2 Chronicles 7:14 is a very will known verse and an example of intercession:  “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

An important part of prayer and intercession is humbling ourselves before the Lord and fasting is one way of doing that.  We see this in Daniel 9:3-4.  Daniel had just seen in Jeremiah that Israel would return to their land from Babylon in 70 years and the time was now.  So we see what he did:  “Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the LORD my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments,”

When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai and found Israel had sinned with the golden calf he knew he must stand before God for the sake of the nation.  In Deut. 9:18 we see Moses falling down before the Lord and fasting and praying for forty days and forty nights. We see in Ps. 106:23 that “Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach…

So fasting is a humbling of ourselves as we intercede (stand in the breach) on behalf of someone.  In our case we want to stand in the breach for Israel, for Great Britain, for our church, and for our own families.