I feel the need to talk about fasting. I can't say everything I want to say about this gift of God in one post, but this book does an amazing job of explaining "The Rewards of Fasting".
I am aware that this is the last thing many of you want to read about and many of you will be confused, but that is why I am writing about it. We must start asking the questions that come up in our lives. How long will we continue in ignorance as the world continues to fade away?
We must know what God has given us as weapons so we will be prepared when the time comes to use them. We have a messed up view of many things in America, one of them is the grace of fasting. Just because we think backwards, and believe that we must pamper ourselves in order to be satisfied, we should not make the mistake of believing God thinks that way.
We must, as children of the One who is accomplishing His purposes on the earth, press into Him and contend for the fullness of what He has for us. God is wanting to bring His people nearer to Him and reveal to them the mysteries of His Kingdom. But He will not just throw us the secrets that have been sealed up from eternity past as we run by waving our hands and continue on with our "busy" lives. His strategy is the same today as it was yesterday, He never changes. If we want to know more of Him, we must do it
His way. This is one of many ways we contend for more of God, but without a wholehearted repentive heart, fasting will accomplish nothing. Many of the false religions practice the
act of fasting, but they don't release the blessings of God. So, I say that if you haven't totally given over your heart to the One who made it...the One who died for it, then you must take care of that before you take this next step. For those of you who have said yes to Jesus and are curious about fasting & prayer, I pray that this will help you.
FASTING:
First of all, let me say that the act of
fasting should never be separated from the act of
prayer. The two go together like peanut butter and jelly. It is a mystery of Heaven that; when the children of God come to Him in wholeheartedness and say to Him the words that He has told us to say, it provokes Him to act.
Hear what the Spirit is saying though: fasting doesn’t
move God. He doesn't say, "
Well, if you fast just a little while longer, then I'll know your serious." Fasting, under the grace of God moves
our heart. Fasting increases our capacity to receive from God...fasting increases our capacity to give ourselves back to God...fasting, in the context of
intimacy with God moves our hearts, this, in turn moves His heart.
We don’t earn a thing by fasting; we position ourselves to receive an increase of capacity at the heart level. The call to fasting is the invitation to wholeheartedness,
not at all about earning something.
The call to fasting is the call to the grace of wholeheartedness. Remember, every prophetic invitation is a promise of the enabling. And God is calling us to wholeheartedness (
characterized and intensified through fasting and prayer), so He
will give us the grace to do it.
-It's A Gift-
The grace of fasting is a gift of God that leads the human spirit into fascination and exhilaration before Him. Unless we have a vision or hope for attaining more in God, we will not fast. God has given us the gift of fasting to position our hearts in a position to receive more of Him. If we don’t view it in that way, we will not fast. Fasting is not intended by God to be something we hate. It is a gift meant to tenderize our hearts and bring great change in our lives! We fast because we know that the Lord desires to give us more of His heart and we know that fasting expresses our desire to have more of God and our pain of recognizing how little of Him we actually have. We fast because we cannot endure living in spiritual barrenness. The deeper we go with God, the more we realize our intense need for Him and how little we actually possess. That is why Paul could say that he was the “chief of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). The more light of God we have in our lives, the more easily we can see the darkness in us. As we press into Him with fasting and prayer, He will begin to reveal the secrets of His heart to us and we will be more and more fascinated with Him and disgusted with the wickedness in our own lives, which, in turn, will produce in us an invigorated (uncompromising) spirit that will willingly say no to all that hinders more of His love from entering into our lives. We will radically “rend” our hearts from this world and intentionally position our hearts in alignment with His. (And that’s the whole point!)
Fasting is embracing voluntary weakness and esteeming God’s sovereignty as the only answer for our problem (whether it is a disaster/crisis or just our lack of Him in our lives). We do this in order to experience more of God’s power and presence. It’s a paradox that we become weak in the natural to receive strength from the Spirit! Remember what Jesus told Paul, “
My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) When Paul was struggling with God’s call to walk in weakness, Jesus encouraged him by revealing that the release of God’s power in his life was connected to his willingness to embrace weakness.
There is something in the realm of weakness that God will not let us avoid. He knows that we must be weak in order to receive His strength, because we would boast in our own abilities if he gave it to us too easily.
Western culture hates weakness; however, God has made weakness mandatory for those who desire spiritual strength (1 Corinthians 1:27, 29). These are the paradoxes of God’s kingdom. He never seems to do things quite the way that the world would anticipate.
- The most challenging issue with fasting isn’t even the hunger; it is the physical weakness it produces. We become physically weak and can’t function in the way we normally do. Even David, the great warrior recorded the weakness he felt from fasting. “My knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh is feeble from lack of fatness.” (Psalm 109:24)
God gave fasting to weak and broken people because we are ALL weak and broken.
Everyone can do this. Fasting is voluntary weakness. Weakness and wilderness are nearly synonymous terms. In saying yes to the fasted lifestyle, we are saying yes to the wilderness. One of the mysteries of God is that in our weakness in the wilderness we can find doorways into His strength. This is revealed at the end of the Bride’s journey in Song of Solomon. She has discovered the secret of His strength being made perfect in her weakness as she arises from her passage through the wilderness and ascends from this journey called life victoriously, leaning on her beloved, Jesus. “
Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved?" (Song 8:5)
- The wilderness of fasting strips us of false comforts, strengths and securities and we come to grips with how much our souls are propped up by a thousand things other than God. As we are stripped of all other lovers, He transforms us into lovers of Him. Are our hearts bloated and lethargic from too little of the Word of God and too much of worldly comforts? Most likely, the answer is yes and the only solution is to enter the voluntary wilderness of prayer and fasting
We must answer this call to wholeheartedness that Jesus is offering to us. If the world is ever going to take Christianity seriously, we must start acting like Christ! I challenge you right now to say no to the lies of this world that tell you your comfort is the most important thing. I break that off of you in Jesus' name. We must act in obedience to the Soverign Lord of Lords, the one who is coming to establish His Kingdom on this earth. Say no to the pleasures of this age and yes to abandonment to Jesus.
We’ve been taught that we will experience more life if we pamper our bodies. This is wrong even from a natural point of view. Nutritionists tell us that the more we eat the less sensitive our taste buds are. We actually taste less when we are not hungry. Moderation in the physical realm actually increases the pleasure we gain from physical activities. (example you eat less, you receive greater enjoyment when you do eat)
Remember: Though our soul lives in a physical body, it was not designed to be a slave to physical pleasures and passions. We must deliberately silence the compulsions of our natural man if we want our spirit man to have the upper hand.
God created us to fast. It’s not easy right away, just like a guy who hasn’t lifted a single weight in years can’t lift hard his first day back without hurting himself or someone depraved of sunlight for years (although they crave the light) can’t be brought into the brightness without it hurting them. We crave intimacy with God, we desire more of His presence, but we haven’t cultivated the very tool that He has given us to access more of Him. So, even though we desire it; wholeheartedness (fasting) is hard and even painful at times. We must start small and allow God’s grace to give us the ability to enter into the deeper realms of intimacy through fasting. Start off by asking Him to give you the grace to want to want to fast! Then as time goes by you'll start wanting it, but you still won't be able to do it. So, then ask Him for the grace to actually fast! He wants you to receive more of Him. It's not Him holding it back from you. He did say, "
We have not because we ask not." (James 4:2)
Remember: It’s only by His grace that we can enter into the deepest things of Him anyway, why would this be any different?
