What You Need to Know About Fasting
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Christ said that His servants would fast. What is a fast? Is it starving yourself? Is it missing one meal—or more than one? Is fasting an obsolete Old Testament ritual—or an effective tool for Christian growth? Is it commanded for Christians today? Here are the answers to these questions and more! Fasting has been practiced since ancient times. There are many examples of it in God’s Word. They reveal the true nature of fasting.
Jonah 3:1-7 tells how the city of Nineveh reacted to Jonah’s sobering message from God. All the people “proclaimed a fast…from the greatest of them even to the least of them” (Jonah 3:5). Jonah 3:7 states that the king himself declared, “Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water.”
In Leviticus 23:27-29, God commanded the Israelites to “afflict their souls [bodies]” on the Day of Atonement. This annual Holy Day was to be kept “at even[ing], from even[ing] unto even[ing]” (Lev 23:32). This same day is referred to as “the fast” in Acts 27:9 and in the margins of many other Bible translations.
These verses all show what fasting is—going without food and drink for at least a twenty-four hour period.
When you fast, you feel it; you are afflicting your body. You may feel sluggish or lack energy. Your stomach will ache, and you will feel thirsty. If you are a regular coffee or soda drinker, you may experience a caffeine headache.
You may even feel like you are going to die—but you won’t. You can survive without food. Your body will still be “eating,” even if you are not; it will use its reserves. Our Creator knows it is possible for you to live without food and water for at least one day. Recognize that God would not tell you to do something that is impossible.
You Need God
How spiritually beneficial is fasting? What good comes from afflicting your body? Most people don’t see the need for God in their lives. Like King Nebuchadnezzar, they believe that they are responsible for their talents and abilities. They also credit themselves for everything they have or do (Dan. 4:30). Because they are proud and lifted up—vain—they do not understand that God gives them life and breath (Job 12:9-10).
Even those who may be striving to obey God, who admit that they are weak and need God’s strength and guidance, may not fully understand this. Saying something and fully comprehending it are two different things.
Job realized this after a long period of trials and afflictions, as he said, “I have heard of You [God] by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees You. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6).
Your mind can deceive you into believing that you are doing fine, that you don’t need God, or that you are close to Him, when the opposite is in fact true. God sums this up in Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart [mind] is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
It is easy to fool yourself!
A Christian striving to obey God wages a constant battle. The apostle Paul explains: “If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwells no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Rom. 7:16-18).
A mind exists in you that simply does not want to obey God: “Because the carnal [fleshly] mind is enmity against [the enemy of] God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7). Take this verse for what it says. Your physical mind is literally the enemy of God!
But if you will humble yourself through fasting, God is ready and able to help you (Psa. 34:15). When you feel the hunger and thirst, the extent of your dependence upon God becomes clear. You realize how much you need what He has created—the earth, the rain, and the physical food they nourish and yield—to sustain your temporary life. Even the air you breathe comes from God. How long could you exist without any of these?
How puny and insignificant we feel when fasting—light-headed, lacking energy, having bad breath and feeling quite thirsty after just one day. We realize how much we desperately need God to sustain our lives in every way.
Only by fasting can anyone ever come to see how much he needs God. You might be willing to admit this without fasting, but afflicting yourself brings understanding—because you FEEL it.
Humble Yourself
Fasting will help you draw closer to God. King David said, “I humbled my soul with fasting” (Psa. 35:13)—and God said that David was “a man after His own heart” (I Sam. 13:14; Acts 13:22). What about you? Are you “after God’s heart”? Unless you are willing to humble yourself, you cannot be close to your Creator.
This is important! Notice James 4:17. “God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble” (James 4:6). If you are proud—lifted up, dependent on self—God will not hear or help you. He cannot and will not work with a proud mind. But when you fast, you humble yourself. You draw near to God, and He draws near to you. If you rely on Him for strength, He will lift you up.
Submitting to God—obeying Him—gives you the strength to resist the devil. Fasting binds Satan; he will have no choice but to flee from you. He cannot get to you when you are close to God.
How important this is for a child of God! Read James 4:7-10. Notice how he talks about humbling yourself, weeping and mourning: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double minded. Be afflicted [fast], and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.”
This is all part of fasting. Do this, and as you draw near to God, He will draw near to you.
Why the Disciples Did Not Fast
In Matthew 9:14-15, Christ explained the great purpose of denying your body food and drink: “Then came to Him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bride chamber mourn, as long as the Bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the Bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.”
Christ was God in the flesh. He was right here! His disciples had close, daily contact with Him. They could ask Him questions at any time. And Christ was right there, teaching, helping and encouraging them. The disciples could touch and even hug Christ—how much closer could they have been? Thus, there was no need for them to fast.
But when Christ returned to the Father’s right hand in heaven, fasting became necessary. It was not as easy for the disciples to stay tuned into Christ’s thinking or to see His will in their lives. They remembered Christ’s earlier admonition to fast, and by so doing, they were able to maintain and grow beyond the level of spiritual understanding that they achieved while Jesus was on earth.
And so we must fast today. Just as we are commanded to fast on the Day of Atonement, we need to fast often (II Cor. 11:27), to stay in harmony—“at-one-ment”—with God and Christ.
Even Ahab Fasted
The life of a Christian is one of overcoming. It is a life of tests and trials. Human “steam” cannot get you through them. You need God’s help and strength, which fasting can bring. Here are some examples from the pages of the Bible.
The prophet Elijah had spent many years witnessing to King Ahab and the kingdom of Israel. Ahab was an evil, wicked ruler, of whom God said, “But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD…” (I Kgs. 21:25).
Elijah gave him a final warning about what would happen to him and his relatives (I Kgs 21:20-24). This warning produced results: “…he [Ahab] rent [tore] his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly [mourned]” (I Kgs 21:27).
What was God’s reaction? “See you how Ahab humbles himself before Me? Because he humbles himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days…” (I Kgs 21:29).
A sincere, repentant attitude, humbling yourself before God, and fasting bring results. If God had mercy on wicked Ahab, how much more will He hear the prayers of His Spirit-begotten children and help them when they fast in times of need?