Week 9 — Monday: When You Fast
Matthew 6:16-18
The Word of God presents fasting as good, profitable, necessary, and beneficial. The early Church was often found fasting before they made important decisions. And even though prayer and fasting are often linked together, fasting is slowly becoming silent in Christian churches today. The question that is often asked is: “Why fast?”
Fasting is an excellent way to take our eyes off the things of this world and position our hearts and attention towards Christ. Our souls can become so stuffed with worldly desires there is little room left for God. And as we then seek to fast, we are drawn closer to Him!
Basic reasons we are to fast:
- Fast for direction. When people desired to know God’s will or direction, they fasted. When there is less food in the stomach there is more blood flowing to the brain.
- Fast for liberation. When you feel harassed by a certain person or circumstance, fasting and prayer are powerful weapons to have in your spiritual arsenal.
- Fast for a renewed intimacy with God. Denying fleshly things can bring you into a closer walk with the Lord. It makes you realize that we are really living this life for an “audience of One.”
Prayer, along with fasting, seems to indicate the sincerity of those that combine the two. The theology of fasting is a theology of priorities in which we are given the opportunity to express ourselves in an undivided and intense devotion to God.
Prayer and fasting should never be considered just another burden or a duty but rather a celebration of God’s goodness and mercy to His children. The more an individual spends time with the Lord in prayer and fasting, those same individuals will find and see a renewed hunger to do it repeatedly!
—CONTRIBUTED BY GORDON RUMBLE, PASTOR OF CONGREGATIONAL CARE & SENIOR ADULTS—
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