Fasting Is Putting God First By Gordon Cove

In early Church history, fasting was considered one of the pillars of the Christian religion. When the Church had power, fasting was an essential part of the faith. Fasting is not mere abstinence from food or from any other pleasure, in itself. It is abstinence with a purpose. Fasting means that you have come to the place of spiritual desperation. It means that you are now determined at all costs to put God first. There are times when we should turn our backs on everything in the world, even our daily food, in seeking the face of God. Fasting means that we are determined to seek the face of God and get our prayers answered. It simply means that we put God first, before everything, including food. Ordinarily, fasting means to abstain from food, but the same spirit of desperation will also lead us to abstain from other things as well. Fasting is a voluntary disuse of anything innocent in itself, with a view to spiritual culture. It does not necessarily apply to food only. It applies to everything which the natural man may desire. So fasting is really putting God first when one prays, wanting God more than one wants food, more than sleep, more than one wants fellowship with others, more than one wants to attend to business. How could a Christian ever know that God was first in his life if he did not at times turn from every other duty and pleasure to give himself wholly to the seeking of the face of God? Expression Of Mourning Fasting is also an expression of mourning. That is, mourning either over one’s personal sins, or when we are burdened for the souls of others. One object of fasting is the mortification of sin. Is your mind disturbed and in ill temper, your heart hard, your grace weak, and corruptions strong? Does pride, envy, malice, the love of the world, or any other filthiness of the flesh or spirit, prevail? Fasting, then, is your duty. Some demons will not come forth but by fasting and much prayer. When this is the case, fasting is the proper remedy, and should be used as the chief means thereto. In the Bible there are many examples of fasting. "I proclaimed a fast...that we might afflict ourselves before our God," writes Ezra of the whole Jewish nation. The fast of the Ninevites, and the fast which the prophet Joel ordered, were regarded as necessary elements in national repentance. The men of Nineveh fasted in sackcloth and ashes, as a symbol of deep national mourning (Jonah 3:5-7). There are times when some deep experience, some profound humility of repentance, causes us to reject all food and earthly pleasures. In its sorrow for sin or the burden for lost souls, all luxury jars upon the soul. Fasting Gives Additional Weight To Prayer Prayer in itself is very often a shallow thing. Fasting is an evidence of our intense earnestness and of our fervor. It requires faith to pray an ordinary prayer, for "He that cometh to God must believe that He is..." But it requires even more faith to fast and pray. Fasting reveals a greater desire, a greater determination and greater faith, and God observes this when He sees His children fasting and praying. Fasting is the laying aside of all weights and hindrances (Hebrews 12:1). To lay aside every weight is to lay aside all the hindrances to prayer, and a heavy stomach is a hindrance. Try praying on an empty stomach and see how much easier it is to prevail in prayer. When we begin to fast and pray, it means that we have settled down to the real business of praying with a persistence that will take no denial. It is certain that God’s people would see more answers to their prayers, if they would skip more meals and spend the time in prayer. Not only is fasting an aid to prayer, and a proof of added intensity, but in one sense, fasting is prayer in itself. Fasting becomes prayer to the praying Christian. Among the spiritual benefits of fasting, one of the greatest of these is that fasting helps to generate faith. Our unbelief is far greater than we realize. It is like an unseen and powerful enemy. Although it may seem difficult at first to grasp, the very weakness that one develops through fasting, is the building up of faith. When one seems to be groping around in the dark during a fast, and perhaps the devil whispers that you are accomplishing nothing, that is the very time that you are building up your faith, for Paul says: "When I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:10). Fasting is a powerful aid and asset to prayer. If your prayer is not answered, then add fasting to prayer. You have not sought the Lord with "your whole heart," until you have tried a protracted season of prayer and fasting. Many Christians have been praying for years about certain problems. Sometimes these prayers are not answered. But in many cases where fastings have been added to the prayers, along with deep consecration and heart-searching before God, the answer has miraculously come to hand. When coupled to fasting, the prayer-power is greatly amplified. We do not claim that fasting in itself will produce miraculous answers. But it prepares the heart by humiliation as almost nothing else will do. With fasting will come added power and liberty in your preaching, if you are a minister of the Word of God. By keeping the flesh in abeyance through fasting, the spirit is quickened and the reverse is also true. The tragedy is that so many Christians for the pleasure of eating three solid meals a day, will continue in their powerless condition spiritually, when all the time they have at their fingertips the secret of power. Certainly it needs a strong will to practice fasting, but God would not ask us to do it if it was impossible. In Crisis Times, "Sanctify A Fast" Three times in two of the chapters of Joel, God commands fasting. (Joel 1:14; 2:12,15). Joel, the prophet, states that when the times are desperate, God Himself exhorts His people to seek aid from Him. "Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting." "Sanctify (set apart) a fast." This teaches us that it is proper at times for all to agree upon a day to fast unitedly. Some people say that they believe in fasting "when the Lord puts it upon them." But they do not do other things in life like that. They do not wait until God moves upon them to eat a meal. They do not wait until the Spirit moves them before they pay the rent. What more of an "urge" do we need from the Lord to do it when, in crisis times, three times in two chapters He commands us to do it! Taken from the book Revival Now! Through Prayer And Fasting, by Gordon Cove.