Fasting and Prayer: 1. What is Fasting?

Fasting is to abstain from something, mainly food, for a certain amount of time; the most well known example in our society, in the Christian calendar is Lent, following Pancake Day and leading up to Easter Sunday, where people abstain, mainly from a certain food. Many of us know what it is to fast though and shy very politely away from it either because we think it is for radical extremists, sadistically trying to starve their bodies or maybe we just like our food too much. (Obviously some people cannot go without food for medical reasons and nobody but God can tell them otherwise).

So we know that fasting is a refusal to eat, maybe for one meal maybe for a day maybe for much longer and it was done because in Eden the fruit that was forbidden was eaten (Genesis 3) and it is an act of contradiction to that first sin by Adam and Eve.

Yet fasting does not just have to be food, maybe God may ask you to fast watching television, eating chocolate, buying clothes for a certain amount of time. It is an act of humility and submission to God and acknowledging Him as more important in your life than all these things. Yet fasting holds much more weight than just this, spiritually it is a mighty weapon in the hand on the believers against satan and we will see over the next few teachings how fasting adds power to prayer.

Take some time to read the following scriptures telling of times people fasted, maybe you can find more than these three and study them too.
Jonah 3
Daniel 1
Joel 2:12-14

Sara Jukes

2006-02-14