God’s Chosen Fast

It means abstaining from all food, solid or liquid, but not from water. It seems clear from the details given that our Lord’s fast was of this type. We are told that “he ate nothing” (Luke 4: 2) but not that He drank nothing. Afterward it says “he was hungry” but not that He was thirsty.

In fact, the human body could not survive forty days without water apart from being supernaturally sustained.

Possibly the upheaval was so great that he never gave food or drink a thought.

Fasting is a God- appointed means for the flowing of His grace and power that we can afford to neglect no longer.

In the second and third centuries after Christ, the Wednesday and Friday of each week became recognized as fast days, and John Wesley revived this custom among the early Methodists.

Even in circles in which fasting is accepted as a normal spiritual exercise, there is often so much emphasis on fasting for personal benefit, for the enduement of power, for spiritual gifts, for physical healing, for specific answers to prayer, that the other aspect is forgotten. There is no suggestion that it is not right to seek these things, but our underlying motives must first be right. It is deeply significant that in the first statement on the subject of fasting in the New Testament, Jesus dealt with the question of motive (see Matt. 6:16–18). No aspect of the subject is more important than this.

Fasting, like prayer, must be God-initiated and God-ordained if it is to be effective.

God’s chosen fast, then, is that which He has appointed; that which is set apart for Him, to minister to Him, to honor and glorify Him; that which is designed to accomplish His sovereign will.

Mourning over personal sin and failure is an indispensable stage in the process of sanctification, and it is facilitated by fasting. However, God wants to bring us beyond the place of mourning only for our personal sins to where we are moved by the Spirit to mourn for the sins of the church, the nation, and even the world. It is of the deepest concern to God to find those who share His feelings for the spiritual situation that exists on every hand.

If you have been brought low through personal defeat; if there is a call in your soul to a deeper purifying, to a renewed consecration; if there is the challenge of some new task for which you feel ill-equipped—then it is time to inquire of God whether He would not have you separate yourself unto Him in fasting.

The gospel is indeed enough but not necessarily “the gospel we preach”; for more often than not, we preach a deficient gospel. Forgiveness through the death of Christ, though vital, is not the whole gospel. Often people in the grip of Satan are incapable of responding to this message. Or if they do respond, they may have their sins forgiven without their shackles being loosed. They are saved without being delivered.

It was “in this matter” of the gift that he desired, the motive for desiring it, and the means by which he sought to acquire it that his heart was not right before God.

Constantly we are needing revelation concerning the will of God for our lives. We face situations that call for divine wisdom and understanding.

The body is ever to be our servant, not our master.

What is asceticism? It is derived from a Greek word meaning “practice or training for the attainment of an ideal or goal” and was applied to soldiery, athletics, and learning as well as to virtue and piety.1 This agrees with the New Testament, and in this sense our Lord Himself, the apostles and every disciplined Christian could be called “ascetic.” Asceticism, however, soon developed features that were erroneous and harmful, and this is why the word carries with it the stigma of extremism in the minds of most people. This is apparent even in the dictionary definition of “ascetic” as “pertaining to the exercise of extremely rigorous self-discipline.”

Note: The influence of early asceticism on the text of the New Testament is suggested by the inclusion of references to fasting in four passages in the King James Version that are now thought to be interpolations.

A normally healthy and well-nourished body can exist for several weeks without being injured or incapacitated by lack of food. During a prolonged fast the body lives on surplus fat, and at the same time it acts like an internal incinerator, burning up the waste and decaying tissues of the body. Only when this refining process is complete does it commence to consume its sound living cells, and that is when starvation begins. How, then, is one to know when this point is reached? We may usually distinguish three phases through which the body passes during a long fast (though they are not always clearly defined but tend to overlap, and the duration of each varies greatly with the individual). The first phase is marked by a craving for food, which may last for a couple of days or longer. Once this passes, though there may continue to be a pleasurable sensation at the thought of food, there is no craving or strong temptation. The second phase is marked by a feeling of weakness and faintness, which may last for two or three days or even much longer. At this point every movement of the body seems to require an effort of the will. In many respects this is the most difficult part of the fast, and some may find it necessary to rest a good deal. The gradual disappearance of this sense of weakness is a signal that the body has eliminated its grosser wastes and poisons. The third and easiest is the phase of growing strength, with little or no concern about food and only occasional and decreasing spasms of weakness. At this stage the person fasting often feels that he or she could continue the fast indefinitely without any great effort. The termination of this final phase is marked by the beginning of hunger pangs, showing that the process of elimination has been completed and now the body is beginning to draw on the sound living tissue. The appearance of hunger is thus the warning bell announcing that the body is beginning to starve. In certain cases this may occur as early as the twenty-first day, but very often it is not until the fortieth day or even long after. From the commencement of the fast until hunger returns is sometimes called the complete fast.

