The main difference between personal fasting and God’s chosen fast is that when you fast it changes your personal wineskin to receive new wine. When you apply God’s chosen fast it is for other to benefit as the passage in Isaiah 58 reveals. Also note that the first priority of God’s fast is spiritual and then it goes onto to meet the physical and emotional needs of other like sharing food and clothing. We are not a charity in the traditional sense of the word. We go to the core of the human being and meet the most pressing spiritual need first. From there the inward reformation will ensure that we can also train someone to fish for life, versus creating an unsustainable relationship that requires us to provide fish forever! In Africa three are stockpiles of food and support from the West that warlords often sell to the poverty stricken masses. What is needed is not more support, but a reformation of this continent, one mind set at a time. Our work is spiritual.

Isa 58:6  “Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke?

Isa 58:7  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide yourself from your own flesh?

Isa 58:8  Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

Isa 58:9  Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.‘ “If you take away the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

Isa 58:10  If you extend your soul to the hungry And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness, And your darkness shall be as the noonday.

Isa 58:11  The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

SO the initial spiritual disciplines of God’s chosen fast include:

Aim through the cross. Jesus crucifixion released us from the bond of wickedness forever. Repentance is a key to loosen people from wickedness. Acknowledge your sin before God in Jesus name and start the loosening from years of habitual sin and addiction, neglect and abuse. The Lord is able and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. See also