Indeed, no one ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church. ―Ephesians 5:29
Spiritual fasting is a way of humbling ourselves. If we decide to fast, we should ask ourselves why. Is it to humble ourselves or is it for the health benefits? Fasting for short periods of time, such as one or two days or skipping an occasional meal, is called intermittent fasting. It’s said to have health benefits for the body. People should consult their healthcare professionals for medical advice on the natural aspects of fasting.
Let’s begin with the following scripture in which the apostle Paul says that he won’t be mastered by anything:
“Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything. (1 Corinthians 6:12)
We are free to eat whatever we want, but not everything is healthy for us. If we don’t discern our body during the course of our life, we might bring judgment on ourselves in the form of disease. In the following scriptures, Paul speaks in the context of both the body of Christ and regular eating:
29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 11:29-30)
In verse 30, Paul uses the phrase fallen asleep to denote those who die in Christ. When unsaved people die, the Bible uses the word perish. So, these scriptures tell us that if we eat unhealthy food that makes us sick or leads to death, we’ll still be saved. But we shouldn’t let food become an eating disorder, that is, a stumbling block. If we under-eat, we might starve ourselves. If we over-eat, we’ll suffer obesity.
In the Bible, three men have fasted for forty days: Moses, Elijah, and Jesus Christ. A healthy man will probably die of starvation in about forty-five to fifty days. Jesus was led by the Spirit to the desert to be tempted by the devil. These temptations only began when Jesus was hungry (see Matthew 4:1-3). Even though suffering extreme hunger, he stayed faithful to God when tempted by the devil. This tells us that if we experience hunger or go through a famine, we too can stay faithful. We shouldn’t imitate Jesus’s forty day fast. Jesus was a young man in his early thirties at the time, and he did this for a reason. In fact, if we fast for more than 14 days, we’re entering into dangerous territory. Let’s use the following scriptures as evidence. Here’s Paul again in the context of the storm at sea:
33 Right up to daybreak, Paul kept urging them all to eat: “Today is your fourteenth day in constant suspense, without taking any food. 34 So for your own preservation, I urge you to eat something, because not a single hair of your head will be lost.” (Acts 27:33-34)
We’re given instructions for spiritual fasting in Matthew 6. These scriptures are not a command to fast, they’re a command for how to fast, if we choose to fast:
But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that your fasting will not be obvious to men, but only to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:17-18)
Jesus says our fasting should not be obvious to men, but only to God. Like giving to charity, are we fasting because we want something from God, as we read in Psalm 35:13, or are we fasting for our own glory? If we want to humble ourselves by fasting, let no one judge. Because we’re under grace, we’re free to make our own choices. If people tell us that we have to fast or if they say that God wants us to fast, ignore it. The apostle Paul says that if we eat, we eat for the Lord, and if we abstain, we abstain for the Lord, since we give thanks in both cases.
The one who eats everything must not belittle the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted him. (Romans 14:3)
In Isaiah 58:2, it says the Israelites delight to know God’s ways, as if they are righteous. But they’re wondering where God is:
3 ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers. (Isaiah 58:3)
In this scripture, God says, “Your fast.” In the first chapter of Daniel, it says that Daniel had only vegetables to eat and water to drink. The word fast is never used. In verse 15, it says that Daniel and the others looked healthier and better fed, and some translations read “fatter in flesh” (cf. Romans 14:2). Daniel passed his ten-day test, physically speaking.
“Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given only vegetables to eat and water to drink. (Daniel 1:12)
If we’re put to a ten-day test and pass, we’re better fed spiritually (see Revelation 2:10). But Daniel simply didn’t want to defile himself with food from the royal table (see Daniel 1:8-16). There’s nothing about fasting or going hungry. An affliction of the soul can lead to fasting. In Daniel 9:3, Daniel fasts and prays in sackcloth and ashes because Israel was to lie in ruins for seventy years. In Daniel 10:2, Daniel says he was so bothered by a vision of a great war he didn’t eat any savory food, meat, or wine, not because he decided to fast. He couldn’t eat because his soul was afflicted by the vision he had.
