I felt hungry a lot today. I think one of the reasons why I
felt so hungry was I was thinking a lot about fasting. The funny thing is, I wasn’t
even fasting, I was thinking about fasting and the spiritual discipline of
fasting. Even just thinking about fasting made me hungry.
This coming
Sunday we will be looking at the discipline of fasting. Fasting as a spiritual
discipline is probably one of the most non-practiced disciplines of all the
disciplines. Even myself, I will admit that I do not fast on a regular basis. I
can probably count on one hand the amount of times that I have actually fasted
as an act of spiritual discipline in my lifetime. I wonder why that is? Why is
it that fasting is something we as Christians do not practice? Some may argue
that biblically it isn’t talked about that much. But according to Donald
Whitney in his book on spiritual disciplines, fasting is mentioned in the Bible
more times than baptism is mentioned. (Whitney says fasting is mentioned 77
times, and baptism is mentioned 75.)
A lot of us
don’t practice fasting because we don’t necessarily see how it can help at all.
Many of us don’t like the effects fasting has on us, headaches, hunger pains,
grumpiness, irritability, etc. Yet, there are many times in our lives that we
will forego a couple of meals within a particular day because we are too busy
in the activities that we are doing: shopping, playing sports, running errands,
etc. But to do it specifically for a spiritual purpose, we are afraid of trying
it.
Fasting as
defined by Whitney is: “abstinence from food for spiritual purposes.” He goes
on to argue that any fasting without a specific spiritual focus to it is not
true Christian fasting. Fasting is abstinence from food for a spiritual
purpose, how so? One way fasting can be a benefit to us in our relationship
with Christ, is that fasting may sharpen our times of prayer. Whitney uses an example
of fasting as a reminder to pray. If we have a purpose to our fasting, whenever
we feel any hunger pains or any side effects of fasting, it will remind us of
why we are fasting and the purpose of that fast.
Whitney
says, “For instance, if your purpose is to pray for your spouse, then every
time your stomach growls or your head aches, your hunger reminds you that you’re
fasting, which in turn reminds you that you’re fasting for the purpose of
praying for your spouse – and then you pray.” Fasting can be used to help us
with other disciplines, but it needs to have a purpose.
Here are
the ten biblical purposes that Whitney has come up with for the purpose of
fasting:
1. To
strengthen prayer – Ezra 8:23
2. To
seek God’s guidance – Judges 20; Acts 14:23
3. To
express grief – Judges 20:26; 1 Samuel 31:13
4. To
seek deliverance or protection – 2 Chronicles 20:3-4
5. To
express repentance and the return to God – 1 Samuel 7:6; Jonah 3:5-8
6. To
humble oneself before God – 1 Kings 21:27-29; Psalm 35:13
7. To
express concern for the work of God – Nehemiah 1:3-4; Daniel 9:3
8. To
minister to the need of others – Isaiah 58
9. To
overcome temptation and dedicate yourself to God – Matthew 4:1-11
10. To
express love and worship to God – Luke 2:37
As with the other disciplines, fasting is not to become
something that we become legalistic about or proud as the Pharisees were doing
in Jesus day. (See Matthew 6) Fasting is to have a spiritual component, a “God
centered purpose – not a self-centered purpose” says Whitney. As we fast, we
realize that we can survive on more than bread alone, and that our savior,
Jesus Christ, even describes himself as “the Bread of Life.” When we are
physically hungry during a fast, we are reminded of our dependence on God as
our only source of nourishment for our souls.
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