There’s more to a biblical fast than abstaining from food. Without a spiritual purpose for your fast it’s just a weight-loss or hunger-strike kind of fasting!
“Whenever men are to pray to God concerning any great matter, it would be expedient to appoint fasting along with prayer.” John Calvin.
There’s something about fasting that sharpens the edge of our intercessions and gives passion to our supplications. So it has frequently been used by the people of God when there is a special urgency about the concerns they lift before the Father.
When Ezra was about to lead a group of exiles back to Jerusalem, he proclaimed a fast in order for the people to seek the Lord earnestly for safe passage. They were to face many dangers without military protection during their nine-hundred-mile journey. This was no ordinary matter to be brought to God in prayer. “So we fasted and petitioned our God about this,” says Ezra 8:23, “and he answered our prayer.”
In Judges 20 the other eleven tribes of Israel prepared for war against the tribe of Benjamin. The soldiers gathered at Gibeah because of a shocking sin committed by the men of that Benjaminite city. They sought the Lord before going into battle, and even though they outnumbered the Benjamites by fifteen to one, they lost the battle and twenty-two thousand men. The next day they sought the Lord with prayer and tears, but again they lost the battle and with thousands of casualties.
Confused, the third time, they not only sought guidance from the Lord in prayer and with tears, but they also “fasted that day until evening” (verse 26). “Shall we go up again to battle with Benjamin our brother, or not?” they asked. Then the Lord made His will plain: “Go, for tomorrow I will give them into your hands” (verse 28). Only after they sought Him with fasting did the Lord give Israel the victory. This is not to say that they arm-twisted God by their fasting but that their sincerity and commitment to depend on the Lord was amplified.
According to Acts 13:2,3 and 14:23, before Paul and Barnabas and the churches in Antioch and in every church would appoint elders in the churches they founded, they first prayed with fasting to receive God’s guidance.
David Brainerd prayed with fasting for the Lord’s leadership regarding his entry into ministry. On Monday, April 19, 1742, he recorded in his journal:
“I set apart this day for fasting and prayer to God for His grace; especially to prepare me for the work of the ministry, to give me divine aid and direction in my preparations for that great work, and in His own time to send me into His harvest.”
Fasting does not ensure the certainty of receiving clear guidance from God. Rightly practiced, however, it does make us more receptive to the One who loves to guide us.
Three of the first four references in the Bible to fasting connect it with an expression of grief. As mentioned in Judges 20:26, one of the reasons the Israelites wept and fasted before the Lord was—not only to seek His guidance—but to express their grief for the forty thousand brothers they had lost in battle. When King Saul was killed by the Philistines, the men of Jabesh Gilead walked all night to recover the bodies of the king and his sons. After the burial, 1 Samuel 31:13 says they mourned when they “fasted seven days.”
The next chapter gives the response of David and his men when they heard the news: “Then David and all the men with him took hold of their clothes and tore them. They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the Lord and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword” (2 Samuel 1:11-12).
Grief caused by events other than a death also can be expressed through fasting. Christians have fasted because of grief for their sins, since the wages of sin is death.
One of the most common fasts in biblical times was a fast to seek salvation from enemies or circumstances. For example,
After being notified that a vast army was coming against him, King Jehoshaphat was afraid and “resolved to inquire of the Lord, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah. The people of Judah came together to seek help from the Lord; indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him” (2 Chronicles 20:3-4).
The best known cooperative fast in Scripture is likely the one in Esther 4:16. It was called by Queen Esther as a part of her appeal to God for protection from the king’s wrath. She planned to enter the court of King Xerxes uninvited in order to appeal to him for the protection of the Jews from mass extermination. She said to her uncle Mordecai, “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
Fasting for this purpose is similar to fasting for the purpose of expressing grief for sin. But as repentance is a change of mind resulting in a change of action, fasting can represent more than just grief over sin. It also can signal a commitment to obedience and a new direction. The Israelites expressed repentance through fasting in 1 Samuel 7:6 when “they drew water and poured it out before the Lord. On that day they fasted and there they confessed, ‘We have sinned against the Lord.’”
