. It should not shame those who cannot fast for medical, physical, or other legitimate reasons. Fasting should be voluntary, humble, and governed by wisdom. Yet churches should not lose the practice simply because misuse is possible.

There are seasons when a congregation should seek God with unusual seriousness: before sending missionaries, during seasons of spiritual decline, in times of crisis, when major decisions must be made, when persecution grows, when division threatens, or when the church needs to confess that ordinary routines have replaced living dependence.

Fasting does not make God more willing to hear.

It helps the church remember how desperately it needs Him.

The church cannot carry out the Great Commission apart from prayer.

Christ commanded His disciples to pray for laborers. He said, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37–38).

The Lord of the harvest is the One who sends laborers.

A church may speak eagerly about mission while failing to pray for those who are sent. It may celebrate missionaries while rarely remembering their names before God. It may give financially but not intercede for open doors, protection, wisdom, endurance, faithful proclamation, and fruit.

Paul asked the churches to pray that the Word of the Lord would have free course and be glorified (2 Thessalonians 3:1). He asked for prayer that God would open to him a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ (Colossians 4:3). The spread of the gospel is not sustained by human zeal alone. It advances through the power of God.

The church should pray for missionaries before they leave, while they labor, when they suffer, and when they return. It should pray for unreached places, for the translation and distribution of Scripture, for churches under persecution, for pastors who serve in difficult places, for believers who have little support, and for the faithful witness of its own members in ordinary life.

Prayer does not remove the church from mission.

Prayer sends the church into mission with dependence upon God.

The church’s need for prayer is especially clear when it faces spiritual opposition.

Paul’s instruction concerning the armor of God ends with prayer: “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints” (Ephesians 6:18). The church does not wrestle merely against visible circumstances. It faces temptation, deception, accusation, fear, hostility, and the schemes of the devil.

Prayer is not a ritual formula for defeating spiritual darkness. It is not a spectacle. It is not a way for believers to speak as though they control unseen powers by force of words.

Prayer is dependence upon God in the conflict.

The saints stand in the armor God supplies. They take truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the Word of God. Then they pray. They watch. They persevere. They make supplication for all saints.

A church that prays together is less easily isolated. It learns to see spiritual burdens as shared burdens. It learns to watch for one another. It learns that a brother’s temptation, a family’s grief, a missionary’s danger, or a young believer’s confusion is not someone else’s problem.

The church prays because it is one body.

Dependence upon God is not passivity.

The church in Acts prayed, and then it spoke boldly. It fasted, and then it sent Barnabas and Saul. It prayed over elders, and then it entrusted them with responsibility. It prayed for Peter, and then believers opened the door when God answered. Prayer did not remove action. It purified and directed action.

Some people speak about waiting on God when they mean avoiding responsibility. Others move quickly in the name of faith while failing to seek God at all. Scripture does not encourage either extreme.

The church must pray and obey.

When the Word gives a command, prayer does not become an excuse for delay. The church does not need to pray about whether it should love one another, preach the gospel, care for the weak, guard truth, forgive the repentant, or gather faithfully. God has already spoken. It must pray for grace, wisdom, courage, and strength to obey.

Prayer is not an alternative to faithfulness.

It is part of faithfulness.

A praying church should become an obedient church. If its prayers never lead to repentance, generosity, witness, service, reconciliation, or mission, then it has likely reduced prayer to religious speech. The people of God seek His face so that they may walk in His ways.

The gathered church should be marked by a steady awareness that it cannot live its calling through human strength.

It cannot produce conviction of sin. It cannot regenerate a dead heart. It cannot preserve truth merely by intelligence. It cannot sustain suffering saints by optimism. It cannot create love by demanding it. It cannot make worship living through volume, talent, or atmosphere. It cannot save the lost through technique.

God must work.

That confession does not make the church inactive. It makes the church faithful. It leads believers to prepare diligently, teach carefully, give generously, serve humbly, witness boldly, and endure patiently because they know the outcome belongs to God.

The church should pray before it speaks. It should pray after it speaks. It should pray when doors open and when doors close. It should pray in peace and in persecution. It should pray when a congregation is full and when only a few remain. It should pray for the strong and for the weak, for those nearby and for those far away, for those who rejoice and for those who weep.

Prayer keeps the church from mistaking activity for life.

Fasting keeps the church from settling into self-satisfaction when serious dependence is needed.

The people of God do not gather because they possess enough strength for the work before them. They gather because the Lord has called them, and they know that apart from Him they can do nothing.

“Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving” (Colossians 4:2).