God’s Constitution, Pt 24: Fasting
Matthew 6:16-18 16“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. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so 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 5:6 6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Isaiah 58:1-7 1“Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins. 2For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. 3‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. 4Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. 5Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? 6“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7Is 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?
I have heard it said that fasting lies somewhere between unbridled license and man-made rules. I have also heard it said that nowhere in the New Testament is there a command to fast. Neither statement is true, and both are borne out of lack of understanding. But before we look into these things let me ask a question, “Just what is fasting?” That question is necessary because in modern Western culture church attendance is at an all-time low and fasting even lower.
One thing for sure though, fasting is not dieting. There is an element of dieting in fasting, but their goals are different. Dieting is the reduction of food intake for the purpose of weight loss. Fasting is the reduction of food intake for the purpose of getting close to God. It is easy to understand dieting because it has a concrete result: The loss of weight. Fasting is not so easy because it is difficult to pin down what ‘getting close to God’ means.
The thing is, we often don’t realize ‘getting close to God’ isn’t as difficult as it seems.
7Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. (Psalm 139:7-10)
This means that no matter what we do, nor where we go, God is with us. We ought to be endeavoring to draw close to God in all circumstances, but the trouble is that mostly the circumstances of our life form a barrier to communication with God. We are often distracted by them. And this in turn means that effort should be made to circumvent the blockade presented by circumstance.
This is where fasting comes in. Did you know that nowhere does Jesus teach that we should be good for the sake of being good? Jesus teaches that we should live for God; being good for goodness’ sake is worldly thinking not Biblical thinking. So, the overarching motive in our living ought to be the Greatest Commandment which is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matthew 22:37). Fasting helps with that. Fasting was a normal part of Jewish religious life, both scheduled in the liturgical calendar and by personal choice. Jesus assumed his disciples would fast; he said when you fast not if you fast. The reason fasting helps is that it removes those distracting elements in our lives. The common fast is to avoid food for some period of time, but fasting can be from television, or sports, or social media, or anything which provides a barrier to communication with God.
So really the decision to fast is a deliberate attempt to put aside those things which one recognizes get in the way of unhindered intimacy with God. They’re not the same for everybody; you know what they are for you. But the main reason we fast is “to nourish our hunger for God and to reduce our hunger for the world.”[1]
The thing to remember also is our motive for fasting. The hypocritical Pharisees did it for show; to be approved of by others. The Jews in Isaiah’s day did it wantonly and without efficacious result; it didn’t seem to change the way they interacted with their peers or subordinates. The idea is that no one should be able to tell we are fasting. Not only should we not mark ourselves as some sort of super-religious person of God, but we should also make the extra effort to hide our fasting. We shouldn’t even say we are fasting. The whole point is to be talking intimately with God. This is indeed prayer, but it is also prayer with a purpose. We are saying, “God, I want to be with you. This thing is troubling me and distracting me, and I seem to have no power over it. Help me with it!” Even if there is no immediate result from our fasting, just the effort often is efficacious in itself. When I’ve had a hard day, occasionally I just don’t want to join in with my church’s prayer times. But every single time I come away from them feeling better, encouraged, and lifted up. It’s the same with fasting. After all, fasting is just intense prayer and worth every single second
[1] Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Matthew: All Authority in Heaven and on Earth, ed. R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 153.