Dearly Beloved,
When most devout people fast and pray, they do not understand the essence or fundamentals of fasting. The general population always view fasting as a method to receive something from God. This indeed occurs and the Bible records many incidents of the Israelite fasting in times of trouble and receiving their answers. It is even enshrined into their temple worship, that each time things are not working out for them (heavens shut, no rain or blessing, suffering from locusts or destruction, or suffering from pestilences, famines or sicknesses) that they should fast and pray (the word ‘humble’ implies fasting), turn from their wicked ways, then God will hear them and heal them (2 Chronicles 2:14). This is call the desperado approach to God. When in trouble, then seek God desperately.
Although God did give them a desperado approach, this is NOT a methodology that gets the results and answers an individual want. David repented and fasted and prayed for seven days for the life of his child through Bathsheba, and the child still died (2 Samuel 12:15-23). During the numbering of Israel after judgment was pronounced, David fasted and prayed with all the elders of Israel but the judgment of God on Israel still fell for three days slaying seventy thousand men (2 Samuel 24:15). In the New Testament, the Jews held regular fasts but never received any blessing or breakthroughs because their hearts were not right in the sight of God (Matthew 6:16; 9:14; Mark 2:18; Luke 5:33; 18:12). God actually rejects the fasting of unrighteous people whose hearts are not right in the sight of God and whose actions and intentions are evil (Isaiah 58:3-4).
On the other hand, God demonstrates great breakthroughs to those who understood how to fast correctly and blesses in many ways those who sincerely and with all their hearts seek the Lord. Moses fasted for the Israelites including Aaron whom God wanted to kill, and he received answers from God (Deuteronomy 9:18-29). Without his intercession and fasting, Aaron and all of Israel would have been destroyed leaving only Moses, Joshua, Caleb and their families. Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, with all the Israelites, fasted and prayed and saw the Lord’s hand helping them (Ezra 8:21-23; Nehemiah 1:4; Esther 4:3, 16). Jehoshaphat saw the Lord’s great deliverance through fasting and prayers (2 Chronicles 20:3). Daniel saw angels accelerated by God through his fasting and prayer, receiving both blessings, deliverances and revelations (Daniel 1:8-17; 6:18; 9:3, 21). Even the fasting of a normally evil man like Ahab garnered God’s attention (1 Kings 21:27-28). Cornelius through regular fasting and alms established a memorial before God (Acts 10:2-4, 30-31). It was a practice for devout people who loved God to serve God with fasting and prayers (Luke 2:37; 5:35; 13:1-3; 2 Corinthians 6:5).
If the Bible contains stories of the ineffectiveness of fasting and at the same time the great effectiveness of fasting, then there must be a proper way to fast and an improper way to fast. Jesus Himself condemns the fasting of the Pharisees (Matthew 6:16). The question is ‘Are you fasting like a Pharisee?’ or ‘Are you truly fasting like the true Bible men and women of God?’ Most Christians who resort to fasting and prayers or who have regular times of fasting and prayer have no idea how to make their fasting effective. Most don’t even know there are various types of fast; example, fasting without meats, full fasting, long fasts, short fasts, etc. Fasting is seldom taught in the modern church because most leaders no longer practice fasting although the New Testament church and even our Lord Jesus Himself advocates fasting (Matthew 6: 17-18; 9:15; 17:21; Mark 2:20; 9:29; Luke 5:45; Acts 13:2-3; 14:23; 1 Corinthians 7:5; 2 Corinthians 6:5; 11:27). Their false view that just because our Lord Jesus completed everything there is to do in the atonement excuses us from the practice of fasting is just an excuse of theologising their way out of a discipline devout Christian life. The apostle Paul has never advocate that the message of the complete and utter atonement of Jesus for us produce a life of feasting without fasting, of laziness without discipline or of mental Christianity without physical corresponding actions of faith in the practice of true Christianity.
Then what is the secret of true fasting? The secret is in three parts: fasting essentially is a surrender to God and to God’s Will; fasting is the forsaking of all distractions (and many voices of the world) to truly and only hear the voice of God; and then finally, fasting is to receive from God whatever He determines for us to receive in our seeking of Him.
The first part, involves a complete surrender of our heart, our lives, our motives. All our selfishness and selfish ways must die in order to achieve this surrender. This involves humbling ourselves before God and repentance and acknowledgement of sin where God’s Holy Spirit is convicting us of sin. Sometimes it involves recompense to others for sins that rob others or a request of forgiveness where we have hurt others. Daniel fasted and repented for all the sins of Israel in a personal sense (he uses the phrase ‘we’) and received a breakthrough and blessing from God (Daniel 9:3-5). David speaks of repentance and humbling of the soul through fasting (Psalm 69:10). Sometimes, once in their lives, an evil man like Ahab sincerely regrets what he did and seeks God’s forgiveness and God hears ( 2 Kings 21:27). Those who fast in pride like the Pharisees in their hypocrisy are merely just going on a diet and have no spiritual effect in their regular fasting. In order to tap on these first secret to fasting, ask yourself the following questions: Are you truly humbling yourselves in fasting or just trying to get your own way? Are you seeking your own will or are you truly seeking God’s Will? Are you filled with humility, repentance and forgiveness or are you filled with pride?
