40 Day Fast Starts Today
I woke up this morning with Misty Edwards song Favorite One running through my head. "Jesus I am after Your heart, what are you thinking, what are you feeling, I have to know." What a beautiful song to sing.
So it is here. The beginning of a 40 day fast from all solid food. For those of you close to me, you know that this fast will be more difficult now, than the long term fasts I had done in the past. I feel the hunger pains now, where as before I did not. I thank God for that ability to feel the sacrificial reminder throughout the days to remind me of why I am doing this.
Let me first state somethings about why I am doing this fast. I have come up with a list of 40 reasons to do this fast. One for each day, and I intend to press into the Lord each day for more understanding into each one. I do not do this fast to get something from God, or get a greater position with Him. What a steep slope that is that people fall down when they attempt to get something from the Lord through fasting. We fast to give of ourselves to Him. We are giving up rights to ourselves and our appetites and fully relying on the Lord. Jesus did not fast in the desert to get a greater position or authority in the Kingdom. He was the Son of God just as we are sons of God. It is not a greater authority that we are achieving, it is a greater alignment with God and being in tune with Him to allow His Spirit to work His will in us and through us. Let us not be mistaken about who's authority it is when something is accomplished. It is not because of anything we do or legalistic rituals, it is because of the grace of the One working through us.
Galations 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"
Fasting can be a time of expectant preparation. A season of repentance and fasting has to have a proper balance between the outward and the inward. The outward fasting involves physical abstinence from food and drink, but this is not the end in itself. For aesthetic fasting always has an inward purpose and negates the unity of body and soul. We are formed with the visible and invisible. Fasting should involve both always. There is a tendency, especially in our culture to over emphasize the outward rules about food in a legalistic way, and there is also a tendency to neglect rules as outdated and unecessary. Both neglect the truth we read in Scripture. Both extreme view points would hinder us. There has to be a balance between the external and internal. In the last 500 years people have steadily reduced the requirements of fasting until now where in some cases it seems merely symbolism. The reasons for this decline are varied, but certainly with the progression of our intellectual minds over the years there has become almost a heretical attitude towards our own human nature. There seems to be a false "spirituality" that ignores our body and sees ourselves soley in terms of our reasoning brain. This has resulted in many Christians having lost sight of the integral unity in which we were created as mind, body, and soul. We must not neglect the position of the body and the role it has in our spiritual life as well as our temporal lives.
Fasting is sacrificial in so many ways, not just abstaining from food. If you think about how many people out there are willing to fast for health or aesthetic reasons, how can we as the body of Christ be unwilling to do that for the sake of the Kingdom? Why is so difficult for us today, when it was an integral part of life for our ancestors? We have become such an instant gratification society, that the idea of going a day without entertainment, internet, let alone food is unthinkable to many.
St. Seraphim of Sarov was asked why the miracles of grace, so abundantly manifest in the past, were no longer apparent in his own day, and to this he replied: 'Only one thing is lacking - a firm resolve'.
The primary aim of fasting is to make us conscious of our dependence upon God. If practiced seriously, particularly in the opening days, involves a considerable measure of real hunger, and also a feeling of tiredness and physical exhaustion. The purpose of this is to lead us in turn to a sense of inward brokenness and contrition; to bring us, that is, to the point where we appreciate the full force of Christ's statement, 'Without Me you can do nothing' (John 15: 5). If we always take our fill of food and drink, we easily grow over-confident in our own abilities, acquiring a false sense of autonomy and self-sufficiency. The observance of a physical fast undermines this sinful complacency. Stripping from us the false assurance of the Pharisee who fasted, it is true, but not in the right spirit. Such is the function of the hunger and the tiredness: to make us 'poor in spirit', aware of our helplessness and of our dependence on God's help.
~i will write more later. if u have read to this point,(thanks!!) feel free to pray for me during the next 40 days! i feel blessed for what He is showing me already! today i am pressing in for growing closer in alignment to Him.~
So it is here. The beginning of a 40 day fast from all solid food. For those of you close to me, you know that this fast will be more difficult now, than the long term fasts I had done in the past. I feel the hunger pains now, where as before I did not. I thank God for that ability to feel the sacrificial reminder throughout the days to remind me of why I am doing this.
Let me first state somethings about why I am doing this fast. I have come up with a list of 40 reasons to do this fast. One for each day, and I intend to press into the Lord each day for more understanding into each one. I do not do this fast to get something from God, or get a greater position with Him. What a steep slope that is that people fall down when they attempt to get something from the Lord through fasting. We fast to give of ourselves to Him. We are giving up rights to ourselves and our appetites and fully relying on the Lord. Jesus did not fast in the desert to get a greater position or authority in the Kingdom. He was the Son of God just as we are sons of God. It is not a greater authority that we are achieving, it is a greater alignment with God and being in tune with Him to allow His Spirit to work His will in us and through us. Let us not be mistaken about who's authority it is when something is accomplished. It is not because of anything we do or legalistic rituals, it is because of the grace of the One working through us.
Galations 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"
Fasting can be a time of expectant preparation. A season of repentance and fasting has to have a proper balance between the outward and the inward. The outward fasting involves physical abstinence from food and drink, but this is not the end in itself. For aesthetic fasting always has an inward purpose and negates the unity of body and soul. We are formed with the visible and invisible. Fasting should involve both always. There is a tendency, especially in our culture to over emphasize the outward rules about food in a legalistic way, and there is also a tendency to neglect rules as outdated and unecessary. Both neglect the truth we read in Scripture. Both extreme view points would hinder us. There has to be a balance between the external and internal. In the last 500 years people have steadily reduced the requirements of fasting until now where in some cases it seems merely symbolism. The reasons for this decline are varied, but certainly with the progression of our intellectual minds over the years there has become almost a heretical attitude towards our own human nature. There seems to be a false "spirituality" that ignores our body and sees ourselves soley in terms of our reasoning brain. This has resulted in many Christians having lost sight of the integral unity in which we were created as mind, body, and soul. We must not neglect the position of the body and the role it has in our spiritual life as well as our temporal lives.
Fasting is sacrificial in so many ways, not just abstaining from food. If you think about how many people out there are willing to fast for health or aesthetic reasons, how can we as the body of Christ be unwilling to do that for the sake of the Kingdom? Why is so difficult for us today, when it was an integral part of life for our ancestors? We have become such an instant gratification society, that the idea of going a day without entertainment, internet, let alone food is unthinkable to many.
St. Seraphim of Sarov was asked why the miracles of grace, so abundantly manifest in the past, were no longer apparent in his own day, and to this he replied: 'Only one thing is lacking - a firm resolve'.
The primary aim of fasting is to make us conscious of our dependence upon God. If practiced seriously, particularly in the opening days, involves a considerable measure of real hunger, and also a feeling of tiredness and physical exhaustion. The purpose of this is to lead us in turn to a sense of inward brokenness and contrition; to bring us, that is, to the point where we appreciate the full force of Christ's statement, 'Without Me you can do nothing' (John 15: 5). If we always take our fill of food and drink, we easily grow over-confident in our own abilities, acquiring a false sense of autonomy and self-sufficiency. The observance of a physical fast undermines this sinful complacency. Stripping from us the false assurance of the Pharisee who fasted, it is true, but not in the right spirit. Such is the function of the hunger and the tiredness: to make us 'poor in spirit', aware of our helplessness and of our dependence on God's help.
~i will write more later. if u have read to this point,(thanks!!) feel free to pray for me during the next 40 days! i feel blessed for what He is showing me already! today i am pressing in for growing closer in alignment to Him.~
posted by Jackson at 7:16 AM
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