TIME OF FASTING.

TIME OF FASTING.

 

40 days before Easter is in many countries called a time of Lent. When one is fasting, one avoids eating or doing something one loves. The purpose is to get something that is better. The fasting time before Easter is often a time when one remembers what Jesus suffered and His resurrection. Both Christians and other religions are fasting. There are many different ways of fasting. Some avoid all eating. A few are also avoiding fluid. Others are entering into a Daniel fast. One refers to the time when Daniel didn’t want to get unclean from the food that the king served. He and his friends were served vegetables and water for ten days and they looked better than the boys that had been eating the food served by the king.

Some avoid eating one meal a day while others are fasting the entire day. The purpose is to pray and to come closer to God. Others are fasting for a break-trough in certain areas of their lives. It might be healing or to get a partner to marry. Others are fasting to get help to stop sinning and get rid of wrong habits.

There are many other ways to fast than avoiding food and drinks. You can have a sugar-fast meaning that you will not eat anything sweet. Maybe you use too much time before the television and maybe you need a time of fasting from television. The mobile might become like an idol for some people and maybe you should put it away for some time. What kind of sacrifice are you willing to make? Jacob was willing to sacrifice his son Isaak and God was willing to sacrifice His only Son Jesus. Two fantastic fathers loving their sons, but they were still willing to sacrifice them for a higher purpose.

There are not only Christians that keep a fast. The Muslims are right now in their month of fasting, the Ramadan. That goes on for a whole month. The most serious ones do not neither eat nor drink during daytime, but at night they can eat and drink and they can also have sex. They are fasting for coming closer to their god, Allah. They also want to become better human beings.

After Jesus had fasted for 40 days, the devil came to tempt Jesus. He used the Word to answer the devil and to withstand his temptations. The devil finally had to give up and Jesus won a victory.

In Matthew 17 Jesus said to His disciples that they could not drive out certain demons without praying and fasting. He did not say that we could not drive out any demons without fasting, but not the ones in that case.

I have personally lived more in the fast that we read about in Isaiah 58. We are not meant to punish ourselves. The Lords said that there was a lot of strife and debate and exploiting of the labourers during fasting. In verse 6 it starts with describing the kind of fast that the Lord has chosen. Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness. To undo the heavy burdens. To let the oppressed go free. And that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out: When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide yourself from your own flesh? Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; You shall cry, and He will say:”Here I am.”  If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness. If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, And your darkness shall be as the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fall. Those from among you shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, the Restorer of “Streets to Dwell in.”

At the end of the chapter, the Lord is warning us against doing our own pleasurable things on the Sabbath. He wants us to honour His holy day, and He comes with promises and blessings as a result.

I have two to four counselling sessions with people every day. Many are delivered and set free from yokes and bondages. One doesn’t talk about deliverance as being part of fasting, but the Lord is saying that this is the kind of fasting that He wants. We are supposed to clothe the naked and feed the hungry. We are also supposed to take care of our own people. Some pastors are forgetting their own family while they minister to their congregation. That is not what the Word is saying. I hear too often about children to pastors turning their back to God since their own dad is a bad example of a good father. We must not forget our own family nor our sisters and brothers in Christ.

Many didn’t have the life that they wanted to have, but we have to help them to get healed and restored. This is the fast that the Lord desires.

Fasting is not merely a religious act. Fasting is much more and it should not be limited to a few weeks before Easter. It should be a lifestyle. We are saying to God that we are willing to sacrifice in order to come closer to Him, do something for Him, but also for others. Jesus says that we feed Him when we give food to the hungry. God is not a stingy God. He rewards those giving and He blesses us in abundance.

ASK GOD HOW YOU SHOULD FAST AND DO IT WITH JOY!

Mother Else

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