Fasting; Should We Do This? Part 1

Health Warning:
You should not fast food if you are diabetic, have health issues or are prone to anorexia. Always consult your doctor before you go on an extended fast and you should always make sure you are taking in enough fluids and salt.
James 5:16 NIV

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. 

Prayer is coming to God in weakness and asking Him, in His righteousness, to intervene for us. When a righteous person prays passionately, God will release His power. The problem is life and the world can get in the way and we tend to focus on self, instead of God. Prayer, combined with fasting, helps us to deny self and forces us to focus on God.

Matthew 17:20 NIV

He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

When should we fast? 

When we feel separated from God. Christians cannot be separated from God because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross but when we focus on self and we feel our heart growing cold towards God, fasting and prayer will restore our passion towards our relationship with God by revealing our love for God in a new light. Food can bog us down and we can feel sleepy and content. Hunger, on the other hand, allows our spirit and our mind to be awake and we are more in tune to God's voice and our conscience is easily aroused by the Holy Spirit's promptings.

Romans 6:23 NIV

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Fasting signifies humility:

By denying our body food and or water, we are humbling our self in front of God and asking Him to provide for us. Saul, after being blinded, fasted 3 days and nights with out food or water.

Acts 9:9 NIV

For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. 

Demonstrates repentance:

Joel 2:12-13 NIV

“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. 

James 4:8-10 NIV

Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. 

Appeals to God for forgiveness and pardon:

1 Kings 16:30 NIV

Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him.

1 Kings 21:27 NIV

When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly. 

v28-29 NIV
Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite: “Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.”

2 Chronicles 7:14 NIV

"if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 

The response from God to fasting and praying will assure pardon and restoration from our sinful lifestyle. Even though Christians have the Holy Spirit intercessing for us, if we harbor sin in our lifestyle then what happens is we drift away from Jesus and even though He is still beside us we cannot hear His voice and our prayers, being tinted by the sin in our lives, does not reach God. The Christian walk way is very narrow and few stay on it because it means living separate from the worldly way. In these last days with the media pounding our mind with sexual pleasures, profanities and immoral lifestyles, it is hard to keep to the path of God because our conscience becomes numb. If Christians continue to walk away from God we do risk losing our salvation because Jesus will say, I do not know you...

Matthew 7:21-23 NIV
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’"

We need to have an active relationship with Him and the only way this can happen is by spending time with Him and the best way to accomplish this is by prayer, fasting and humble submission to Him.

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To be continued with more reasons for fasting.

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