Jesus Course

Fasting has always been a controversial subject for Christians – ever since Jesus defended his disciples who didn’t fast (Matthew 9:14ff). It’s a mistake, however, to think that Jesus had anything against fasting – he did it himself after all.

Fasting in the bible

Fasting pops up many times in the bible and tends to be associated with a need to pray about something. It could be that people wanted to express how sorry they were or that they were asking God for something very important to them.

Jesus was keen on the idea that when people fast they shouldn’t tell others about it. Fasting is something that is done for God and not for others to observe and conclude how spiritual you are. I know that danger myself because I’ve fasted on several occasions and if people find out they are often very impressed (and sometimes confused) – this leaves me wondering if perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered now everyone knows about it.

Is fasting just giving something up?

I think it’s important to not get fasting confused with giving something up for your own benefit. It’s not unusual for people to give something up for a while to try and improve their life (e.g. T.V., alcohol, chocolate, etc) but this is about self and not about God. This is commendable but has little to do with fasting for the spiritual life.

Fasting does involve giving something up – mainly food. This can be a difficult experience and it does have the benefit of helping break dependence on the thing you fast from (e.g. food). However fasting really is about your relationship with God and not the thing you are giving up.

Feeling hunger is a good way of learning to hunger for God

Going without food, for instance, is a good way of learning to depend on God more. The hunger acts as a reminder to think about God and after a while without food you start to feel it constantly. You have to turn that longing for food into a longing for God (it’s easier than it sounds).

Give it a try

So I encourage all Christians to try some fasting, but make sure you do it all for the right reasons.

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Being a follower of Jesus can sometimes seem like more of a chore than a joy. We get so worked up about what we should or shouldn’t be doing, or what we should or shouldn’t be believing that we can lose some of our desire to follow.

Then of course non-Christians look at us and think that being a Christian doesn’t look like a lot of fun but just more rules and regulations to follow. We tell them that we get freedom from following but they what they see is lots of rules and regulations.

If you are struggling or starting to drift into thinking being a Christian is just about following a set of rules or beliefs then I encourage you to try and get some more love back into your relationship with God.

There are all kinds of ways of doing this but why not set aside an hour or two (or more) in your diary for just thinking about how great God is. Listen to some music if you like, go walking in a beautiful place, just sit still and think about the beauty of God. We all need this every now and then. It all starts with love.

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