In Joel 2:12, the Lord specifically commanded His people to signify their repentance and their return to Him by fasting: “‘Even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to Me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’”
Surely the most thorough fast ever recorded is the one in Jonah 3:5-8, and it is a fast to express repentance.
Fasting, when practiced with the right motives, is a physical expression of humility before God, just as kneeling or prostrating yourself in prayer can reflect humility before Him. And as there are times when you feel the need to express humility by praying on your knees or on your face down before the Lord, so there are times when you may want to express a sense of humility before the Lord in every activity throughout the day by fasting.
Many who are accustomed to expressing humility in prayer by kneeling might ask why we would want to express humility all day by fasting. Conversely, John Calvin asked a better question: Why not?
“For since this [fasting] is a holy exercise both for the humbling of men and for their confession of humility, why should we use it less than the ancients did in similar need? . . . What reason is there why we should not do the same?”
One of the most wicked men in Jewish history, King Ahab, eventually humbled himself before God and demonstrated it by fasting: Read 1 Kings 21:27-29.
On the other hand, one of Israel’s godliest men humbled himself before the Lord in exactly the same way. King David wrote, “I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting” (Psalm 35:13).
Remember that fasting itself is not humility before God, but should be an expression of humility. There was no humility in the Pharisee of Luke 18:12, who bragged to God in prayer that he fasted twice a week.
Just as a parent might fast and pray out of concern for the work of God in the life of a child, so Christians may fast and pray because they feel a burden for the work of God in a broader scope. A Christian might feel compelled to fast and pray for the work of God in a place that has experienced tragedy, disappointment, or apparent defeat. This was the purpose for Nehemiah’s fast when he heard that despite the return of many Jewish exiles to Jerusalem, the city still had no wall to defend it. See Nehemiah 1:3-4. After his fast, Nehemiah then went to work in order to do something tangible and public to strengthen this work of God.
When we see some of the missional needs that stare at us, we should be drawn to pray and to fast. For example, Kenya is so plagued by the error of the so called prosperity gospel and the Word of Faith preachers and churches are at every corner. They have dominated the country’s wavelengths both in the radios and TVs. It seems as the true gospel has been obliterated. You meet with Christians who are tired of buying anointing oil and brooms (to sweep away curses and to usher in new destiny of blessings). Brothers what are we doing about this? If we can’t do anything, (even if we can) should we not proclaim a fast to call upon the Lord to smile upon the Biblical work in this country? Should we not put on humble ourselves in sack clothes and ashes as well as in prayer and fasting?
Daniel was so burdened for the return of the Jews from exile and the restoration of Jerusalem and he, too, expressed this by fasting: “So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.” (Daniel 9:3).
A devoted believer in this Discipline, David Brainerd’s concerns for the work of God frequently found expression in fasting and prayer. In his journal entry for June 14, 1742, he demonstrated his concern for the work he believed God had called him to do.
I set apart this day for secret fasting and prayer, to entreat God to direct and bless me with regard to the great work I have in view, of preaching the gospel. . . . God enabled me to wrestle ardently in intercession for absent friends. . . . The Lord visited me marvelously in prayer; I think my soul never was in such an agony before. I felt no restraint, for the treasures of divine grace were opened to me. I wrestled for absent friends, for the ingathering of souls, for multitudes of poor souls, and for many that I thought were the children of God, personally, in many distant places.
Obviously we can’t fast continually, but may the Lord at least occasionally give us a concern for His work so great that our normal concern for food will seem secondary in comparison.
Those who think the Spiritual Disciplines foster tendencies of introspection or independence should consider Isaiah 58:6-7. In the most extensive passage in Scripture dealing exclusively with fasting, God emphasizes fasting for the purpose of meeting the needs of others. The people originally addressed in this section had complained to the Lord that they had fasted and humbled themselves before Him, but He had not answered them. But the reason why He had not heard them was their disobedience. Their lives were in hypocritical contrast to their fasting and praying. “Yet on the day of your fasting,” says the Lord in verses 3-4, “you do as you please …” Fasting cannot be compartmentalized from the rest of our lives. The Spiritual Disciplines do not stand alone. God will not bless the practice of any Discipline, including fasting, when we reject His Word regarding relationships with others.
