From Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, by Donald Whitney on fasting...
Fasting to strengthen prayer:
Fasting does not change God's hearing so much as it changes our praying. In his book "God's Chosen Fast," Arthur Wallis remarked, "Fasting is calculated to bring a note of urgency and importunity into our praying, and to give force to our pleading in the court of heaven. The man who prays with fasting is giving heaven notice that he is truly in earnest... Not only so, but he is expressing his earnestness in a divinely-appointed way. He is using a means that God has chosen to make his voice to be heard on high" (p. 166, emphases mine).
Fasting to overcome temptation and dedicate yourself to God:
Ask Christians to name a fast by a biblical character and most will probably think first of the supernatural fast of Jesus prior to His temptation in Matthew 4:1-11. Verse two of that familiar passage tells us that Jesus fasted "forty days and forty nights." In the spiritual strength of that prolonged fast He was prepared to overcome a direct onslaught of temptation from Satan himself, the strongest He would face until Gethsemane. It was also during that fast that He privately dedicated Himself to the Father for the public ministry He would begin soon thereafter (p. 175, emphases mine).
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