Our Lord had clearly accomplished a complete fast, all the reserves of the body had been expended and starvation was setting in. It was at this point that He faced the personal encounter with Satan and the temptation to turn stones into bread.

When the stomach is suddenly denied what it has been in the habit of receiving as its right, it tends to cry out like a spoiled child denied its after-dinner bar of chocolate. Hunger, on the other hand, is a cry from the whole body stemming not from habit but from need. We might say, then, that mere appetite relates to the immediate want of the stomach and true hunger to the real need of the body.

Because there is no new intake of food, the body can no longer engage in the work of assimilation; it therefore concentrates on the work of elimination.

There is the familiar “fasting headache,” mostly caused by the reaction of the body to the sudden cessation of tea and coffee—a mild withdrawal symptom as the body accustoms itself to being without the caffeine drug.

What of the general physical benefits? This cleansing process usually produces, after a prolonged fast, a brightness of the eye, pure breath, clear skin, and a sense of physical well-being. The digestive system should become like new.

The sense faculties of the body, especially tasting and smelling, tend to be quickened and sharpened, while one’s mental powers become remarkably clear and active. Whatever physical benefits come to us as a result of fasting, it must be stressed that, in so far as our original malaise was due to harmful habits of eating or living, there must be reformation in these realms, or the benefits will be lost.

Whether we are healthy or not, we need to get the mind of God before undertaking any fast, especially a prolonged one. Further, we need to have our aims and motives clear and make sure that, whatever we may hope to gain in health and healing, the glory of God and the spiritual issues at stake are our major concern.

If you have never fasted before, do not start off, as did someone the writer once met, with a forty-day fast, unless you are very, very sure that God has called you to do this! The body grows accustomed to fasting by degrees, and God does not usually ask us to run before we have begun to walk or even crawl. Start with a partial fast (see chapter 4), or else fast one day until supper. Next time extend the fast until retiring, breaking it with just a light meal or fruit only.

When you can manage a one-day fast without feeling faint or famished (we do not say without feeling hungry!), you will be ready for any call of God to a longer fast of three, five, or seven days. Sometimes there are spiritual, not to mention physical, purposes accomplished by the longer fast that the shorter does not effect. But the longer the fast you envisage, the more certain you need to be that God has called you to it.

Some advocate having fresh fruit only on the last day before fasting, that is if the fast is to be for a number of days. Dr. Buchinger, who advocates this, suggests that the “fruit day” ensures that the last meal left in the bowel is fruit, which is less putrefactive than other food residues.

It is wise to cease taking tea or coffee a few days before a longer fast and so get over the caffeine withdrawal headache before you start.

1. Am I confident that this desire to fast is God given? Would He have me undertake a normal or just a partial fast? “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Matt. 4:1). 2. Are my motives right? Is there any hidden desire to impress others? “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (6:18). 3. What are my spiritual objectives in this fast? Personal sanctification or consecration? Intercession? What special burdens? Divine intervention, guidance, blessing? The Spirit’s fullness for self or others? To loose the captives? To stay the divine wrath; bring revival? “I press on toward the goal” (Phil. 3:14). 4. Do my objectives tend to be self-centered? Is my desire for personal blessing balanced by genuine concern for others? “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil. 2:4). 5. Am I determined above all else to minister to the Lord in this fast? “They were worshiping the Lord and fasting” (Acts 13:2).

Satan will often try to take advantage of your physical condition to launch an attack. Discouragement is one of his weapons. Guard against it by maintaining a spirit of praise.

He reckons to have a normally healthy person back to full feeding within one week after any fast of over twenty-one days.

First, the stomach has been slowly shrinking so that by the end of the fast it has nothing like its previous capacity for food, and the smallest quantity of food makes one feel surprisingly full. Second, the organs in the body that are usually engaged in assimilating food have taken advantage of their holiday by going into a kind of sleep that becomes deeper and deeper as the fast is prolonged.

The stomach must be given time to return to normal size, though this may well be smaller than before the fast. The digestive organs also must be gently and progressively caressed into wakefulness and efficient activity. Clearly, the longer the period of hibernation, the longer proportionately we must allow for the waking-up process.

The outpouring of the Spirit is not enough. The new wine must have now, as it had when poured out on the day of Pentecost, a new wineskin.