When we fast for the right reasons, we will get the right results. We should never fast to get something, otherwise our motive is centered on ourselves. Make sure when you fast, that you fast for God, for when you do, He will bring about what you really need.
If you’re not fasting for God, then don’t say you are. The Lord spoke to Zechariah, “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you fasted…did you really fast for Me—for Me?” (Zechariah 7:5 NKJV).
In 2015, the Lord poured a message through me at a church where I was preaching about fasting. Here is the second part of that message:
Why does God use affliction, a bad thing, to do a good thing?
The affliction is meant for good.
Think of your life, when have you grown the most? It was probably during some very difficult times.
When God afflicts us, He changes us.
Like the potter in Jeremiah, He beats down the clay and makes us anew. Jeremiah 18:4 “And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.”
God has to break you to rebuild you. Fasting is where you just help Him in the process.
Voluntary breaking is better. You give up something good to get something better.
By afflicting ourselves, we cause the affliction that He would grow us through it. If He has to do the affliction, then it really is not from us to Him, but Him forcing Himself onto us.
When you afflict yourself, it is you making your way to Him.
Afflicting ourselves does not mean we hurt ourselves, like cutting. It is not doing something bad to ourselves, only abstaining from good for a time.
Jesus is talking about denying yourself from something good, for a time. To deny yourself of your will. Your desires. For a time. Don’t hurt yourself.
Added for this blog: Often, when people hurt themselves, they do so to draw attention to themselves. Jesus made it very clear that when you fast, don’t let anyone else know that you are fasting. The fast should be for God, not to draw attention to yourself. It is between you and Him, not to impress others. It is your pride that wants to impress others.
Are we commanded to fast?
Jesus fasted: Matthew 4:2 (NKJV), “And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.”
Jesus taught how to fast, doing so was not given as an option. Matthew 6:16-18 (NKJV) “Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”
It says when, not if. Matthew 6:16 (NKJV) “…when you fast…”
It doesn’t even discuss it as an option; it says when, so when will you fast?
And notice it has the “how to fast” in the verse, to do it in secret. Stop trying to show off your faith to others and simply live it for real with God.
We don’t need a list of natural reasons to fast. I could list out a hundred natural reasons. We could have a program that has twelve steps to do this, and eight steps to do that. No, sir, no ma’am, I am only giving you one reason to fast: do it because the Lord Jesus told you to.
When you are eating, you are telling the Lord, “Not Your will, but mine!”
So Fast, and tell the Lord: “Not my will, but Your will.”
Get serious with fasting because fasting is serious business with the Lord.
Fasting symbolizes death. Dead men don’t eat. Die to yourself. Die to your flesh.
Fasting is from good things, not bad things:
We hear you can fast from other things, like TV. Yes, you can. But let me first say something about what we cannot fast from.
We can’t fast from what is bad for us because if it were bad for us, then it would not be an affliction to fast from it.
Jesus addressed sin first. He said, “Repent of your sin.” If it is bad for you, don’t fast from it for a while, but repent from it forever. Why are you in bondage when He has already set you free?
The Lord Jesus taught us to deny ourselves. This is fasting. This is affliction. Luke 9:23 (NKJV) “Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’”
Denying is after repentance.
Denying yourself is your spirit man gaining control over your soul and over your flesh.
Denying yourself looks your flesh in the eye and says, “Be quiet, my spirit man is in charge.”
And when your soul starts to argue with emotional statements, your spirit man shuts his soul down and says, “Not my will, but the will of God.”
And notice in the verse the picking up of the cross. The cross is not the trials that happen to you, but an affliction you choose to pick up. It is your carrying of your natural man to be crucified with Christ.
Warning on fasting for the wrong reasons:
The Pharisee: Luke 18:12 “I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.”
Many fast, but if they fast for the wrong reasons, what is the point?
Know why you fast before you do.
Seek the real why, not the deceived why.
Never fast to gain gifts instead of the giver.
Repent first.
Jeremiah 14:12 ESV “Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”
Zechariah 7:5 (NKJV) “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me–for Me?’”
Do it unto the Lord, or don’t bother.
The scariest four words in all of scripture are when Jesus said, “I never knew you.” Matthew 7:22-23 (NKJV) “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
This is the second part of the message I preached. My prayer for you is that the Lord would bring you a revelation on how you should fast so that, in your fasting, He can begin to help you grow spiritually.
The limit of yourself is how much of yourself you hold onto, which limits all that God wants to do in you and through you. Fasting consecrates you from the natural into the spiritual, and it will be there that God will change you.
When you fast, do it for God, not seeking anything in return, but make it a sacrifice that only God is aware of, and you will be a pleasing aroma to the Lord in heaven. Stop debating with God and trust that He knows what He is doing.
Blessings to you always,
Paul Balius
I pray with all my heart to fast onto my Savior in this true and pleasing way
I was convicted by this blog from fasting I had done in my past that wasn’t for God. I was serving God but was using natural reasons to fast and ascribing them to fasting for Him, when I really wasn’t doing so entirely. How precious it is when He teaches us in what ways we are off, even a little off, that we can be made right.