It’s a Blast to Fast

Example of Fasting in your Life and the Impact it has had…

As a young kid fasting for healing…

As a teenager my dad fasting for his wayward daughter…

Fasting for God to move at HJH and within the Christian Club…

And then stopping and being convicted when we went to El Salvador…

1. What is Fasting?

In Hebrew the word fasting was sum– to cover your mouth

In Greek the word fasting was nesteuo – to abstain

Fasting - Voluntarily giving up something that is of personal value to us with the purpose of replacing it with intimate time with God.

The heart of it is longing. We are putting our stomach where our heart is to give added intensity and expressiveness to our ache for Jesus. We fast to express our longing or our ache for all the implications of Jesus’s power in the present moment that isn’t completely realized. We want to see people healed. We want to see people saved. We want to see marriages redeemed. We ache, and we long for this to happen; therefore, we ask Jesus to come by putting this exclamation point of longing at the end of our desires.

Isiah 58:1-9 “Cry aloud; do not hold back;liftup your voice like a trumpet;declareto my people their transgression,to the house of Jacob their sins.  ² Yet they seek me dailyand delight to know my ways,as if they were a nation that did righteousnessand did not forsake the judgment of their God;theyask of me righteous judgments;theydelight to draw near to God.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.⁴ Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fightand to hit with a wicked fist.  Fasting like yours this daywill not make your voice to be heard on high.  ⁵ Is such the fast that I choose,a day for a person to humble himself?  Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?  Will you call this a fast,and a day acceptable to the Lord?

⁶ “Is not this the fast that I choose:to loose the bonds of wickedness,to undo the straps of the yoke,to let the oppressedgo free,and to break every yoke?  ⁷ Is it not to share your bread with the hungryand bring the homeless poor into your house;when you see the naked, to cover him,and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?  ⁸ Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,and your healing shall spring up speedily;your righteousness shall go before you;the glory of the Lordshall be your rear guard. ⁹ Then you shall call, and the Lordwill answer;youshall 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,

“Fasting is a physical exclamation point at the end of our pleas to God.”

“We fast to express our ache for all the implications of Jesus’s power in the present moment.” 

2. Why should we fast?

Look at the examples. Moses.  Esther.  Daniel. Paul. Elijah.  JESUS.

1. Major Decisions – Acts 14:23 (Ted and I before marriage)
2. Personal Revival – Acts 9:1-9 (down, discouraged, need to be closer)
3. Spiritual Strength During Attack – Matthew 4:1-11 (Jesus in the Garden)
4. Spiritual Leaders call One Joel 1:14 (So there is That