Expansion of the Kingdom comes through sacrifice. The greatest move of the Spirit that I experienced in Russia came after a time of an intense Daniel fast in 1998. Healings and salvations were common place and the Word of God came alive to me as never before. In 2009 after years of sowing in fields in China revival came. Over 13 years I had traveled multiple times in China each time after I had spent time fasting with the Lord. Fasting is about Kingdom expansion.
Why is this important for you? Primarily because there are areas in your life that God has yet to touch. Notice the women at the well. Jesus begins by touching her natural thirst and moving towards the need of spiritual water. That would have been well enough for the woman —just to be forgiven. But Jesus goes further into her marital status. Ultimately he ventures into her relationships in the community. One step at a time Jesus expands the kingdom in her life.
In Ezekiel 47 there is a mighty river flowing through the land of Israel. Every where the river flows it brings life, but in verse 11 the Scripture says, “But the marshes and swamps will not be purified; they will still be salty”. I know that salt can be seen as a good thing that they needed. But it also represents something that is unchanged by the flowing of the river of life. We have those things in our lives. Good things that we may enjoy that compete with our relationship with God. We will not allow God to touch it. We will not give it up. That’s what prayer and fasting does. It expands into areas of our that need change.
At the end of the story of Jesus meeting the woman at the well in John 4, the disciples come and expands their understanding of the harvest. He said, “…wake up and look around. The fields are already ripe for harvest. They did not consider Samaria a harvest field—they weren’t true Jews and were thought to be undeserving of the kingdom. Jesus was saying the harvest will come to Samaria-the kingdom of God will be expanded beyond your thoughts and your limitations. The book of Acts records how the church reached Samaria in Acts 8, it was the first outreach of the Jerusalem church. But it was prophesied by Jesus when he met the woman at the well.