How can not eating a burger honor God?
This week, Victory enters into a season of prayer and fasting. Every year for more than a decade now, at the first week of January, we dedicate for a time of seeking God.
Question, is it possible to seek God without skipping meals? Absolutely!
Will we get our answers to our prayers like getting our Christmas list checked by Santa because we are nice, not naughty? Well, it doesn’t work that way.
Fasting is not a magical exercise that when we do it, we log in spiritual points in heaven.
I love what Wesley Deuwel, former president of One Missionary Society once said,
“Fasting in the biblical sense is choosing not to partake of food because your spiritual hunger is so deep, your determination in intercession so intense, or your spiritual warfare so demanding that you have temporarily set aside even fleshly needs to give yourself to prayer and meditation.”
What fasting does is getting serious about connecting with God.
“When a man is willing to set aside the legitimate appetites of the body to concentrate on the work of praying, he is demonstrating that he means business, that he is seeking with all his heart, and will not let God go unless He answers.” — Arthur Wallis
Why fast?
1. Jesus fasted.
Before Jesus started His ministry, He fasted in the wilderness. (Matthew 4:1-4)
He was showing us an example of what it means to prepare by become spiritually strong even though one may be physically weak.
2. Fasting is an act of humility.
When we fast, we deny our physical appetites and communicate to Him that He takes top priority in our life. The Bible says that God gives grace to the humble and yet opposes the proud (James 4:6).
3. Fasting makes us sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
Acts 13:2
Fasting makes us sensitive to God and His leadership.
4. Fasting has health benefits.
You will lose weight but if that’s your goal in this season, it won’t work. You’ll just gain it back after. But one of the health benefits of fasting is that it cleanses our bodies from the toxins in our digestive system that we’ve accumulated during the past year, especially during the holiday season. Medical science tells us that it has been an effective cure for allergies and certain diseases.
But most of all, the discipline of fasting illustrates to us that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)
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