Fasting In A Spiritual Way

Fasting has been an important activity among religious groups throughout history.  Several Native American tribes expected their young men to go into the wilderness and fast until they received a vision to guide their lives.  Unfortunately, doctors tell us that prolonged fasting produces accumulations of waste products in our system that result in symptoms similar to every known hallucinogenic drug.   The visions are the results of hallucinations, and often come from Satan rather than God.  Similar practices are found in religions around the world. 

The Pharisees and many other groups would agree to fast until a specific goal was accomplished, as we see in Acts 23:12.  “And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.”  Unfortunately some Christian groups have adopted a similar idea, encouraging one to fast until God answers your prayer.  Fasting in such a manner is essentially a hunger strike against God.  Such fasting does not please God.

Isaiah 58:2-7 deals with such fasting.  “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.  Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.

Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?

Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.  Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.  Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?  Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?” 

God said they were not fast in an effort to get God to take action.  Instead they were to make the fast a period of putting God first, seeking to please him by eliminating sin and reaching out to others in love instead of focusing on what they wanted.  In Matthew 4:1 we find Jesus was deliberately led into the desert to be tempted by Satan.  “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”  As a result of forty days without eating he was hungry and Satan hoped to use that hunger to gain power over him.  As we know Christ resisted that temptation.   There is a proper way of fasting, but unfortunately if not done for the proper reasons or in the right way, it can result in temptation and sin rather than spiritual growth.   Jesus warned about fasting in Matthew 6:16-18.

“Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.  But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.” 

Like giving and prayer, fasting should be a private affair, done in secret. It should not be used as a means of impressing others with our spirituality.  When it is done properly, God will reward it, but when done for show, the only reward will be human accolades.  Too often people take pride in how much they fast and prostrate themselves before God, not realizing he loves us and we do not need to try to bribe him to act.  Our fasting ought to be like a little boy dropping his toys to run sit with his daddy, rather than a chore like cleaning his room.