A Primer on Fasting

Fasting is not always met with enthusiasm.

Several years ago, my congregation was in the midst of difficult decisions.  The leaders called the church to forty days of prayer and fasting, asking members to fast in any way they desired during that forty day period.  But one well-known and very active woman in the church refused to fast.  She told me that she only fasted when she felt moved by the Holy Spirit to fast, and she didn’t feel moved by the plea of the church leadership.  In addition, she believed fasting was a private matter between one person and God, not a corporate matter that the whole church participates in together. 

Fasting is not always met with enthusiasm.

In fact, fasting is often the last thing many will consider when it comes to spiritual growth and spiritual training.  Early in my own spiritual journey, I tried prayer, Scripture reading, solitude, service and a host of other spiritual disciplines.  Fasting was something I considered radical and relegated only to the pages of Scripture.  I didn’t imagine it had any place in my life.

Yet ironically, fasting is one of the first spiritual disciplines we find Jesus engaged in.  What we often put last, Jesus put first.  What I rarely even considered Jesus seemed to prioritize.

What led to my own conversion regarding fasting was not only Jesus’ own practices (which we’ll examine below), but the way in which fasting shows up throughout the pages of the Bible.  In Scripture, there are at least 27 instances of people fasting for different reasons.

 

1.      Moses fasts forty days and nights while receiving the Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:28).

2.      The Jews are commanded to fast each year on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16, 23).

3.      When some from the tribe of Benjamin murder a woman, the Israelites fast in order to ask God if they should retaliate for the murder (Jud. 20:26).

4.      The Israelites fast and confess their sins before the Lord (1 Sam. 7:6).

5.      After recovering the bodies of Saul and his sons, the men of Jabesh Gilead express their grief by fasting seven days (1 Sam. 31:13).

6.      When David and his men hear of Saul’s death, they mourn and fast (2 Sam. 1:12).

7.      When God declares that he will take the life of David’s son, David fasts seven days, asking God to spare the child’s life (2 Sam. 12:16).

8.      After Elijah confronts King Ahab for murdering a man Ahab fasts in repentance for his sin (1 Kgs. 21:27).

9.      When the Moabites and Ammonites threaten to overrun Judah, King Jehoshaphat proclaims a fast for all of Judah, asking God for protection (2 Chr. 20:3).

10.  Ezra calls a fast to ask for God’s protection as they travel to Jerusalem (Ezra 8:21).

11.  Upon hearing of the fallen walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah fasts several days (Neh. 1:4).

12.  After hearing the Law read to them, the Israelites fast and confess their sins (Neh. 9:1).

13.  When King Xerxes threatens to kill the Jews they mourn and fast (Esther 4:3).

14.  Queen Esther asks the Jews to fast for three days so that she might have God’s guidance about her role in averting the genocide (Esther 4:16).

15.  King Jehoiakim declares a time of fasting for all the people in Jerusalem (Jer. 36:9).

16.  When he learned that Israel would be exiled for 70 years, Daniel fasted, confessing the sins of the people and asking God to turn his anger away (Dan. 9:3).

17.  Joel declares a fast in light of the plague of locusts God has brought upon his people (Joel 1:14).

18.  When Jonah tells the pagan city of Nineveh, “40 more days and Nineveh will be overturned,” they declare a fast of repentance (Jonah 3:5).

19.  Zechariah refers to four annual fasts observed by the Jews (Zech. 8:19).

20.  Jesus’ entry into public ministry is preceded by 40 days of fasting (Matt. 4:2).

21.  Jesus seems to assume we will fast when he says, “When you fast . . .” and then explains the right way to fast (Matt. 6:17).

22.  Jesus states outright that his followers will fast in the days which follow his death and resurrection (Matt. 9:15).

23.  The prophetess Anna never left the temple, but worshiped day and night, fasting and praying (Lk. 2:37).

24.  Jesus tells a story of a man who fasts twice a week (Lk. 18:12).

25.  The church at Antioch is worshiping and fasting when they hear the Holy Spirit tell them to appoint Saul and Barnabas for mission work (Acts 13:2).

26.  After fasting and praying more, the church at Antioch places their hands on Saul and Barnabas and sends them off to their mission work (Acts 13:3).

27.  Paul and Barnabas appoint elders with prayer and fasting (Acts 14:23).

The overwhelming voice of Scripture is that fasting is central to spiritual training.  It is the way in which God’s people repented of sins, mourned and lamented great losses, sought God’s direction, and received strength and protection.

The importance of fasting is especially seen in Jesus’ life: 1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”  4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘People do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matt. 4:1-4 TNIV).

Just prior to this, Jesus was baptized, the Spirit descended on him, and a voice proclaimed, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”  (Matt. 3:17 TNIV).  In other words, Jesus is identified as the Son of God.  Now, however, he must live out that identification.  Jesus must act out the identity that has just been publicly given him.  Thus this Spirit who descended on Jesus in his baptism now leads him out into the desert.  Jesus is to be tested by the devil—part of his preparation for living out his calling.

And for forty days and nights Jesus fasts.  I used to get woozy in college if I missed one meal in the cafeteria.  Jesus fasts forty days and nights.  But in physical weakness, he finds spiritual strength.  Mark Buchanan writes, “The forty days without food, far from weakening Him at the moment of encounter with the devil, actually strengthened Him for it.  Jesus was in peak condition, a fighter who had been training hard for forty days straight”[i]  Even Jesus needed the training of fasting to prepare him for his match with Satan.

