Relating To God Through Fasting

Outpost Family,

            First off, let me say that it was so great having you with us this past Sunday! If you missed the service, you missed out on an amazing time of worship…but, good news is you can catch the sermon here.

            This week, we talked about how we relate to God through the practice of fasting. This subject invites a lot of questions and confusion for most people and there is not a lot of teaching about how to fast in Scripture.

Simply put though: Fasting is a mechanism that helps us grow in self-discipline. Fasting purposefully denies self-gratification so that God-gratification is possible.

We live in a culture that celebrates those with enough intelligence, work ethic, and charisma to satisfy any desire that comes their way and yet that ethic could not be further from God’s Kingdom values. Denying ourselves for the sake of Jesus and others does not come naturally to us…we need help!

Fasting is a tool to help is grow in our self-renunciation.

Think of it this way, if you want to get stronger, you go to the gym  to exercise. If we could be strong enough or healthy enough just from our normal daily activity, gyms would not be a thing. Just as we need equipment and miles beneath our running shoes to grow in strength, we need fasting to grow in self-denial for the sake of following Jesus.

Typically, this was done with food, but anything that creates hunger in you and anything you look to for satisfaction and fulfillment that will be hard to resist the urge to put down for a time can be fasted. Also, there is no one right way to do this…

For instance, if you are trying to strengthen your bench press, I cannot tell you how much weight you need to be lifting. I don’t know how strong you are. I don’t know what your endurance is. You need your last few repetitions to be completely exhausting and I don’t know what point that is for you…only you know that for you. It works the same way for fasting.

If the fast isn’t hard or isn’t painful to the point where you want to give in but instead can choose to exercise self-control then you did not push hard enough or fast the right thing. Example: I could fast the next month from social media and it wouldn’t affect me in the least (I’m already not on social media and I do not hunger for it). Other’s, however, would have to really grow and exercise their self-control to not pick up their phone multiple times a day to check Instagram.

*This is the reason I didn’t say: “You have to fast from food for a 24 hour period.”*

The practice of fasting was often linked with other spiritual disciplines.

• Fasting and prayer are often seen as happening together in Scripture.
• Fasting and worship also happen together.
• Fasting is helpful in the process of repentance.
• Fasting can be part of the mourning process.
• Fasting is a way to seek God’s will and God’s action.

Our participation in any one of those disciplines requires serious self-denial and fasting can be an integral part to growing in that. I hope you will take the time over this next month to fast at least one day. Because Jesus puts prayer and fasting on equal footing (equally important practices) I pray this month will be just the beginning of a lifelong rhythm of regular fasting.
Maybe you could plan to fast one meal per week where you will take that time to pray.
Maybe you could plan to fast one day per month. Make it the same day each month...
Maybe you could plan a longer fast (work up to multiple days over time) once a year.
*You can't go to the gym once and make real progress; fasting is no different.

Please reach out to me if you have any questions or would like follow-up conversation on this topic. Be sure to be at services this upcoming weekend as we spend time talking about the practice of prayer (what is it, how do we do it, and why do we do it). See you on Sunday!

In Christ,
Devin Wood