WHY FASTING AND PRAYER?

Frequently in Scripture, we find fasting and prayer together. For example, we know that prior to starting His earthly ministry, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting, and presumably seeking His Father’s face. In Daniel chapter 9, when Daniel wanted to better understand the meaning of Jeremiah’s prophecy, he sought God through prayer and fasting. In Acts 13, the whole church at Antioch was “worshipping the Lord and fasting.’ It was during this time of fasting and seeking the Lord that the Holy Spirit commanded the church to separate Paul and Barnabas to the work to which He had called them.

It is very clear that throughout biblical history, times of prayer and fasting have been extremely important to finding and fulfilling the will of God, both on an individual basis and corporately. But this is where we sometimes get confused about WHY fasting is so important. If we see these biblical examples, and begin to think that God answered prayer, or revealed truth, because of the great sacrifice that these saints made, we miss the point entirely. If we think that our pain and suffering is what gets God’s attention, we immediately shift the focus from God to us, and move into a legalistic approach to fasting.

While it is true that fasting is a good means of humbling ourselves before the Lord, and in that way opening our hearts to hear His voice, that is a very different idea from thinking that our pain catches His attention and moves Him toward us. We believers must be careful to approach every spiritual practice from a solidly New Testament perspective. That means that we never forget that the blood of Christ, and His blood alone, has already opened the way for us to have clear and open relationship with our Father God. Now then, we approach God on the basis of what Christ did at the cross, but we realize that our flesh, our desires, and our busyness, can often hinder our perception of what the Holy Spirit is trying to say to us. For that reason, we set aside some special times to tell the flesh that it doesn’t get to run our every waking moment. We tell our bodies, that although they are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and therefore important and sacred, they are not top dog in our lives. Our bodies are not evil, they are redeemed by the work of Christ, but they have not yet experienced the fullness of that work as they will in the resurrection.

So let your fasting experience bring a sense of humility to your heart. Let your hunger be an opportunity to resist the impulses of the flesh, and seek God with all your might. Use this time to soak in the Word, and the presence of God. You will come out healthier, stronger, and more spiritually sensitive.