Fasting is Feasting on God

Whenever I fast, the Lord reminds me that the hunger my body is experiencing is what my spirit feels when I am not feeding on spiritual food. It is like the Holy Spirit is saying: Finally, you can feel in your body what your real inward man is feeling when he’s deprived of nourishment.

Hunger and thirst are normal signs of life, and so it is with our spirit—spiritual hunger and thirst are both natural if there is spiritual life within. When a person has no hunger, it’s a sign that he is either sick, dead, or dying.

Fasting helps you to realize what your spirit feels when you are not eating spiritual food for days and weeks.

Humanity’s First Temptation

When we look at Genesis, we see that humanity’s first temptation in the garden was with food. We also see Israel’s first temptation in the desert was with water and food. Interestingly, God took Israel through fasting right after their deliverance from Egypt (Deut.8:3).

God let Israel hunger so He could feed them with His Word. There is a spiritual part of us that gets hungry and needs food as well. That food is the Word of God.

Unfortunately, Israel did not learn this truth in the wilderness. They questioned God’s faithfulness instead of feasting on His promises. They failed to feed the most important part of who they were: the spiritual part. Therefore, fasting for them was simply a negative and miserable starvation experience. Both their bodies and spirits fasted. When the body was fasting, the spirit should have been feasting.

Fasting seasons are important because they reset our understanding of who we really are. We are not a body that has a spirit; we are spirits that have a soul and live in a body. If we neglect this truth, we face the danger of being ruled by our senses, feelings, and emotions instead of being led by our inner spirit—dominated by biology instead of theology.

Because we are spirits, we live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So, when your body is fasting, the real you is not fasting. The real you is feasting because the real you is your spirit.

When the devil tempted Eve, it was with the only food that God prohibited. Part of the temptation in the garden was an attack on God’s Word and authority: And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Gen 3:1.

That temptation had very little to do with food; it had to do with Eve respecting God’s Word.

Don’t Doubt

The devil cannot defeat us until he disarms us, and his best tactic to do so is to either make us doubt God’s Word, ignore it, or block His Word from our minds.

Adam and Eve were instructed to fast, abstain, resist the fruit hanging on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All they had to do were to eat from the tree of life. All they needed to do were to feed on God’s life-giving Word.

When you fast, replace your normal eating habits with the reading of God’s Word, meditation, memorization of Scriptures, and prayer. Stop all entertainment and unnecessary activities and fill yourself with edifying things that will nourish your spirit.

Drink deeply from the rivers of the Holy Spirit.

Excerpt taken from Fast Forward: Accelerate Your Spiritual Life with Fasting