There are other ways of fasting to meet the needs of others. Many fast so that they can give to the poor or to some ministry whatever money they would have spent on food during that period.
How could you minister to the needs of others with the extra time or money fasting could provide?
Ask Christians to name a fast by a biblical character and most will probably think first of the supernatural fast of Jesus prior to His temptation in Matthew 4:1-11. Verse two of that familiar passage tells us that Jesus fasted “forty days and forty nights.” In the spiritual strength of that prolonged fast He was prepared to overcome a direct onslaught of temptation from Satan himself, the strongest He would face until Gethsemane.
It was also during that fast that He privately dedicated Himself to the Father for the public ministry He would begin soon thereafter. Nowhere in Scripture are we asked to fast for forty days, or for any specific length of time. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing from Jesus’ unique experience for us to apply to ourselves. One principle we learn from Jesus’ example is this: Fasting is a way of overcoming temptations and of freshly dedicating ourselves to the Father.
There are times we struggle with temptation, or we anticipate grappling with it, when we need extra spiritual strength to overcome it. Perhaps we are traveling (or our spouse is traveling) and temptations for mental and sensual unfaithfulness abound. At the start of school or a new job or ministry there may be new temptations, or it may seem appropriate to dedicate ourselves anew to the Lord.
Often we face decisions that place unusual temptations before us. Do we take a new job that will mean much more money but much less time with the family? Do we accept the promotion that includes a transfer that would end a significant ministry in our local church or it means going where our family’s spiritual growth may suffer? In times of exceptional temptation, exceptional measures are required. Fasting for the purpose of overcoming these temptations and of renewing our dedication to God is a Christ-like response. But how many times have you taken up new roles or accepted to take some positions that will bring you into a greater temptations and you do not consider calling upon the Lord to help you? We need to be very wary of depending on the arm of flesh. I do not mean that it is always arm of flesh when we do not fast, but all I am saying is the possibility. We should not be those who walk by sight – we should walk by faith. Surely fasting and prayer cannot be walking by sight – or can they be?
By now you may have associated fasting only with dire circumstances and great troubles. But the Bible also says that fasting may be an act of sheer devotion to God.
In Luke 2 there is an unforgettable woman whose entire eighty four years are flashed before us in just three quick verses. Her name is Anna. The summary of her life is found in Luke 2:37: “She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.” Although Anna’s story has its primary significance in the context of Mary and Joseph presenting the newborn Jesus at the Temple, how she lived from day to day is what concerns us here. Anna was married for only seven years before being widowed. Assuming she married as a young lady, this Godly woman devoted at least half a century, night and day, to a worship of God characterized by “fasting and praying.” It is this kind of a widow who the Bible describes as ‘She who is truly a widow … has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.’ (1 Tim 5:5) A church that has such women is greatly blessed by this kind of prayer ministry.
Fasting can be an expression of finding your greatest pleasure and enjoyment in life from God. That’s the case when disciplining yourself to fast means that you love God more than food. Fasting tangibly shows that seeking God is more important to you than eating (at least occasionally). This honours God and is a means of worshiping Him as God. It means that your stomach isn’t your god as it is with some (see Philippians 3:19). Instead it is God’s servant, and fasting proves it because you’re willing to sublimate its desires to those of the Spirit.
Christians throughout history have fasted for this purpose in preparation for the Lord’s Supper. In addition to the elements of repentance and humility before God in this kind of fast, it is also intended to help the person focus on adoring the One who is represented in the Supper.
Another way of fasting to express love and worship to God is to spend your mealtime in praise and adoration of God. A variation is to delay eating a particular meal until you have had your daily time of Bible intake and prayer. Some of you complain that they did not have enough time to have their devotion/quiet time during the day and yet they had time to eat and drink throughout the day! This is lame duck excuse.
Appreciation and credit to Don Whitney's book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by NAVPRESS.
