The thoughts, scriptures, quotations and articles on prayer and fasting, compiled on this page, are the result of several months of careful research on the subject, in preparation for a series I was asked to share at the Generation Youth Christ (GYC) in Phoenix, Arizona. In studying I prayerfully considered each of the more than fifty instances of prayer and fasting in the Scriptures to ascertain what motivated the fasting, what the fasting consisted of, and what was the outcome. I also looked at the people who were prayer and fasting. I also noticed that some these instances of prayer and fasting were intertwined with other fasting that had taken place many years before. I also did a comprehensive study of prayer and fasting in the writings of Mrs. Ellen G. White and compiled more than 170 pages of quotations on the subject. My life has been changed by what I learned about fasting, and I hope your life will be changed as well. Dan
On this page you will find more than 50 instances where fasting is specifically named, implied or actions described, that suggest fasting was going on.
On this page you will find a list of important sermons, chapters, manuscripts or letters of Ellen White on fasting. Each listing includes a short excerpt from the document to allow you to easily find it on the egwwritings.org site.
On this page you will find some articles written by SDAs on fasting.
On this page you will find testimonies of people who gained God's blessings as a result of fasting.
The following study guides were developed to go with my presentations on fasting at the GYC 2022 Phoenix.
In the series I sought to answer five questions: 1. Should we be fasting? 2. What does it mean to fast? 3. What situations call for fasting? 4. What hinders success when we fast? 5. What is the "True Fast" of Isaiah 58?
Some of these handouts were slightly updated. Using the updated GYC handout on fasting is preferred to using the one handed out at GYC.
In this presentation I looked to the Scriptures and the writings of Ellen White to establish the very real call for fasting in our day.
In this presentation I talked about what it means to fast.
In this presentation we look at the kinds of things that motivated fasting in the Bible.
In this presentation we look at the kinds of things that were motivating fasting.
This handout looks at fasts that were ignored— sometimes despised— by God.
This article by Ellen White on the "true fast" of Isaiah 58, read during our final session, is one of the best, and most sobering, documents I have ever read on Isaiah 58 and the "True Fast."
This handout includes quotations from a variety of sources on the practical fast of Isaiah 58. The reading on "Doing For Christ" was by far the most important one that I read on the subject.