I. THE SPIRIT OF ANNA
A. One of the unique personalities in the New Testament is this woman named Anna. She represents the activity of
the Holy Spirit at the fist and the second coming of the Lord. As the spirit of Anna is released on the body of Christ at the
end of the age, the church will have power and vision likened to Anna’s.
“Anna, a prophetess … did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night
and day … she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in
Jerusalem.” (Luke 2:36-38)
B. Three basic personalities of the forerunner prayer ministry:
1. Anna – the Warring Intercessor
2. Mary of Bethany – the Life of Extravagant Worship
3. John the Baptist – the Forerunner Preacher
C. She confronts the crises of life and turns tragedy into something that transforms her life. World says “wasted” life.
II. A CALL TO THE ANNA’S AND MARY’S TO TAKE THEIR PLACE
A. The Lord will set the Anna’s and Mary’s in their place in the body of Christ. God will raise up leaders across the
earth who will make a way for them.
B. There must be a place where the Mary’s and Anna’s are covered, honored and esteemed; where these burning
fires, these flaming spirits are gathered together, trained and saturated in an atmosphere of intercession and worship.
C. This is the prayer end of the great commission.
III. THE CALL TO FASTING
A. The grace of fasting in joy and power
B. Night and day fasting in the spirit of Anna – add to intercession … fasting
C. Reward of fasting – Matthew 6:18
D. John the Baptist – in Matthew 11:18, Jesus said that when John the Baptist came, he came neither eating nor
drinking. He was as intense a faster as Anna was.
“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’”. (Matthew 11:18)
E. Mystery around fasting – it is one of the most powerful dimensions in the grace of God and you literally do nothing.
IV. PARADOXES OF FASTING
A. Voluntary weakness in fasting releases divine strength. Physical weakness with an invigorated spirit.
B. In fasting, you accomplish so little short-term but so much long-term. You accomplish much less in the temporal
and much more in he eternal.
C. In your emotions, more negative faults come out but more love of God is present.
V. PERILS OF FASTING
A. Supernatural counterfeits exist surrounding the subject of fasting. Potential for spiritual confusion exists. Fasting
is shark-infested waters!
B. Religious spirits allow one to fast for some time, yet it wrongly establishes and solidifies the fasting. The Pharisees,
outside of the grace of God, were so emboldened by their religious fasting that they had the courage to kill the Messiah.
VI. THREE TYPES OF FASTING
A. Grace empowered fasting is motivated out of desire and thankfulness.
B. Religious empowered fasting is fear motivated and seeks honor from man.
C. Demonic empowered fasting has many false spirits related to it. The main false leaders of the earth and their
inner core are radically committed to fasting.
VII. ANNA – THE MOST EXTREME FASTING
A. Anna went to the edge of what a human frame can take even in the grace of God.
B. A significant number, millions over church history, have endeavored with all of their heart to fast to the full limit of
human capacity for many years of their lives.
C. “Lord, I want to go to the full limit of what I can do in my humanity and in the grace of God in my sovereign calling.”
There is a place in God we can ask, “Lord, where can I go in my frame in grace in my call?”
D. Different extreme ways of fasting
1. 3-4 days a week, water fasting seems the limit from my studies of history, every week, 50 weeks a year as a
serious long-term lifestyle.
2. Five meals a week – a whole segment of Catholics through history did this.
3. The other is annual long fasts.
E. Extreme fasting will shatter the western mindset that says missing a few meals a week will hurt you. God will call people
in joy and power to this realm of fasting.
F. In this most intense realm of fasting, it is by divine wooing.
G. To start in this realm of fasting, ask God for an escort to go by desire into a greater grace of fasting. He will give you a
flaming desire for the grace of fasting.
1. Do not do it if you do not desire to. The Lord will give it to us as we have faith for it, as our fears are dismantled.
2. I would encourage people to start fasting now one day a week, two meals. You want to get in four meals in
a row on water.
VIII. STRONGHOLDS
A. In fasting, you will dismantle the strongholds of your mind. The fear of pain, tiredness and injury to your body are all
strongholds that will come down.
B. There is a major fear of fasting locking the church of Jesus in the western world. Experience teaches you the
reality regarding fasting and allows you to see what are lies and what is the truth.
IX. WHOLEHEARTEDNESS
A. We must reach for wholeheartedness
B. Offense towards God hinders
C. I have to know “MY” own way to wholeheartedness
D. Lifestyle of not settling for anything other than God’s best – especially in intimacy (will determine how spend time,
money, lives)
E. Response that is manifest: joy and/or sorrow
F. God’s best only in context of spiritual violence (only sought in context of fasting – in many dimensions not just food)
G. Spiritual dullness only confronted in context of the violence of fasted lifestyle
H. Wholly to Him:
• I can challenge no right in myself
• I can challenge no right in this understanding, this will, these affections that are in me
• Neither have I any right to this body, or any of its members
• No right to this tongue, these hands, nor feet
• Nor right to these senses, these eyes, these ears, this smell or taste
• I have given myself clear away, and have not retained anything as my own
• For the future I will challenge no right in myself, in any respect