Jesus taught that prayer should sometimes be with fasting (Mark 9:29).

On one occasion, when Jesus cast out a demon from a boy, and His disciples earlier were not able to cast out the demon, they came to Him privately and said, “Why could we not cast him out?” Jesus response was: “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

So here Jesus was teaching that the most difficult things (in this case, casting out a demon) require both prayer and fasting. Why? Because when we fast we depend more on God, and so our prayers become stronger. I suppose you could say that when we fast we receive an extra portion of the Holy Spirit, or perhaps we receive extra strength from the Holy Spirit. However you want to put it, you will find that fasting will strengthen prayer.

Now we know that we should always…