40 Effective fasting scriptures for breakthroughs

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Fasting is one of the spiritual disciplines of the Christian and helps us to get closer to God. When we fast, we give up something physical like food to focus on strengthening our spirit and our relationship with God. Fasting is an act of humility before God and affirms our dependence on him. Here are Effective fasting scriptures for breakthroughs from God.

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1 Bible verses about fasting

2 the importance of fasting and prayer

3 What should be the motivation for fasting?

Bible verses about fasting

Acts 13:2

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

Acts 14:23

Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.

1 Corinthians 7:5

Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

2 Samuel 1:12

They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the LORD and for the nation of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

Daniel 10:3

I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips, and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over.

Esther 4:16

16 “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

Exodus 34:28

Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

Joel 2:12

“Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

Luke 2:37

and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.

Luke 18:12

I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

Nehemiah 1:4

When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.

Psalms 69:10

When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn;

Psalms 35:13-14

Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting. When my prayers returned to me unanswered,

14 I went about mourning as though for my friend or brother. I bowed my head in grief as though weeping for my mother.

Joel 2:12-13

“Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

Acts 13:3-4

So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus.

Daniel 9:3-5

So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.

I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed: “Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments,

we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws.

2 Samuel 12:15-17

After Nathan had gone home, the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill.

David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground.

The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.

1 Kings 21:25-27

(There was never anyone like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, urged on by Jezebel his wife.

He behaved in the vilest manner by going after idols, like the Amorites, the LORD drove out before Israel.)

When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly.

Luke 4:2-4

where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them, he was hungry.

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

Ezra 8:21-23

There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.

22 I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, “The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.”

23 So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.

Matthew 6:16-18

“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,

18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Isaiah 58:3-7

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers.

Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.

Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Jonah 3:5-9

The Ninevites believed in God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.

This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink.

But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.

Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

Luke 18:1-12

1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought.

3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think,

5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’ ”

6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.

7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?

8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:

10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.

12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

the importance of fasting and prayer

Fasting is one of the spiritual disciplines that it is good for us to exercise as Christians. It helps us strengthen our spirit and draw closer to God by offering us the opportunity to deny something to our body and to voluntarily choose to prioritize something spiritual: our relationship with God.

ALSO READ 100 Powerful Scriptures on righteousness

The basic meaning of the word fast is complete or partial abstention from food and/or drink for a period of time. It means that when we decide to fast for a specific time, it is understood that we will stop eating or drinking completely or partially.

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What should be the motivation for fasting?

The main reason for fasting is to get closer to God, to show him our love, obedience, and submission. We should not mark a fast day for selfish reasons or to get something that we want God to grant us in return.

We read in Zechariah 7:1-6:

In the fourth year of the reign of King Darius, on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is the month of Chisleu, the word of the Lord came to Zacharias. The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regen Melech and their men to seek the favor of the Lord and to ask the priests of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, “Should we observe in the fifth month a day of mourning and mourning?” abstinence, as we have done all these years?” Then this word came to me from the Lord Almighty: “Tell all the people of the land, and also the priests: ‘When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh months of the last seventy years, did you really fast? for me? And when you eat and drink, do you not do it for yourself?
(Zechariah 7:1-6)

We see how important it is that we examine our hearts and understand well what motivates us to fast. God knows our hearts, he knows if we do it for selfish reasons or if we really fast as an offering to him with the desire to experience his presence in a special way. Fasting should be an act of humility and sacrifice before God, a gesture that expresses how much we need him in our lives.

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