Then the devil tells Jesus to stop fasting: “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”  We are told that this is a test, a temptation.  The real nature of the temptation becomes clearer by looking at Jesus’ response.  Jesus quotes from the book of Deuteronomy.  These words were spoken by Moses to the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land.  The words were a reminder of the hunger they had experienced during their travel over the wilderness.  The words were a reminder of the purpose of that hunger: “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.  He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” (Deut. 8:2-3 TNIV).

The Israelites involuntarily fasted as they crossed the wilderness.  God forced them to fast in order to test their hearts, to humble them, and to teach them that people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 

For the same reason, Jesus voluntarily fasted.  He gave up food for forty days and nights in order to test his heart, to humble himself, and to teach himself and us that people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

Jesus places specific emphasis on the last lesson: learning that people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.  Those are the words he quotes back to the devil in the desert.  Life, Jesus is saying, is not simply about bread.  Living, Jesus is claiming, is so much more than what we eat.  From his experience of fasting, Jesus desires to teach us what it truly means to live.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow brought a similar idea into our cultural consciousness with his pyramid.  At the base of the pyramid are our physiological needs such as bread: air, water, food, sleep.  Those are essential for human life.

But Maslow recognized that we have other needs which must be met if we are to truly live.  The rest of his pyramid describes these needs.  For example, at the next level are safety needs such as  protection from crime and violence, financial security and stability.  To really live, Maslow said, you need safety, not just food. 

Then there are the love needs such as belonging to a group, being loved and accepted.  You’re not really living, Maslow says, until you have a full heart as well as a full stomach.

Then there are the esteem needs, the need to feel good about oneself and one’s contributions.  A life worth living, Maslow claims, is one in which we are making a difference in the world, not just finding enough food to eat.

Finally, at the top of his pyramid, are the self-actualization needs, the need to be all that you can be.  Maslow is saying that people don’t genuinely live on bread alone.  A full and enriching life comes also from being secure, loved, significant, and reaching one’s potential. 

In general terms, this is what Jesus is saying .  Fasting teaches us that life is about much more than simply eating.  You’re not really living if all you’re doing is eating.  But Jesus offers his own pyramid, one that contrasts greatly with Maslow’s. 

Life, contrary to what Charles Schwaab would tell us, is not about having financial security.  To live, contrary to what the Beatles sing, love is not all you need.  Life, contrary to what Norman Vincent Peale might tell us, is not about having self-esteem.  Life, contrary to what Disney tells us, is not about becoming all you can be.  You could have all of that and not really live. 

But that’s what the devil wants us to believe, wants Jesus to believe.  He wants Jesus and us to trust that life is about meeting our personal needs, about turning stones to bread.  It’s about being comfortable.  It’s about being free from pain.  It’s about meeting our own needs.

Jesus, however, makes this claim—people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.  In other words, life comes from feeding on God.  Jesus put it this way in Jn. 4:34: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”  That’s living, Jesus says.  To hunger and thirst after God.

Leon Morris writes, “The deep famine of the world is a famine, known or unknown, for the word of God . . . The human person has hidden hungers, deep cravings, a psychic yearning for more.  What is this more?  Every word that comes pouring out of God’s mouth.”[ii] 

And it is fasting which best teaches us this.  We empty our stomach and suddenly realize how empty our soul is.  The sharp pain for food makes us aware of a sharper pain for God.   We realize, in the midst of fasting, that our spirit hungers and thirsts for God even more than our stomach hungers and thirsts for bread.  Fasting reminds us that happiness and life are not found in meeting our needs, as we define them.  Fasting reminds us that happiness and life only come by eating God’s word, by pursuing God himself.

 We may think fulfillment comes from pornography.  Fasting reminds us that fulfillment is found by following God’s word on purity.  We may think happiness is found in large quantities of wealth.  Fasting teaches us that happiness is found in God’s words concerning simplicity.  We may think living happens when we have that grade, that girl, or that car.  Fasting teaches us that living happens when all we have is God.

That’s why we find Jesus fasting forty days and nights.  He trained in this way so that when Satan offered him everything else, he would remember that all he really needed was God.  That’s why we find so many instances of people fasting in Scripture.  That’s why the spiritual giants from the time of the early church until today have been people who fast.  Because fasting trained them to realize that nothing Satan offered could bring fulfillment.  Only God and God’s word would bring fulfillment. 

How do we get started in fasting?  As with all training, start with what you can do.  Consider a 24 hour fast.  Miss two meals.  For instance, eat supper tonight, then skip breakfast and lunch tomorrow.  That’s a 24 hour fast.  Spend the time you would normally spend eating in prayer, journaling, and Scripture reading.  It’s something that even the most inexperienced of us can do.  I try to do something like a 24 hour fast about once a week.  I fast for God to bring his blessing on our worship services.  I fast for God to help me overcome my sins.  And I’ve found that this small step of training has allowed God to break through spiritual strongholds in my life that had long plagued me.

Mark Buchanan tells of an anti-speeding campaign in British Columbia, Canada.[iii]  There were large billboards placed in prominent places along major roads, showing black and white photos of terrible car wrecks.  Underneath the photos were these words: “Speed is killing us.  Slow down and live.”  Slow down and live.  Buchanan suggests that Jesus’ message on fasting is just the opposite: Go fast and live.  People do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.  Go, fast, and live.  Only in fasting, do we truly live.