Reasons for Fasting
1. Taking the physical for spiritual.
2. Fasting is a spiritual health check.
3. Helps us overcome the calamities of life.
4. The weaker your flesh is the stronger your spirit is.
5. We should not only fast in a crisis, but also for purpose.
6. Disconnects you from the world and connects you to heaven.
7. You will lose physical weight, but you will gain spiritual weight.
8. Fasting doesn't move God; it moves us into his spiritual realm.
9. Fasting will expose unhealthy relationships you have with food.
10. Acknowledgement that you cannot live by food alone in this life.
11. Allows your inner man to be strengthened and your faith to grow.
12. You become aware of how close God is. His voice becomes amplified.
13. A way to see God for direction, deliverance, divine wisdom, and provision.
14. Humbling yourself before God and acknowledging your need for him in your life.
15. Breaks off any strongholds on your life that you have been unable to get free from.
16. Disciplines your body and soul to submit to the direction of God's spirit by focusing on him.
3 Reasons why Fasting matters
Fasting starves what is stopping you from experiencing God's presence. It forces you to pay attention to the parts of your life that you try to drown out through late night binges and social media scrolls. In the process it teaches us to rely on Jesus.
Fasting invites, you to give up something you love to make space for something you love even more.
Fasting often comes before breakthrough. Moses fasted 40 days while receiving the 10 commandments. Daniel fasted 3 weeks and then received a vision. Jesus fasted 40 days and then overcame the devil's temptations. In each of these cases, God provided clarity, strength and breakthrough on the other side of faithful sacrifice.
True fasting isn’t a self-righteous “hunger strike” to manipulate God’s favor. It’s a means to humble us, awaken spiritual cravings, and bear good fruit. True fasting produces fruit like humility, generosity, and a desire to serve others.
Fasting was the 1st thing Jesus did after being filled with the holy spirit. It is the 1st thing Paul did after his revelation of Jesus on the road to Damascus.
Benefits of Fasting:
Healing will quickly appear, glory of the Lord will be your rear guard, righteousness will go before you. The Lord will answer your call, He will guide you, satisfy your needs, and strengthen your frame.
Share your food with the hungry, provide the poor wanderer with shelter, clothe the naked, do not turn away from your own flesh and blood.
Fasting is something we do before God, not before others. It enables us to focus on his heart and his spirit. It is an intentional form of sacrifice that clears a path for us to spend more time with Him and understand his heart and kingdom desires. It is a personal, private discipline that draws you into intimacy with our Father. It is an act of sacrifice that moves us into the realm of faith.
This passage from Isaiah should be an encouragement to us all as we fast. The people in Isaiah's day had turned their fasts into religious acts and prescribed rituals. What had always been a call of God to his people to open them further to God's heart and character became tradition and religion. The people began to divorce their fast from their lifestyle, making the fast something they did in religious observance, but forgetting that it was supposed to draw them closer in relationship to God and one another. Their fast became a means to an end, a "tick the box" in their religious obedience. Outwardly they looked the part, inwardly they had missed the point.
Don't allow your fast to follow suit. It's not actually about the outward fast itself, it's about what God is doing in your character and what he is speaking to your heart that counts. If all you do is not eat meat for 21 days but fail to draw closer to God through the experience, your fast was pointless (except maybe as a diet). God lays out in this passage what true "fasting" looks like. Loosening the chains of injustice, setting the oppressed free, breaking yokes, feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, clothing the naked. In other words, understanding God's heart and living out that heart in your lifestyle.
Scripture Reference Isaiah 58:6-12 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to lose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
Matthew 6:16-18 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 9:14-15 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
Ezra 8:21 There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all out possessions. (Ezra fasted for protection)
Joel 2:12-13 “Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.
-Anna fasted constantly for the coming of the redemption of Israel. (Luke 2:37)
-King Jehoshaphat fasted when the confederate armies of the Canaanites and Syrians invaded Israel (2 Chronicles 20:3)
Prayer: Jesus, thank you for the spiritual discipline of fasting. As I commit myself to fast, help me to focus in on the things that really matter. Help me not to make this fast a religious act, but a relational encounter with you. Open my heart to what is on your heart and change me from the inside out. Help me to live a life that reflects that sacrifice and obedience. And give me the grace to live it out each day. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.