Only when you have truly surrendered your heart, your desires, your motivations, and all of your will to God, dying to self, have you truly begun to enter into the true correct place of serving God with fasting and prayers.
The second part secret of fasting is to shut yourselves out from hearing all the voices of the world and truly only hear God. For this reason, fasting is always accompanied by prayers or spending time with God. We can do this spiritually even though sometimes our natural lives are busy. There is a quietness of the heart and spirit when one truly fasts and pray. Eating for survival is essentially a distraction that came about after the fall and sin of man. Mankind never needed to eat to live, we eat for pleasure and impartations and not for survival before sin came into the world. This will be restored perfectly when the kingdom of God is established on the earth and all things are brought under the domain of our Lord Jesus Christ. Fasting is essentially seeking to hear God. To do that, one has to take time out from the ‘busyness’ of this world and of our daily lives, in order to give time to God. Although it is with a purpose to hear God, this second reason CANNOT become the first. For it is impossible to truly hear God without FIRST being surrendered a thousand percent to God. Only after the FIRST part of surrendering our heart and lives to God is achieved can one seek to hear God. Those like Anna and Simeon practice a life of fasting and prayers, thus were blessed with the ability and the accuracy of hearing God and being at the right time and the right place (Luke 2:25-38). Cornelius was not fasting and giving alms in order to hear God, he was doing it as a part and parcel of his daily routine and life, because of his love and devotion towards God, whom he has yet to know (Acts 10:2, 22, 31). He must have been greatly surprised when God sent an angel to speak with him. The church in Antioch were not fasting primarily to hear God. They were fasting out of their love, devotion and worship of God. They ministered to the Lord and fasted and prayed (Acts 13:1-3). They must have been pleasantly surprised when the Holy Spirit chose to speak to them during one of such times.
Never ever try to get God to speak to you. Just enjoy His presence and enjoy being with Him, spending quality time to love Him and surrender to Him, as all of His creation should. And at God’s own time and choosing, let Him speak to you and your heart.
The final and third secret of fasting is to be open to receive whatever God wants you to receive. Although this part seems easy, yet it requires an openness to God. Most people limit God in their thoughts and in their minds and hearts. Thus, God cannot reveal to them more than their faith can receive. Those who seek God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him diligently (Hebrews 11:6). Let us NOT be like Zechariah who could NOT believe when God finally wanted to answer his prayers, thus being struck dumb for nine months (Luke 1:20). Rather let us BE like Mary who said to the Lord, ‘Let it be unto me according to YOUR WORD!’ (Luke 1:38). She FIRST SURRENDERED herself to the Lord – Behold the maidservant of the Lord! This is like saying, ‘Here I am, send me’ (Isaiah 6:8) or like saying ‘Speak, Lord, for YOUR servant hears You’ (I Samuel 3:8-10). Mary SURRENDERED to the Lord utterly and wholly FIRST. Then she YIELDED to GOD’S WILL and GOD’S WORD. Her cry of ‘Let it be unto me according to YOUR WORD’ must become the cry of the Bride of Christ today. It is the same cry of our Lord Jesus, when He became our Bridegroom, crying out three times with much agony ‘Not My Will, but YOURS BE DONE!’ (Luke 22:41). To those who believe, there is no limit to what God can do, will do and especially anointed to do. To the tiny faith of believing a word of knowledge, God blessed Nathaniel with seeing angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man (John 1:49-50). To those who love God and wait upon Him, God promises to give those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor enter into the heart of man, the things which He has prepared for those who love Him and wait upon Him (1 Corinthians 2:8-9). God will always ACT for those who wait upon Him in fasting and prayers (Isaiah 64:4).
Seek God constantly and regularly in fasting and prayers, as our Lord Jesus requires us to do, during the time between His First Coming and His Second Coming (Matthew 9:15; Mark 2:20; Luke 5:35). Always first SURRENDER all the heart, mind and life to the WILL OF GOD. Secondly, BE STILL and KNOW GOD. Just BE IN HIS PRESENCE. Just ENJOY HIS PRESENCE. BE in UNION with the PERSON OF GOD. Then let God speak into your heart and life. Thirdly, BE OPEN to ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that God was for us. We are His Creation. Whatever free choice we have, is best fulfilled and achieved in BEING and DOING whatever He has made us to be. We CANNOT become what we were NOT created to be. We can ONLY BECOME ALL that HE WANTS us and CREATED us to be, nothing more and nothing less. And our greatest joy and enjoyment in being, in existing and in the exercise of free choice and pleasure will reach its highest level, for we exist in Him. He is the I AM, we are the EXISTENCE in the I AM.