Many churches are encouraging their people to consider prayer and fasting in the month of January. They are trying to start out the year with greater understanding and insight as to the mind and heart of God rather than living life as “doing business as usual” mentality. A high and lofty goal, combining fasting and prayer use to be part of the fabric of the Christian culture through the centuries, but since the 1900 many Christians have lost the idea, let alone the practice. Since the 1970s a Holy Spirit stirring has being happening where believers have seen that they have embraced their freedom in Christ and often abandoned many of the disciplines Christ taught, one being fasting.
The question that needs to be addressed is “Why & How” should we fast, not if.
The two main scripture that many are focusing on is found in the book of Isaiah and Daniel. Both these books contain instructions and examples of how to fast the way God desires. Both scriptural illustrations point to the need of focusing the human soul to see and hear God’s heart through stripping away the noise that life tends to creat in our souls. All to often believers have been taught that because God is totally sovereign, He will reveal His will when He wants. This often creates a false belief that our disciplines have little effect on God’s communication or enlightenment.
Though I can’t unpack these two books fully, let me just bring to your attention a few points that I hope will encourage not only the practice of joining prayer with fasting, but also encourage your perception of the why we do it. First lets consider Isaiah.
Isaiah 58:1-4 (NLTSE)
[1] “Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast. Shout aloud! Don’t be timid.
Tell my people Israel of their sins!
They come to the Temple every day and seem delighted to learn all about me.
They act like a righteous nation that would never abandon the laws of its God.
They ask me to take action on their behalf, pretending they want to be near me. [3] ‘We have fasted before you!’ they say. ‘Why aren’t you impressed?
We have been very hard on ourselves, and you don’t even notice it!’
“I will tell you why!” I respond.
“It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves.
Even while you fast, you keep oppressing your workers. [4] What good is fasting when you keep on fighting and quarreling?
This kind of fasting will never get you anywhere with me.
God is speaking to the Jews that they fast for the wrong reasons and that He will not answer their prayers because they are just being religious and not intending to allow their hearts to be tenderized by the prayer and fasting. If you read further in their chapter, God points out that if they were truly fasting according to his desire they should treat others more fairly.
Secondly the Daniel scripture.
Daniel 10:1 (NLTSE)
[1] In the third year of the reign of King Cyrus of Persia, Daniel (also known as Belteshazzar) had another vision. He understood that the vision concerned events certain to happen in the future–times of war and great hardship.
Daniel saw that vision and revelation would not be understood unless he could quiet the noise in his soul and thus he fasted from things that clouded his perception.
The human heart can easily be overshadowed by things at that are normally healthy activities, but gaining new insight require focus and focus require the sacrifice of “normal” things.
Challenge –
Are we fasting to try to motivate God our ourselves?
Are we ready to change how we live once the fasting and prayer is over?
These two questions might just tell us how successful our prayer and fasting time ends up producing.
Hope this encourages your journey and your change.
Pastor Dale
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