Fasting
The purpose of fasting should be to take my eyes off the things of this world to focus completely on God. Fasting is a way to demonstrate to God, and to myself, that I am serious about my relationship with Him. Fasting helps me gain a new perspective and a renewed reliance upon God.
I am thinking this part of the bible has been ripped out of most Evangelical and Protestant bibles. I don’t know the last time I’ve heard a sermon or teaching on fasting. This is a Jesus thing, not an old covenant thing.
Is it not an Old Testament thing, we ask, enjoined by Moses for the Day of Atonement, and after the return from Babylonian exile required on some other annual days, but now abrogated by the Messiah? Nope!
When I wept in my soul with fasting, It became my reproach. | Psalm 69:10
Fasting may express our self-humbling before God.
For if ‘penitence and fasting’ go together in Scripture, ‘prayer and fasting’ are even more often coupled. This is not so much a regular practice, so that whenever we pray we fast, as an occasional and special arrangement, so that when we need to seek God for some particular direction or blessing we turn aside from food and other distractions in order to do so.
Our Master Jesus himself fasted immediately before his public ministry began; and the early church followed his example, the church of Antioch before Paul and Barnabas were sent out on the first missionary journey, and Paul and Barnabas themselves before appointing elders in every new church which they had planted. The evidence is plain that special enterprises need special prayer, and that special prayer may well involve fasting.
Scripture does not command the disciples to fast. God does not require or demand it of the followers of Jesus. At the same time, the Bible presents fasting as something that is good, profitable, and beneficial.
The book of Acts records believers fasting before they made important decisions Fasting and prayer are often linked together. Too often, the focus of fasting is on the lack of food.
Jesus Quotes and God Thoughts 
Great post, Michael (and not your first one on fasting). Too often, I think, we justify our being “users” by considering that God has given us dominion over all the earth. But we need to be stewards, not users. Fasting can give us a break from using things, food, or whatever. It creates an emptiness that we can fill with the Holy Spirit, with prayer, with contemplation of our true calling to do the will of God. There has been a movement of sorts within my church during Lent to “take something on” rather than to “give something up.” Well intentioned, I think, but not the same. Taking something on can possibly steal away contemplative time, not leaving us with an emptiness we can fill with the Holy Spirit. We need that time, that emptiness, to slow us down in our pursuit of the world and give us time to consider what God wants.
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Brother, very well said. Contemplative time is a huge benefit of fasting. Blessings.
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Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
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Good post; made me think of how it is a privilege and not just a duty in regards to fasting
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“Stewards not users” “…emptiness we can fill with the Holy Spirit…give us time to consider what God wants.” Well said- thank you brother.
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