In the book of Jonah, it’s the king of Nineveh who called a fast and ordered the people to turn from their evil ways. God decided not to bring evil upon them because they turned from evil and showed sincerity in repentance by fasting (see Jonah 3:7-10). In the following scripture, the disciples of John the Baptist asked Jesus why they and the Pharisees fasted, but his disciples didn’t. Jesus replied that they can’t fast while he is here, but when he’s gone, they will fast:
Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. (Matthew 9:15)
In the first part of this scripture, Jesus equates fasting with mourning as in the Old Testament. In the second part, he reveals the new fast. This new fast fulfills the prophecy in Isaiah 58:
5 Is this the fast I have chosen, a day for a man to deny himself, to bow his head like a reed, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the LORD? 6 Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? 7 Isn’t it to distribute your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor who are cast out to your house? When you see the naked, that you cover him; and that you not hide yourself from your own flesh? (Isaiah 58:5-7)
The new fast that Jesus reveals is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and freeing the oppressed. From the time Jesus ascended back to heaven until this very day, Christians fast. Let’s listen to John the Baptist:
10 The crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 11 John replied, “Whoever has two tunics should share with him who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.” (Luke 3:10-11)
In Zechariah 7, the people of Bethel sent men to plead before the Lord by asking the priests if they should weep and fast as they have always done. God asks if it was really for him that they fasted:
5 “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted? 6 And when you were eating and drinking, were you not doing so simply for yourselves? (Zechariah 7:5-6)
Here’s God’s answer to their question about fasting:
9 “This is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Administer true justice. Show loving devotion and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’ (Zechariah 7:9-10)
The people of Bethel were only fasting and weeping by constraint. Let’s continue in chapter 8:
“This is what the LORD of Hosts says: The fasts of the fourth, the fifth, the seventh, and the tenth months will become times of joy and gladness, cheerful feasts for the house of Judah. Therefore, you are to love both truth and peace.” (Zechariah 8:19)
We should love truth and peace. In 2 Corinthians 6:4-6, the apostle Paul lists some negative things, and he lists some positive things. He puts fasting in the negative list. In verse 5, some translations use the word hunger for the Greek word nesteia, which means fasting, or a fast. The word for hunger is the Greek word peinao, which means to hunger, or to be hungry, as we read in Revelation 7:16. In Mark 9:29, some Bible translations add the phrase and fasting:
And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. (Mark 9:29, KJV)
Here’s an updated translation:
Jesus answered, “This kind cannot come out, except by prayer.” (Mark 9:29)
Just the same as Mark 9:29, Matthew 17:21 has the addition. If these scriptures originally said, “By prayer and fasting,” then who is the one fasting, the person with the demon or the person casting out the demon? How long do they fast before the demon is cast out? The phrase and fasting does not fit with the text. But in regard to food, let’s listen to the apostle Paul:
But food does not bring us closer to God: We are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. (1 Corinthians 8:8)
Food does not bring us closer to God. We’re no better off if we eat or not.
So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)
But what about over-eating? Is gluttony really a deadly sin? Nowhere in the Bible does it say that gluttony is a deadly sin. However, in 2 Corinthians 8, Paul quotes from the book of Exodus in the context of one who has more, sharing with one who has less, so that there will be equality:
As it is written: “He who gathered much had no more, and he who gathered little had no less.” (2 Corinthians 8:15)
Let’s look at the scriptures from Exodus in which Paul is quoting:
14 When the layer of dew had evaporated, there were thin flakes on the desert floor, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. So Moses told them, “It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat. 16 This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Each one is to gather as much as he needs. You may take an omer for each person in your tent.’” 17 So the Israelites did this. Some gathered more, and some less. 18 When they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much had no excess, and he who gathered little had no shortfall. Each one gathered as much as he needed to eat. (Exodus 16:14-18)
God commanded that each one was to gather as much as he needed, and “each one gathered as much as he needed to eat.” So, it would please God to not stuff ourselves with food.
If you find honey, eat just what you need, lest you have too much and vomit it up. (Proverbs 25:16)
We should eat to live not live to eat. Let’s remember that God is good, and it’s God who gives us our food. Here’s Paul:
Yet He has not left Himself without testimony to His goodness. He gives you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.” (Acts 14:17)
When Jesus fed the five thousand, he did it out of compassion because the people were hungry. Jesus gave them, “As much as they wanted”:
Then Jesus took the loaves and the fish, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated, as much as they wanted. (John 6:11)
In the Old Testament, Daniel didn’t want to defile himself with royal food. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ clears up everything:
18 He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus, he declared all foods clean.) (Mark 7:18-19; see also Romans 14:20)
All foods are clean. So, let’s choose wisely, and when we eat, let’s enjoy our food.
And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. (1 Samuel 1:18)
The end of time is approaching at an exponential rate. The only way to avoid the fate of eternal hell and receive God’s promise of eternal life is through Jesus Christ. In these last days, let’s accept Jesus Christ as Lord and savior and turn from wrongdoing. Let’s do the best we can in a fallen world, staying in prayer and being thankful.
Futile World 